Cudahy's Ivan Stross (left) caught a 16.5-pound Arlee-strain steelhead to win first place in the rainbow trout category of the Ozaukee Great Lakes Sportfishermen Derby held at Port Washington last summer. Also pictured are (left to right) Mequon's Ken Schlosser, Brookfield's Sal Foti and West Bend's Doug Endlich. Photo courtesy of Sam Arndt, Ozaukee Press

When Ivan Stross wrestled a big steelhead up onto the Port Washington pier on the Fourth of July last year, he knew he'd caught something special. Stross' fish -- which measured 33 inches and weighed 16.5 pounds -- earned him first place in the steelhead category in that city's holiday weekend fishing derby. It also caught the attention of anglers and Department of Natural Resources biologists.

Stross' fish was clear evidence that an experimental stocking program was paying off. Fin-clips indicated it was an Arlee-strain steelhead stocked in Lake Michigan in 2002 in either Manitowoc or the Milwaukee harbor. It is the largest reported Arlee steelhead caught to date. DNR biologists began stocking Arlee-strain steelhead -- or rainbow trout -- in 2001 to bolster flagging nearshore fishing opportunities.

"Our goal is to re-energize some of the nearshore fishing opportunities we've lost on Lake Michigan over the past 15 years or so," said DNR fisheries biologist Steve Hogler, the main investigator on the Arlee study.

In recent years, to catch any Lake Michigan trout and salmon in summer, you had to fish offshore over deep water. In the mid-1980s, shore- and pier-anglers could count on catching their share of brown trout and salmon. Back then, that group accounted for about 11 percent of the trout and salmon caught from Lake Michigan. That percentage has fallen steadily to the current 3 percent, in part because zebra mussels have made nearshore waters clearer and because food sources have moved offshore as well. On top of that, the three strains of steelhead stocked in the lake since 1984 -- Skamania, Ganaraska and Chambers Creek -- tend to stay in deep, offshore waters during most of the year.

At the same time the nearshore trout and salmon fishery began to slide, yellow perch numbers declined as well. That left boatless anglers without much to fish for. People began asking the DNR to look for other strains of rainbow trout. Biologists agreed, and the search was on.

Funded by revenue from the sales of Great Lakes salmon and trout stamps, the original study called for stocking six ports with two strains of rainbows. This would allow biologists to determine the effectiveness of rainbow stocking and compare the two strains to determine which one performed better.

Illinois has successfully stocked Arlee-strain rainbows in Lake Michigan for many years. Anglers and biologists alike report that these fish tend to stay near shore and do not migrate far from where they were stocked. Arlee eggs were available from Ennis National Fish Hatchery in Montana, so this strain was selected to begin the experiment. Kamloops-strain steelhead from a Minnesota hatchery were added to the mix in 2003.

"Our goal was to stock 10,000 rainbows of each strain at each of six ports for three years," said Hogler. "We selected Kenosha, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Algoma and Sister Bay. We avoided Racine and Kewaunee because the Root and Kewaunee rivers serve as broodstock streams for our Skamania, Ganaraska and Chambers Creek steelhead."

The six ports each received 12,000 Arlee steelhead in April and May of 2001. Because of hatchery shortfalls in 2002, 7,500 Arlees were stocked only in Milwaukee and Manitowoc harbors that year. In 2003, each of the six ports received 10,100 Arlees. Hatchery shortfalls reduced the number of fish available again in 2004, when 5,000 Arlees were stocked in each of the six ports. Kamloops trout were first stocked in 2003, when 10,300 fingerlings were planted in each of the six ports studied. In 2004, the same ports each received 10,000 Kamloops. Last year, 10,590 Arlees and 8,500 Kamloops were stocked in each of the six ports. The Arlee fish averaged between 6.9 inches and 7.9 inches in length at the time of stocking, while the Kamloops fish averaged 5.8 inches in length.

Both strains will be stocked again this spring, but Kamloops stocking may be halted in 2007 until all the data is analyzed. Arlees will likely continue to be planted during the evaluation phase of the project.