The Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will be stocking approximately 11,000 Coho salmon in the St. Joseph River near Veterans Memorial Park in South Bend, in late November.

The Coho salmon will be the first produced and stocked into the St. Joseph River by Indiana since the trout and salmon stocking program began on the river in 1984. The fish will be about six inches in length and will out-migrate to Lake Michigan after a short time in the river.

Brian Breidert, Indiana’s Lake Michigan biologist, said he is pleased to add the species to the St. Joe program.

“I feel we will see benefits to the river anglers beginning a couple of years down the road, but we will also see some benefit to our Lake Michigan anglers as early as the spring of 2012, since Coho salmon congregate each spring in southern Lake Michigan,” he explained.

The fish are part of a small surplus available after the completion of stocking into Trail Creek and the Little Calumet River, where 242,000 Coho salmon were stocked from Bodine and Mixsawbah State Fish Hatchery.

Breidert said the Lake Michigan stocking team has been looking at adding Coho to the St. Joe program since early spring.
“Plans are under way to add this species to our suite of stockings into the future,” he said. “We have received support from local sport fishing groups such as the Michiana Steelheaders, Hoosier Coho Club and the Northwest Indiana Steelheaders, just to name a few.

“There has been a decline in the past few years of our steelhead returns and the management team has been looking at reasons behind the declines, but also looking toward another species to supplement our steelhead program while still maintaining our important Skamania brood stock program on the St. Joseph River.”

Online update of lifetime licenses for addresses

The DNR Division of Fish and Wildlife is asking lifetime license holders to update their current mailing addresses in the DNR’s online license system. If you possess a lifetime license of any type (basic fishing, basic hunting, trapping, comprehensive fishing, comprehensive hunting or comprehensive hunting and fishing) the DNR needs your current address.

The DNR uses the lifetime license address database to communicate with license holders and select participants for wildlife surveys. The surveys help establish hunting seasons and bag limits, and help to monitor and properly manage the wildlife of Indiana.

Lifetime license holders may access and confirm or update their addresses and other information at www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/6315.htm through Dec. 15.

Lifetime license holders without Internet access may call 317-232-4200, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m., or their area’s DNR Fish and Wildlife Regional Office at 765-473-9324, 219-285-2704 or 812-789-2724 to update their information.

Record deer kill possible

Indiana’s annual firearms season for whitetail deer opened on Nov. 13 with a near-record harvest expected for all deer seasons combined. The record overall deer harvest is 132,752, set last year, with roughly 83,000 being harvested during the firearms season, including almost 36,000 on opening weekend.

DNR biologists expect hunters to kill more than 80,000 deer again this year during the 16-day firearms season, which will end Nov. 28.
“Harvest numbers for the season will always be about the same as the previous year,” DNR deer biologist Chad Stewart said.
“With the dry fall we’ve been having, the corn harvest is vastly accelerated compared to last year, which means less potential cover for deer.

“I anticipate a record or near-record harvest, and obviously, the firearms season is a major component of that harvest.”
Harvest composition on opening weekend is typically an approximately 60/40 split favoring antlered deer, but more antlerless deer are typically harvested than antlered deer by the end of the firearms season.

“Hunters will always want to go out on opening day with the hopes of harvesting a buck,” Stewart said. “That’s what causes hunters to lie awake the night before and it’s what they think about while sitting in their hunting stands while it’s still pitch black out that opening morning.

“So, hunters are undoubtedly selecting their bucks to harvest on that opening weekend. But as the season progresses, since more does are able to be killed than bucks, the numbers eventually catch and surpass the buck total.”

Biologists will again be at nearly 40 check stations across the state on opening day to collect age information and biological samples from deer checked, testing primarily for the presence of chronic wasting disease and bovine tuberculosis.

“So far, we have not detected either in free-ranging deer in Indiana,” Stewart said.

Favorable weather conditions were a factor in hunters killing 35,898 deer on the opening weekend of firearms season in 2009, an increase of more than 4,700 over the first two days of the 2008 firearms season. A weather system passing through on opening day of the 2008 season brought rain, sleet and freezing rain to much of Indiana, reducing the harvest during opening day.
The number of deer harvested in individual counties last year ranged from a low of 96 deer in Tipton County to 4,102 in Steuben County. Harvest exceeded 1,000 deer in 62 counties; exceeded 2,000 animals in 19 of those counties; and exceeded 3,000 in five of those counties.

Unless otherwise exempted, a license is required to hunt deer during the firearms season. Licenses may be purchased online at www.IndianaOutdoor.IN.gov or by calling 317-232-4200, or at a retailer or DNR site listed at www.IndianaOutdoor.IN.gov
License exemptions and other deer hunting information can be found in the online DNR Deer Hunting Guide at www.dnr.IN.gov/fishwild/2343.htm
 
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Jack Spaulding may contact him by e-mail at jackspaulding@hughes.net or by writing to him in care of this publication.