New St. Clair River reefs to spur sturgeon spawning

Alright, sturgeon … they made your bed, now spawn in it.

Michigan organizations and agencies are building nine rock reefs in the Middle Channel of the St. Clair River to bolster native fish spawning and restore habitat.

Fishing license changes aim to boost tourism

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan is angling for more business in the fishing and tourism industries with two new laws that will increase the number of fish anglers can keep.

One establishes a 72-hour fishing license. The other allows anglers to keep an additional two-day’s possession of fish.

The new laws will take effect April 1, 2011.

Lake politics: Obama to ban fishing?

The Internet rumor mill was working overtime this week, with stories, columns and tweets flying around that the Obama administration was going to ban recreational fishing in the Great Lakes. It all began with a column on ESPN.com by Robert Montgomery that baldly stated: “The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.”
He cites “industry experts”  — the industry being sport fishing — as warning that NOAA’s Ocean Policy Task Force is under the influence of environmental groups pushing to end sport fishing. The expert, a spokesman from fishing equipment manufacturer Shimano, said President Obama will issue an executive order for “marine spatial planning” which he believes will impact sport and recreational fishing, as well as commercial fishing, on inland lakes and rivers along with the coasts. The leap from fact to supposition was so great that ESPN.com added an editor’s note to the column after receiving more than 400 comments to the column. Executive Editor Steve Bowman wrote“… this particular column was not properly balanced and failed to represent contrary points of view.

Data show fewer, larger salmon

(MI) Traverse City Record-Eagle – Michigan fisheries officials are seeing signs that a move to reduce the number of Chinook salmon released into Lake Michigan is improving the balance between the popular game fish and its prey. Preliminary data suggest there are fewer — but larger — Chinook in the lake than in previous years. That trend would provide further evidence that stocking cuts in 2006 are having the desired effect. More