Cisco (coregonus artedi) - We could get way off into the weeds with Great Lakes ciscos. Historically there were 8 different forms of ciscos in Great Lakes waters and there were ciscos in some form in every Great Lake. They were also the predominant silvery baitfish before alewives came along. Lake Superior and the northern waters of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are their strongholds now. The form you are most likely to encounter is coregonus artedi and that is the same form I am holding in the picture below. Currently they are expanding in Lake Michigan waters. A population boomed in Grand Traverse Bay and fish have been straying further out into Lake Michigan from there. I have seen catches from as far south as Holland and there is a good opportunity to catch one ice fishing in Muskegon Lake if you know what you are looking for. Interestingly enough I was involved in a cisco research project and sampled fish from both Portage Lake and Muskegon Lake. Those ciscos were genetically the same as the Grand Traverse Bay population, ruling out the possibility of a remnant population somewhere. The paper has been accepted for publication and I will post that on here when it gets published. It appears that the ciscos are expanding from Grand Traverse Bay and taking advantage of feeding opportunities in all the drowned river mouth lakes. Time will tell if they figure out other places to spawn further south. The current form of cisco out there is also really piscivorous (eats fish) and they get big. Historically they ate more invertebrates. They can be really fun to fish for and jigging, casting, and trolling all have their place in catching ciscos. I also really enjoy eating them and you can find a couple cisco recipes here Cisco Lobster Rolls and Cisco its What’s for Dinner.

Lake Whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) - If you look at the whitefish pictures compared to the cisco pictures they look very similar and honestly are often misidentified. But take a quick look at their mouth placement. Cisco have a terminal mouth which basically means it points straight out and it is ideal for feeding up in the water column. Whitefish have a subterminal mouth which is why they have that characteristic overbite. Whitefish have different feeding habits than cisco and prefer to feed in the benthic zone near the bottom. Their relationship to the benthic zone is also one of the things making life difficult for them. Overall whitefish in the Great Lakes are struggling. Invasive quagga mussels have changed the lakes so much that recruitment is not happening in many areas of the Lakes. Lake Superior and places like Green bay still have healthy whitefish populations and haven’t seen the declines the rest of the lakes have. Whitefish are also the most important commercially fished species in the Great Lakes and are excellent eating. There have been some regulation changes to try and preserve what we have left. Commercial quotas decreased and tackle restrictions were placed on the fall fishery. While it is easy to blame both the commercial fishery and the fall recreational whitefish fishery for the declines. The truth is that if fish aren’t able to recruit to the fishery it really doesn’t matter how many fish you take out of a system, you will eventually run out of them. I don’t know what the answer is for the population to rebound, the environment has just changed where it just doesn’t favor the whitefish. The adults face challenges too as their primary food source the diporeia is also gone. Sure they have adapted to feed on invasives like quagga mussels and gobies. Neither of those foods are as rich of a food source as the diporeia were and their overall condition reflects that. There are still opportunities to catch them though. There is an ice fishery on Green Bay, and on Lake Superior. I have also caught them on Grand Traverse Bay when it freezes. Lake Michigan structure and piers always have an opportunity when the water is cold. You can catch them fishing bait like eggs or waxworms but also on blade baits. While I have no doubts that some whitefish will find a way to persist in the lower lakes, I hope that somehow they can find a way to improve their numbers in current lake conditions.

Grayling - Not exactly a Great Lakes fish but they were present in some Great Lakes tributaries and deserve a mention. Due to multiple stressors they were extirpated from Michigan in the 1930’s. They are very sensitive to environmental changes and allegedly not very smart when it comes to fishing pressure. 2 things that did not serve them well. There have been several attempts to bring them back to Michigan waters with little success. Currently the Michigan Arctic Grayling Initiative is trying to bring them back again. 3 lakes in the Upper Peninsula have been stocked in an attempt to establish a broodstock for further stockings. The goal is to establish self sustaining Grayling populations in some rivers eventually. While grayling would certainly be cool to have on the landscape, I wonder if the current habitat and competition with other species could even support them. I guess time will tell but I don’t expect thriving populations of Michigan grayling anytime soon.

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