LANSING -- Anglers found a bountiful supply of chinook king salmon in Lake Michigan this summer.

"This was the best chinook fishing in many years-possibly, the best ever," said Jim Fenner, president of the Ludington Area Charter Boat Association. "The fish were biting and many trips ended early because people caught their limit."

Patrick LaPorte, a charter captain from Lake Michigan Sport Fishing in Ludington, said that 75 percent of the fish he and his clients caught this summer were king salmon. "The fishing was ridiculous, but the sizes of the fish were down to around 12 to 15 pounds," he said. "We just weren't catching the 27-to-30-pound fish that are the pride of Ludington."

Meanwhile, in Lake Huron, the population of king salmon has declined, leading some experts to believe the fish have migrated into Lake Michigan.

"I caught seven salmon all summer," said Robert Novak, a charter captain in Harrisville. "The bait fish have been disappearing over the past few years and this year there was next to nothing."

Brian Schlaack, captain of Outdoorsman Charter in Pentwater, said that he's caught microtagged fish from Lake Huron in Lake Michigan, but he doesn't know how many of the salmon he catches are from elsewhere.

Fenner concurs that anglers can't tell where most of the fish they catch originate.

"King salmon are planted in the Au Sable River each year, so we are confident that most of the fish we catch come from here," he said.

Though state fishing experts are unsure of the exact number of fish that are migrating, experts along the Lake Huron shore do know that the lake's salmon population is moving.

Chinook from the Swan River stock in Rogers City were wire-coded tagged in 2001 and 2002. In 2003, 73 of them were caught in Lake Michigan, while only 40 were caught in Lake Huron. For the first three months of this year, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reports that six tagged salmon were caught in Lake Huron contrasted to 42 in Lake Michigan.

"The number-one reason the fish are moving is food," said Mike Gnatkowski, a Ludington-based charter boat captain. "Lake Huron to Lake Michigan isn't a great distance for salmon to travel."

Tom Rozich, a fisheries biologist supervisor for the DNR in Cadillac, agrees that the salmon are following their food source. "Salmon are eating machines and will go seek food. Salmon cruise at 14 miles per hour, so it doesn't take much time for the fish to reach Lake Michigan," Rozich said.

Lake Huron is a deeper and colder than Lake Michigan, which means it cannot support as large a population of alewives. Salmon feed on alewives and other forage fish, which are less populous in Lake Huron.

"Lake Michigan has a much more diverse fish population," Gnatkowski said.

Furthermore, Rozich said that the natural reproduction is a factor in the increase in king salmon in Lake Michigan.

"There's been significant natural reproduction of salmon due to a good class of alewives this year," he said.

Salmon were introduced into the Great Lakes in the 1960s to help reduce the number of forage fish.

DNR fisheries experts on Lake Huron will issue report next year looking at how to deal with the reduction of salmon population.