Editing Lake Michigan (section)

=== Fishing ===
[[File:Milwaukee Public Museum Group, Lake Fisheries (NBY 23833).jpg|thumb|Lake fisheries postcard produced for the Milwaukee Public Museum, the backside identifies the fishermen as using a pound net.]]Lake Michigan is home to a small variety of fish species and other organisms. It was originally home to [[lake whitefish]], [[lake trout]], [[yellow perch]], [[panfish]], [[largemouth bass]], [[smallmouth bass]] and [[bowfin]], as well as some species of [[catfish]]. As a result of improvements to the [[Welland Canal]] in 1918, an invasion of [[sea lamprey]]s and [[Overfishing|overharvesting]], there has been a decline in native lake trout populations, ultimately causing an increase in the population of another invasive species, the [[alewife (fish)|alewife]]. As a result, salmonids, including various strains of [[brown trout]], steelhead ([[rainbow trout]]), [[coho salmon|coho]] and [[chinook salmon]], were introduced as predators in order to decrease the wildlife population. This program was so successful that the introduced population of trout and salmon exploded, resulting in the creation of a large sport fishery for these introduced species. Lake Michigan is now stocked annually with steelhead, brown trout, and coho and chinook salmon, which have also begun natural reproduction in some Lake Michigan tributaries. However, several introduced invasive species, such as lampreys, [[round goby]], [[zebra mussel]]s and [[quagga mussel]]s, continue to cause major changes in [[water clarity]] and fertility, resulting in knock-on changes to Lake Michigan's ecosystem, threatening the vitality of native fish populations.

Fisheries in inland waters of the United States are small compared to marine fisheries. The largest fisheries are the landings from the Great Lakes, worth about $14&nbsp;million in 2001.<ref name="NMFS 2001">[[NOAA]]/[[NMFS]]: (2001) [http://www.st.nmfs.gov/st1/fus/fus03/index.html Fisheries of the United States, 2003] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070810195334/http://www.st.nmfs.gov/st1/fus/fus03/index.html |date=August 10, 2007 }}</ref> Michigan's commercial fishery today consists mainly of 150 tribe-licensed commercial fishing operations through the Chippewa-Ottawa Resource Authority and tribes belonging to the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, which harvest 50 percent of the Great Lakes commercial catch in Michigan waters, and 45 state-licensed commercial fishing enterprises.<ref name=miseagrant7jan2013>{{cite report |url=http://www.miseagrant.umich.edu/files/2013/01/07-701-fs-whitefish-marketing.pdf |title=Michigan Commercial Fisheries Marketing and Product Development |publisher=University of Michigan Sea Grant |location=Ann Arbor, Michigan |access-date=April 30, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130412020407/http://www.miseagrant.umich.edu/files/2013/01/07-701-fs-whitefish-marketing.pdf |archive-date=April 12, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The prime commercial species is the lake whitefish. The annual harvest declined from an average of {{convert|11|e6lb|kg}} from 1981 through to 1999 to more recent annual harvests of {{convert|8|to|9.5|e6lb|kg}}. The price for lake whitefish dropped from $1.04/lb. to as low as $0.40/lb during periods of high production.<ref name=miseagrant7jan2013 />

Sports fishing includes salmon, whitefish, [[smelt (fish)|smelt]], lake trout and [[walleye]] as major catches. In the late 1960s, successful stocking programs for Pacific salmon led to the development of Lake Michigan's charter fishing industry.<ref name=miseagrant2009>{{cite report |url=http://www.miseagrant.umich.edu/downloads/fisheries/economy/Michigan-Charter-Fishing-Fact-Sheet.pdf |first=Dan |last=O'Keefe |year=2009 |title=Charter Fishing in Michigan: A Profile of Customers and Economic Impacts |publisher=University of Michigan Sea Grant |location=Ann Arbor, Michigan |access-date=April 30, 2013 |archive-date=May 13, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170513222024/http://www.miseagrant.umich.edu/downloads/fisheries/economy/Michigan-Charter-Fishing-Fact-Sheet.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>