
Julian’s Reef, that protrusion on the Lake Michigan floor off Lake Forest and Highland Park, has been the primary stocking site for lake trout in Illinois waters since 1981.
Around 2009-11, increased findings of wild lakers began, said William Stacy-Duffy, aquatic ecologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey at the Lake Michigan Biological Station in Zion. Over the past decade, Illinois has highest proportion of wild lakers lakewide on Lake Michigan, something anglers do not find surprising.