This Illinois angler pulled in a nice coho while on a charter trip. Photo by Jerry Pabst.

Forty-two years ago, a dream became reality when Dr. Howard Tanner, the fisheries chief of the Michigan DNR, successfully completed the initial stocking of Pacific coho salmon into Lake Michigan. The 850,000 cohos planted on a cold March day in 1966 were divided between the Platte River, Bear Creek and the Big Huron River in Lake Superior.

The newly arrived smolts were monitored daily by fisheries biologists, who reported the cohos released in the two Lake Michigan streams remained in the rivers until mid-April, then moved into the big lake in early May. This was important because it gave the young salmon time to imprint to the waters of their natal stream, assuring a strong spawning return the following year.

The Big Huron River cohos, for some reason, swam into Lake Superior almost immediately after release, resulting in weak and widely scattered returns. Since the fish had developed no chemical memory of their original stream, they simply swam up whatever river or creek was handy when the spawning urge hit, resulting in poor angling prospects and collection of mature fish for egg-taking purposes impractical. The Lake Superior salmon fishery has never matched the world-class quality of that found in Lake Michigan.

Once the coho smolts entered Lake Michigan, their fate was unknown, and all biologists could do was wait a year and a half to see if any returned.

At last, in August 1967, a Ludington fisherman hooked and landed the first adult coho near the mouth of the Manistee River. Before the fall run ended in November, thousands of cohos in the 20-pound range had been caught, and the Lake Michigan salmon fishery was on its way.

In following years, Illinois joined Wisconsin and Indiana and instituted its own salmonid stocking programs. By the mid-1970s, the three states were contributing more than 14 million fish annually. In addition to cohos and chinook salmon, lake, rainbow and brown trout were also included.

Ironically, the first signs of the program weakening appeared where it all started, in Michigan, where tightened DNR budgets dictated cuts in stocking. As a result, Michigan’s 2007 coho contribution was reduced to 900,000 from its usual 1,600,000 -- a cut of 700,000 fish.

However, in 2008, help is on the way in the form of an additional 400,000 cohos financed by contributions primarily from the Salmon Unlimited chapters of Illinois and Wisconsin, individual contributions and the Wisconsin DNR.

But such help is only a temporary thing because a proposed increase in Michigan fishing license fees lost momentum and is unlikely to pass.

Denied the additional funds the fee increases would have provided, Michigan said they do not plan to return to former coho stocking levels.