This big coho was caught on Lake Michigan near Ludington. Photo by Mike Gnatkowski.

How all the Great Lakes can be connected and still produce such diverse fishing remains a mystery. Obviously, the differences in each lake’s depths, nutrient levels, productivity, baitfish populations and composition dictate which species inhabit them.

Lake Erie’s shallow depths are extremely fertile, but fishing success typically depends on boom-or-bust year-classes of walleyes because the lake flushes itself quickly and often.

Lake Superior, on the other hand, is a huge, cold, relatively stable and sterile body of water that produces consistent fishing year after year for naturally sustaining populations of lake trout, chinook and coho salmon and the odd steelhead.

The fortunes of lakes Michigan and Huron rest somewhere in between. Although each lake produced similar fisheries a decade ago, they have been going in opposite directions in recent years.

Lake Michigan’s salmon fishery is booming to the point that fisheries biologists doubt the pace can be maintained much longer. Likewise, chinook fishing has never been better in the lake.

Salmon fishing on Lake Huron, however, has hit rock bottom and shows no signs of recovery. Fact is if you’re looking for some great salmon and steelhead fishing this year, you had better head west, young man -- west to Lake Michigan.

“Fishing on Lake Michigan last year was absolutely ridiculous,” basin coordinator and fisheries biologist Jim Dexter joked. “It was a little different than the previous year because the great fishing in May and June continued right through October.”

In fact, catch rates and numbers for salmon and steelhead are likely to be much higher than 2007 because it’s a year-round fishery.

“Last year was kind of a mixed year for coho salmon,” Dexter said. “The cohos disappeared from the southern part of the lake early in the year. The bait seemed to be concentrated way offshore. Coho fishing was actually much better in the middle and upper portions of the lake, which made for a mixed bag. The cohos were good-sized, too.”

Dexter said the cohos that returned last year to the Platte River hatchery numbered upward of 40,000 -- five times better than 2006. Because of budget reductions, fewer cohos will be planted in coming years -- 1.2 million in 2008 compared with 1.6 million last year. In 2009, the number will be cut even further to 800,000.

“The brown trout situation on Lake Michigan is not likely to change,” lamented Dexter. “We’re trying subtle changes in our planting strategies, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.”

Dexter said Wisconsin plants hundreds of thousands of brown trout in the lake each year and its fishery has met a similar fate.

“The Seeforellen strain of brown trout is being phased out because of interbreeding,” he said.

According to Dexter, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has secured brown trout brood stock from the Sturgeon River in northern Michigan, but it will be years before the fish are available for planting.

Steelhead fishing remains very good on Lake Michigan and its tributaries.

“There were more steelhead caught throughout the lake last season,” Dexter said, noting that the numbers were down due to extremely low water levels, but the steelhead’s size was good, natural reproduction was successful and planted fish were doing well.

“Lake trout seem to be making a comeback. People caught more lake trout last year,” he said. “More lake trout were caught incidentally by anglers fishing for steelhead and salmon. We’re working on getting some plants near shore and closer to some of the ports.”