Growth and Survival of Nearshore Fishes in Lake Michigan F-138 R-11

This report includes 2007 field season results of a project that began in August 1998. This project’s purpose is to identify factors that contribute to and determine yearclass strength of fishes in nearshore waters of Lake Michigan. This research focuses on Illinois waters of Lake Michigan and is needed because limited data exist on year-class strength and recruitment of nearshore fishes. The focus of this research is to describe patterns of year-class strength and to relate these patterns to a set of factors that allow managers to better predict inter-annual fluctuations in fish populations. After this project was funded, we learned that an artificial reef would be built at one of our nearshore sites. Little quantitative information exists on the role such artificial reefs play in the attraction and recruitment success of fishes in freshwater. Consequently, we added the artificial reef site (plus a nearby reference site) to our sampling protocol to identify how the addition of an artificial reef might attract sport fishes, affect recruitment success, and assess other possible effects on the nearshore fish community.