It’s hard to believe that we get paid to fish. But we do and that is a good thing. But there are times when you have to go out of your comfort zone, when you have to race loud jet boats to big steelhead on the big Muskegon. So you do. You row your boat and hook steelhead and have a good day because that’s what you do when you get paid to fish.
The Michigan DNR announced a few weeks ago that they are introducing another fishing permit option, 72 hour, in addition to the currently available 24 hour and year-long permits. This makes a lot of sense and should be a good way to drive revenue for the state and increase fishing tourism.
The second regulation change, however, is somewhat more disconcerting. It will increase the daily creel limits on several species including salmon, rainbow trout, pike, and walleye. While I don’t have specific details about the regulations, in terms of where and when, i.e. lake charters vs. inland rivers, the driving force behind this change seems to be the desire to put more fish in tourist’s freezers.
While increasing harvest is a good tool for managing fish populations, not all waters in the state benefit from increased harvest rates and we are interested to learn more about the details of these changes. These regulations are to take effect April 1, 2011. April fools?
In other news, while you may want to, don’t touch baby animals in the woods this spring.
While I realize not everyone has some cutting edge research about wild trout that they want to present at a major conference, but Wild Trout is still interesting to know about. The call for papers has been extended to April 30th. The meeting will take place September 28-30 in West Yellowstone Montana. Not too shabby a venue.
Kevin says the river was low and clear on Saturday with water temps in the low 50s. It’s been a weird spring with the weather all over the map and sporadic rain and you never really know what the river has in store for you. There are a good number of drop back hens moving through right now providing opportunities in every hole and pocket. Picked up a few decent browns on streamers and the steelhead wanted a #6 pink and chartreuse crystal egg.
Apr 23
2010
Mark on the Muskegon- steelhead
Anytime the Indigo crew travels more than one hour from Walhalla, you can be sure many photos and stories will come back with them. It helps when they take a big group of guys down and they assault the river with three boats and the flies are flying and the brats are flowing and Steve loses an anchor but Steve don’t lose too many fish believe you me. More on that next week.
Mark sends these great shots from the big trip earlier this week. Click to enlarge.
