The Fish
Twelve gamefish, six lakes, and the honest version of which combinations are actually worth a tank of gas. Pick a species, then pick the water.
Species covered
12
Lake-species pages
59
Ice-fishable species
5
Lakes
6
Sander vitreus · Perch
The most-targeted fish in the system and the reason western Lake Erie has a charter fleet. Light-shy, structure-oriented, and the best-eating fish in fresh water.
Perca flavescens · Perch
The people’s fish. Schooling, cooperative, catchable from a pier or a shanty, and the backbone of a Friday fish fry from Sandusky to Sheboygan.
Oncorhynchus tshawytscha · Salmon
The king. Stocked into the lakes in the 1960s to eat alewives and now the single biggest driver of Great Lakes charter money. Fights deeper and harder than anything else out there.
Oncorhynchus kisutch · Salmon
The spring opener. Cohos school tight near the surface in April and May off the southern Lake Michigan ports, which makes them the most beginner-accessible salmon on the chain.
Salvelinus namaycush · Char
The native. Lakers were here before the stocking programs and survived the sea lamprey collapse in Superior when they vanished everywhere else. Deep, cold, slow-growing, long-lived.
Oncorhynchus mykiss · Trout
A rainbow trout that went to sea in a lake. Runs the tributaries from fall through spring and fights like it has somewhere else to be. Erie’s Steelhead Alley is a genuine national destination.
Salmo trutta · Trout
The shallow-water prize. Browns hold tight to the beach in cold water, which puts genuine 15-pound fish inside 20 feet of water within sight of shore in early spring.
Micropterus dolomieu · Sunfish
Great Lakes smallmouth are a different animal from the river fish most anglers know: bigger, meaner, and living on open rock and grass where four pounds is an ordinary afternoon.
Esox masquinongy · Pike
The fish of ten thousand casts, except on Lake St. Clair, where the population density is high enough that the number is a lot closer to a few hundred. The best muskie water on the continent.
Esox lucius · Pike
Ambush predator of every weed edge and back bay on the chain. Available to shore anglers, kayakers, and ice fishermen, which makes it the most democratic big fish in the system.
Coregonus clupeaformis · Salmon
The commercial fish that became a sport fish. Whitefish took over the ice-fishing calendar in northern Michigan and Wisconsin once anglers worked out they will chase a jigging spoon in 60 feet of water.
Acipenser fulvescens · Sturgeon
A living fossil, protected nearly everywhere on the chain, and a genuine conservation success story in the St. Clair system. Catch-and-release only in most waters — check the state rulebook before you even rig a rod.