DULUTH 鈥� Lake Superior's western waters have been hot for fishing the last couple seasons thanks to record smelt and cisco populations, the little fish that bigger fish love to eat, leading to some very fat big fish being caught.
Austin Stoltenberg, 12, of Cherry, caught a 12.36-pound coho salmon June 1 off Duluth that appears to be a new state record, smashing the 10.92-pound previous record coho set on Labor Day 2023 by David Cichosz, of Wabasha, Minnesota.
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鈥淎nd I wouldn鈥檛 be surprised if it鈥檚 broken again later this summer," said Cory Goldsworthy, Lake Superior fisheries supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. "I would expect that it will be, maybe a couple more times."
Stoltenberg鈥檚 big salmon was weighed on a certified scale at a Super One grocery store in Duluth鈥檚 Lakeside neighborhood at 12.36 pounds. It was weighed again, at this point frozen, in Tower at 12.31 pounds. DNR fisheries staff in the Tower office confirmed it was a coho. The paperwork was submitted to the state's record fish program at the DNR office in St. Paul.
鈥淚t jumped maybe once and then came right toward the boat, so I didn鈥檛 think it was that big at first,鈥� said Austin. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the first coho I鈥檝e ever caught.鈥�
Austin was fishing with his dad, Ryan Stoltenberg, and his dad鈥檚 friend on that foggy Saturday morning. They launched at the McQuade Small Craft Harbor boat landing and started trolling toward Duluth. Very slowly.
It was the Stoltenbergs' first Lake Superior trip of the season and their first fish of the day.
鈥淚 had just put out the first line and was starting to work on the second line when a fish hit the first one,鈥� Ryan Stoltenberg said. 鈥淲e really just started fishing. 鈥� I thought maybe at first it was a king (Chinook salmon), but as soon as they flipped it out of the net and onto the boat, I knew it was a coho.鈥�
Coho salmon tend to shed scales rapidly once caught, and this fish was spreading them across the floor of Stoltenberg鈥檚 deck boat.
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The morning was so foggy that fishing boats were randomly honking their horns to let others know they were nearby.
鈥淲e couldn鈥檛 even see shore just a little bit out,鈥� Austin noted.
The giant coho hit on a blue spoon trolled behind a blue flasher, and the fish hit while the lure was still on the surface.
鈥淚 noticed a bunch of minnows breaking the surface, so I said, let鈥檚 start fishing right here. And it hit that quick,鈥� Ryan Stoltenberg said. 鈥淕o figure 鈥� first trip, first fish, new state record.鈥�
The Stoltenbergs plan to have the big fish mounted by a taxidermist.
Massive amount of forage fish
Before last year, the previous coho record had been held for 53 years with little variation in size. An average coho on the big lake weighed 2-4 pounds in recent decades as the fish struggled to find food in frigid Lake Superior.
But massive numbers of native cisco (often called lake herring) and invasive rainbow smelt hatched in 2022 have created an unprecedented amount of food for Lake Superior trout and salmon to gorge on, biologists say. That鈥檚 allowed the big ocean-native salmon to get bigger faster than any time since they were first introduced in the 1960s, while native lake trout also haven't seen this much food in decades.
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鈥淲e may well see the Chinook (salmon) record broken later this summer,鈥� fish that would have to top 33 pounds, 4 ounces, Goldsworthy said. 鈥淎nd we should see the lean lake trout responding to all this forage as well over a few years. It just takes the lake trout longer (to grow) because their metabolism is so much slower than a salmon.鈥�
Netting surveys by the U.S. Geological Survey found the 2022 year classes of cisco and smelt were the largest since the surveys began some 50 years ago.
Anglers are reporting huge masses of smelt and cisco showing up on their fish-finding sonars, clouds of little fish never before seen in western Lake Superior. Yet, despite all that food swimming around, the waters off Duluth and Superior have seen some of the best sport fishing ever.
鈥淭hat continues to surprise me. With that much food out there, I predicted we鈥檇 see a couple years of slower fishing,鈥� Goldsworthy said. 鈥淏ut just the opposite is happening. The fishing has been great.鈥�
The 2022 year class of cisco will soon be getting almost too big for most trout and salmon to eat but will be fine for netting by North Shore commercial anglers for years to come. Meanwhile, the 2022 class of smelt is not only more plentiful but also growing larger, producing a banner season for smelt netters in May, when the fish made their spawning runs. Anglers now report cleaning fish with stomachs packed full of smelt.
鈥淲e usually see smelt 4 or 5 inches (long), maybe six,鈥� Goldsworthy said. "But we saw quite a few up to seven, even eight inches this spring. There were some really good smelt pulls this year off Park Point. And there were people taking coolers full of smelt during the day out of the Knife (River). I鈥檝e never heard of that before. It usually is only a night thing.鈥�
New state record brook trout or nice splake? DNA will tell
Meanwhile, yet another state record may be forthcoming from Lake Superior. Mike Ince, of Aitkin, caught a 6.93-pound brook trout off the North Shore near Duluth on Friday, June 7. He was fishing with local anglers Matt King and Steve Blanck on Blanck鈥檚 boat, 鈥淏lanck Check,鈥� when Ince reeled in the big trout.
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鈥淚 was pretty sure it was a brookie by the square tail,鈥� King, an avid Lake Superior angler and owner of bait and sporting goods store in Pike Lake, told the News Tribune.
鈥淚t didn't fight like a lake trout at all,鈥� said Ince, who keeps his own fishing boat at a Duluth marina.
The three guys were pre-fishing for the held last weekend.
Brook trout are rarely caught at the western tip of Lake Superior. The colorful trout are native to streams along the upper North Shore and around Isle Royale but also have been stocked by natural resource agencies in the Apostle Islands area. Considering the fin clip pattern, Ince said the fish may have been part of the Red Cliff Band's brook trout stocking effort in 2014 or 2015.
But because the clipped-fin identification system used for stocked brook trout and splake are similar, and because the splake is a hybrid cross between brook and lake trout, fisheries experts just aren鈥檛 sure what Ince caught: brookie or splake. The three species can interbreed, and splakes can take on both the color and body shape of both parent species.
鈥淚t definitely had the square tail of a brookie, but it also had the real silver color of a laker. 鈥� To be honest, I鈥檓 just not sure,鈥� Goldsworthy said.
DNR biologists at first thought that the fin clip pattern on Ince鈥檚 fish was unique to brookies, but then found out that Michigan may have released splakes with the same clip pattern.
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To end the suspense, Goldsworthy took a scale from Ince鈥檚 trout and sent it to a University of Minnesota laboratory for DNA testing. Results should be available in a week or two.
Ince caught the fish on a Challenger-brand stick bait in a color pattern called 鈥淜evorkian鈥� that has purple, blue and pink hues.
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