9.18.07 Little Manistee River Havest

Have you ever been to a Salmon weir, or egg taking station before? If you haven't, get your chair comfortable and just click on the photos. In this brief article you'll see Kings in the raceway on their journey into the holding pens, what the actual weir looks like, and you'll get an firm idea of what the water clarity is all about. Enjoy, Capt. John King

I spoke with Steve A worker from American Canadian Fisheries today (9/18/07) about the stolen aluminum floor plates/boards that happened on 9/6/07. He said the boards were for keeping water in the holding pens and have been recently replaced. It seems MDNR got smart and took steps to discourage scrap stealers by bolting the aluminum down. Estimated cost to replace these boards was around $7k.

We all know how media is and how they tend to make a bigger story than necessary. Channel 7 TV in Traverse City, MI was spewing this would prevent the egg take at one Michigan's largest egg taking stations, the Little Manistee Harvest Weir.

So, not to worry ....all is fine now!

6 Mile Bridge
above the weir

Water Clarity
in Little Manistee

9.18.07_Little_Manistee_water_clarity_2.jpg (70123 bytes)

Little Manistee River
places for fish to hide

Deeper into my conversation with Steve, he informed me there were about 1500 early run Kings that would be harvested on 9/19/07. This first batch of Kings to enter the weir would trucked to Bear Lake, MI for processing, then sold thru local outlets. Steve's job was tending the grounds on the inside of the fence, putting Salmon back in the water that have jumped out of holding pens.

The only worry-some part is I did not see that many fish in the holding pens, or below the Little Manistee River weir where the fish normally stack up big time. From what I seen, there's a bunch more fish to come when the conditions are more to the liking of Mr. King Salmon. The part about "more Kings to come" can be verified in another article about the weir done in 2001 when the holding pens were loaded at about the same time of the year!

Here's a link to another article I did in 2001 on this same subject:

Click here for more info on the Harvest Weir