Outdoor Life
“The Beaver archipelago is a group of islands in the middle of northern Lake Michigan. A comparison of fishery metrics taken from 1969 through 1984 and from 2005 through 2008 reveal drastic changes.
At Beaver Island 40 years ago, brown bullheads made up 60 percent and smallmouth and rock bass 14 percent of the total number of fish obtained in routine samples. A total of 14 other species made up the remaining 12 percent. From 2005 to 2008, smallmouth samplings grew to a whopping 93 percent of the total.
Despite their dramatic rise to dominance in the Beaver Island fish mix, neither the abundance nor the mortality of bronzebacks changed significantly from the historic periods. But smallmouth bass size structure indices (the proportions of fish greater than 12, 14, and 17 inches), growth rate, and body condition (plumpness) were significantly greater in the more recent period than they were 40 years ago.”
What of warmer water temperatures?
