Here is some numbers I have been looking at and thought I would get some input from others to see if there is any trend building here. There are 3 major areas of Chinook Salmon released that I feel affect my fishing so those are the numbers I use. Those being Muskegon river Grand river and Manistee area. What I did was go to the DNR stocking info and look at 2 year stocking to give me a idea of how many possible returning 3 and 4 year olds we should have. For last years Muskegon class the number was 289,092 for this years class it was 290,568 for next year the number is 156,832. For Grand Haven last year was 786,457 this year was 785,131 and next year is 586,949. For Manistee last year was 1,375,311 this year was 1,281,674 and next year was 1,089,987. So for next year we have a drop of 523,599 in the 3 to 4 year old fish class for those 3 areas based on DNR release info. Now this is raw numbers and does not account for any natural reproduction nor does it account for loss. But I am guessing at around 10% meaning for Muskegon in 07 season we had roughly 28,909 adults to fish for in 08 we had 29,057 and for 09 we should have 15,683. For the 2010 season the numbers would drop to 11,893. This was a strange year for me as even though I caught more total fish for the year than last year I fished a lot more and had fewer limit catchs. I only got skunked a total of 4 times for the year but because of high gas prices I did make some changes to my program and one major change was I began a short program which involved selecting a area I thought would produce and driving straight to it and fishing it. Most of the time completely ignoring what everyone else was doing. A lot of time it worked with decent fishing other times not so good. But the big differance for me this year was that if my program failed I turned and drove back in rather than running to another area and restarting as it was most of the time I got 2 or 3 fish so not a total loss and I cut my fuel expense and got to fish more often. Because of that many of my trips were around 3 hours total now if I had a long drive to the lake this would not work. Also I noticed people were more willing to fish with me as they became aware that they would no longer be stuck on the boat till either the box was full or I ran out of gas ( no I never have ran out of gas but have had to run in on fumes before ). In my old boat it was time to quit when the main tank ran out and I had to switch to the aux tank. Back to the original subject does anyone think I am close to being right about the fish numbers? Perhaps the drop will do as expected and bring in larger fish that would be nice. I don't have any real data on how many boats fish out of Muskegon but I am trying to SWAG ( sceintific wild ass guess) and using 3000 trips a season the 07 and 08 seasons would break down to just under 10 fish possible per trip 09 would end about 5 per trip and 2010 would come down to about 4 per trip. Of course less trip would mean more per trip and more trips would mean less per trip and this is not real accurate numbers mostly SWAG and personal opinion as such feel free to dissagree with them but if anyone else has a thought on this let me know.
Tight Lines
Jim

Not sure how accurate your numbers are as far as how many fish you can expext to catch but it was the D.N.R.'s intention from all of the surrounding states to reduce chinook plants a couple of years ago by about 25 to 30 percent to reduce the stress on the Alewieve numbers. Alewieve numbers have been at an all time low for a few years and it was hoped that by reducing plants it would help in the long haul to bring those numbers back up and at the same time increase the average size of our fish.The D.N.R. also realized that there was a lot more natural reproduction going on in our streams and rivers than originaly thought.From most of the anglers I have talked to this year it seems that it depended on which port you fished and when as far as what kind of a year you had. Most agree they caught a little larger fish but as you noted some feel they caught less fish. I know from a personel stand point I had at least 3 weekends that I couldn't get out to fish due to wind and that may reduce the overall number as well. Will have to wait until the D.N.R. comes out with thier creel census reports this winter to get a better idea on numbers of fish caught vs angler hours.

Thanks Flat rate this is what I wanted is to get input from others. I used DNR reported stocking for 2001 and 2002 to compare with my fishing results for 2005. 02 and 03 to look at my 06 results and 03 and 04 for my 07 results. So I have been looking back to see what I could expect for 3 and 4 yr old returning fish. This year I saw a much better size class in 3 yr olds but I caught a lot less 4 yr olds. I caught a lot more fish this year but I also fished a lot more as such my fish per trip avg went down. I can attribute some of this to high gas prices changing my fishing program as I made a lot of short trips. So I often found myself going to a area and fishing it and then running back in rather than fishing several programs a trip it was more of go out fish a program and live with the results. On the other hand if I took all of my 2 and 3 hour trips and added them together to make 4 and 6 hour trips then I guess it would have been a great year. On the other hand it seems funny that Alewives are a invasive species that were out of control in the 50's and 60's so We brought in Salmon to control them and rid the lake of them here we are now roughly 50 yrs later cutting back on Salmon to protect the Alewives. One nice thing is to see more Lake Trout but lets try to cut back on how many we take in tournaments. The 05 and 06 plant reductions were the biggest so next year will let us see how it really effects us. Anyhow I am hopefull and can't wait to hit the water again.
Tight Lines
Jim