TOPIC:

Was watching some youtube fishing vids and one of them was catching "splake" in Michigan. Looks a lot like a brightly painted laker to me. Upon a little research I read where they are actually a hybrid from a brookie and a laker. Have any of you fishermen caught any of these fish? They look like a hard fighting fish. I copied a pic off the net to show the fish.

I have never seen one - now I want to!

Although I think we have a state record Brook Trout, I highly doubt that there is any kind of population to have this kind of breeding. The state record is not from Lake Michigan, btw. They are absolutely beautiful fish, though. Thanks for sharing the picture.

Which leads me to my next question.....How many state record fish over the years have possibly been misidentified? I use the state record Rock Bass for example. 3 pounds from Sugar Creek. Is that even possible? Sounds like a misidentified Smallmouth. The record is from 1969.

You just don't often see blaze orange as a naturally occurring color. They are beautiful fish, one that just begs to become a wall decoration.

Years ago, like 20 years ago I caught an odd looking fish while fly fishing Trail Creek. It was small maybe 2 lbs and had a orange belly with Laker lines. A guy that I saw fishing there frequently called it a Tiger Trout. We didn't have cell cameras back then so I gave it a good look and released it thinking "cool". Thinking it may have been a Splake.

Team wrote:

Although I think we have a state record Brook Trout, I highly doubt that there is any kind of population to have this kind of breeding. The state record is not from Lake Michigan, btw.

Which leads me to my next question.....How many state record fish over the years have possibly been misidentified? I use the state record Rock Bass for example. 3 pounds from Sugar Creek. Is that even possible? Sounds like a misidentified Smallmouth. The record is from 1969.

Aside from body of water, I am guessing genetic variation plays a role in size potential. There are genetic variations of chinook, steelhead, largemouth and pretty much any other fish species. I fish up on my old neighbors lake routinely (Northwoods) in northern michigan and we catch rockbass that I would say are in the 2-3 range and perhaps bigger - we have never weighed them. They are monsters though.

Pardon the interruption - back to Splake

Sometimes old records are a bit suspect... usually not weighed on a certified scale, or other hinky stuff going on. But there have been rock bass measured at 3 lbs in Lake Erie as recently as the late 1990s. It's not entirely crazy to think about a 3 lb rock bass

As far as splake in Lake Michigan, in very far northern Lake Michigan (like the Bays de Noc) an average of about 120,000 per year from 1985-2008 were stocked. So there's a non-zero chance that some ventured down to Indiana and were caught over the past 30 years. Unless they were caught in the fall (unlikely) they probably looked like a slightly weird lake trout and were assumed to be a laker

"As far as splake in Lake Michigan, in very far northern Lake Michigan (like the Bays de Noc) an average of about 120,000 per year from 1985-2008 were stocked. So there's a non-zero chance that some ventured down to Indiana and were caught over the past 30 years. Unless they were caught in the fall (unlikely) they probably looked like a slightly weird lake trout and were assumed to be a laker"

Aww, you just had to go and drown all of our hopes of catching one now. The vid was a recent one featuring Eric Haataja who evidently is an accomplished Great Lakes angler. I think they were fishing near Milwaukee harbor. He was catching them in shallow water around boat docks.

Steelie wrote:

"As far as splake in Lake Michigan, in very far northern Lake Michigan (like the Bays de Noc) an average of about 120,000 per year from 1985-2008 were stocked. So there's a non-zero chance that some ventured down to Indiana and were caught over the past 30 years. Unless they were caught in the fall (unlikely) they probably looked like a slightly weird lake trout and were assumed to be a laker"

Aww, you just had to go and drown all of our hopes of catching one now. The vid was a recent one featuring Eric Haataja who evidently is an accomplished Great Lakes angler. I think they were fishing near Milwaukee harbor. He was catching them in shallow water around boat docks.

His video fishing for splake was Copper Harbor in the UP, fishing Lake Superior. That's the most prominent splake fishery in the great lakes as far I am aware

his browns/cohos/steelhead videos are Milwaukee/Racine/Kenosha/etc

I was watching several of the videos of his. I guess the the Milwaukee one must have been the one where he is catching browns and steelhead off the shore and docks. Still you have to admit they are a cool fish. Do you know why the stockings stopped and would they have been a more desirable fish than the lake trout. Living in Superior, is there a way to enter Michigan?