Bait debate: Some seek tighter PM River regulations by Brian Mulherin

A group of guides, anglers and landowners along the Pere Marquette River has been lobbying the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment to do more to protect spawning salmon and steelhead in the Pere Marquette River, which they believe to be in steady decline.

The way the group chose to try to protect those fish was to ask the DNRE for special “gear restriction” regulations on the river from Gleason’s Landing downstream to Walhalla Road. Gear restrictions can ban live or natural bait or can outlaw everything but fly fishing on a given stretch of water. The DNRE declined, spelling out its reasoning in a report released this week.  Anglers will have a chance to “wade in” on the topic — and the fate of several other rivers — at a series of public meetings in June.

“Although there is much public support for more gear restrictive regulations in the watershed, there is similar strong public opposition to additional gear restrictions on the river,” the DNRE report states, noting that catch-and-release is prevalent on the river.

The DNRE report also states “a majority of anglers of the Pere Marquette fishing river sections outside the no-kill water prefer to have the option of angling with a variety of gear types that might include bait such as spawn or wigglers as well as with artificial flies or lures.

Kevin Morlock, a river guide who spearheaded what he called a “grassroots” effort to get special “no bait” regulations on the river, said he believes this has been among the worst years for steelhead fishing he can remember in more than 20 years on the river. The Pere Marquette gets no stocked steelhead and he believes because of that, the naturally reproducing fish deserve some special protection.

“We put an effort in to see if we could make some arguments toward the PM because really we have no other alternative, if it’s true that the fishery is declining,” Morlock said. “Wild fisheries shouldn’t be treated like hatchery fisheries.”

Morlock said there’s no hard science backing his claim that the fishery is in decline, but he believes that’s all the more reason to tread carefully in what is allowed on the P.M.

The Pere Marquette Watershed Council board voted to nominate the new stretch for gear restrictions, citing the popularity and “proven qualities” of the flies only water.

Ron Henrickson, an avid live bait fisherman for trout in the lower P.M.

“I’d hate to discourage anybody from any method they use that’s legal right now,” Henrickson said. “My grandson would probably not want to go if he could only fish flies.

“The next step will be catch-and-release-only, and I like to eat fish. You know, a lot of fly fishermen who practice catch-and-release kill fish, too. They might not know it, but they do.

Henrickson was referring to studies that a percentage of fish caught and released can die from the stress, even when handled carefully.

One of Henrickson’s concerns is loss of access for wading anglers. One of the Pere Marquette’s more popular access sites during spring, early summer and fall is the Taylor Road access, also called “the Maple Leaf.” If gear was restricted, the anglers who use spawn and worms would no longer be permitted to fish there by those methods.

“There’s more bait anglers than they know,” Henrickson said.

Morlock’s letter-writing campaign to DNRE officials and state lawmakers was supported by the Ludington and Scottville Area Chamber of Commerce and the Convention and Visitors’ Bureau.  Several lawmakers have also been contacted.

Morlock said in spite of that, he’s not optimistic that the DNR will put the stretch from Gleason’s Landing to Walhalla Road into the gear restricted category.  Morlock said it’s unfortunate because the number of restricted miles in the state is only revisited once a decade or so.

Paul Drewry, an avid fly angler who also casts crankbaits to king salmon in the fall, supports the idea of more restricted miles of water.

“A group of guys in Walhalla have been driving that,” Drewry said. “I think it’s a great idea — not necessarily bait restrictions, but to restrict the take of spawning fish during the run, whether steelhead or salmon. The bottom line is we have a naturally producing river there and I’ve always wondered what a difference it would make if we were to protect those spawning fish.”

Drewry said he believes the restrictions on the Au Sable have helped its fishery and its reputation, making the area more desirable as a fishing destination.

“As a businessman, I kind of like that idea,” Drewry said.

But not all businessmen agree.  Bob Viglietti, owner of Pere Marquette Sport Center, said he doesn’t see how anyone but the guides pushing the issue are going to benefit.

“There’s no practical reason to make that stretch of water ‘no live bait.’ It’s not going to change the ecology, it’s purely money driven. Plus, it’s going to negatively affect my business.”

Aaron Persenaire, an avid steelhead angler from Ludington, said he doesn’t think restricting gear would accomplish much in the grand scheme of things.

“Personally, I would disagree with a new restriction, being that we already have a flies-only section on the river,” Persenaire said. “I’m not totally against a flies-only stretch on the river, but one is enough.”

Morlock said another aspect to adding gear restrictions might be to clean up the behavior on the river.

He noted there just aren’t as many run-ins with belligerent, territorial anglers on the upper “flies-only” stretches, even though there are more anglers present at times.

“All of our peak areas (on the lower river) during peak times are unwelcoming to families and visiting fishermen,” Morlock said. “When a family can’t go to a public fishing area during the best fishing times, you’ve got a major problem.”

Morlock said having more conservation officers enforce the rules would be nice, but he knows that’s not likely to happen in Michigan’s current economic state.

MEETINGS SCHEDULED
ON TROUT STREAM REGULATIONS
The local meetings, all at 7 p.m.,  are:
 MONDAY, JUNE 7, at the Bitely Conservation Club, 12016 Woodbridge (M-37) in Bitely.
 TUESDAY, JUNE 8, at the Crawford Au Sable Primary School Cafeteria, 306 Plum St., Grayling.
 THURSDAY, JUNE 10, at the Carl T. Johnson Hunting and Fishing Center, 6093 E. M-115, Cadillac.
 THE FULL list of meetings is available at www.michigan.gov/dnr.

The Grand Rapids Press, Electric barrier on Pere Marquette turned off; chemical treatment continues for sea lamprey by Howard Meyerson
Appeared:  January 31st, 2010
 

SCOTTVILLE — Attempting to stop sea lamprey with an electric barrier has become a thing of the past on the Pere Marquette River, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials. The federal agency recently announced it no longer will operate its electric weir there and will resume treating the river only with chemical lampricides.

Officials said the aging barrier didn’t work well and would be too costly to replace. So its river-bottom electrodes won’t be powered up this March as they have been since the 1980s.

“We’ve reduced the larval populations (sea lamprey) in the river to 10 to 20 percent of what the average is without the barrier, but that is still thousands of larvae that still require treatment,” said Greg Klingler a biologist with the FWS Marquette Biological Station.

“We get some benefits from the (electric) weir, but it’s not cost-effective.”

Critics are pleased with the decision. Some claim the electric field hinders the upstream steelhead migration. Others say its presence spoils the river.

No one is happy about the need to continue chemical treatment of the river with TFM, (3-trifluoromethyl-4-nitrophenol), a lampricide used to kill lamprey in their larval stage. It is applied every three to four years and has no toxic effects on other fish, although it can affect certain aquatic insects.

The electric barrier was to have made chemical treatment obsolete.

“Having the electric weir and chemical treatment is a double insult to the river,” said Paul Bigford of Branch, president of the Pere Marquette Watershed Council. “Neither seems to eliminate the lamprey, and even though they have had the electric weir running at quite an expense, it has not made a single TFM treatment unnecessary.”

Bigford said his group agrees with the FWS decision to turn the device off.

So does Kevin Morlock, owner of Indigo Guide Service in Walhalla. Morlock, a fishing guide, said he plans to advertise that the electric barrier is kaput.

The Pere Marquette is his company’s “home” river. Winter steelhead fishing, he said, has suffered since the barrier went in. He and other anglers have challenged the FWS to improve fish passage around the barrier.

When the barrier was built in the late 1980s, there was no way for migrating fish to get by it. It was modified twice during the ensuing years to make it easier for migrating fish to get upstream. It will pass from 2,000 to 7,000 steelhead annually, according to Klingler, who estimates 50 percent to 70 percent of the run gets upstream.

“I’m 100 percent in favor of its removal,” Morlock said. “It’s had a significant effect on the upstream migration of steelhead and the downstream migration of young salmon.

“We were originally assured that the fish barrier was going to allow unrestricted fish passage. They made it sound like the bugs were worked out and we would get rid of the evil chemicals. I believed it, and I am embarrassed that I supported it.”

Electric lamprey barriers have been in use on three Michigan rivers, including the Jordan and Ocqueoc rivers. They are among the various methods the FWS uses to control lamprey in an effort to meet a Great Lakes Fishery Commission goal of reducing TFM use by 20 percent this year.

The agency also uses trapping, sterile male releases and low-head dams where appropriate.

The Jordan River electric barrier was turned off four to five years ago and removed last year for similar reasons. The Ocqueoc River barrier continues to operate effectively, Klingler said. But electricity is turned on only when water levels rise to a point that lamprey might swim over the low-head dam that was built to stop them.

Building a similar dam on the Pere Marquette would likely be infeasible, Klingler said. Replacement of the barrier was estimated at $500,000, plus another $60,000 to $70,000 a year to operate. TFM treatments cost $500,000 every three to four years.

It is uncertain whether lamprey migrated upstream before during or after the electric barrier was turned, but they managed to get upstream. TFM is more of sure thing, Klingler said. It kills several lamprey year classes at once.

Lamprey trapping will continue at the electric barrier site. The animals caught there are used in the FWS sterile-male program. But the site will be less productive without the electricity, Klingler said. It typically contributes 250 to 300 male lamprey to the 1,500 to 2,000 collected from Michigan rivers for the program.

“I’ve got no qualms about treating the river with TFM in the future,” said Jim Dexter, the Lake Michigan basin fisheries coordinator for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment. “It’s a good decision with regard to the FWS and fish commission business model, too.

“That barrier was expensive to operate and maintain. It was time consuming and it didn’t work the way everyone had hoped. The river still needed to be treated with TFM.”

E-mail Howard Meyerson at hmeyerson@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/HMeyerson

Photo Credits and Captions:
1st photo – Courtesy Photo | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  The electric lamprey barrier facility on the Pere Marquette River in Scottville was deemed ineffective, so U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials turned it off.
2nd photo – Courtesy Photo | U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  A close-up of an eel-like sea lamprey, considered an invasive species.
3rd photo – Press Graphic
4th Photo – Howard Meyerson | The Grand Rapids Press.  Anglers drift in search of salmon on the lower Pere Marquette River in the fall.

Operation of the Pere Marquette River Electrical Barrier (Lamprey Weir) near Custer will not be continued for the 2010 season.  A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service document states that the barrier will be removed and the property will be returned to it’s natural state.

This project, that has been a disaster from the beginning, has been a dark period for the wild fishery of the Pere Marquette.  The thought of allowing an experimental barrier on the longest free flowing river in Michigan seems like a laughable idea but unfortunately it happened.  This floundering project never came close to accomplishing it’s goal and at the same time significantly limited both the up and downstream migration of fish, something we were all assured would not happen.

Rumors have been bouncing for almost a year that this project was teetering on its last leg, then several weeks ago there was off-the-record news that the project was voted to be closed and finally the real-deal, an official document… PDF — Operation of the Pere Marquette Electrical Barrier.

Guided Trip on the Pere Marquette River, October 15-16, 2009 with Indigo Guide Kevin Morlock

Kevin,

"I just wanted to say thank you for all of your efforts last week. It meant a lot to someone who had no experience (and what I now possess is from your great efforts).
 
I e-mailed Jack and told him that if he had no objection, I will be on his fall trip again next year. Of course, I will need your help getting in and out of that boat and all of the other efforts that you had to endure… If you ever get down to Atlanta, I would consider it an honor to see you and invite you and your family to my home for an overnight stay and dinner."
 
Harold C., Atlanta, Georgia
 

You can see an indexed list of other articles on the Indigo Guide Service, Articles & Videos Page.

Midwest Sporting Journal

This article appeared in the Midwest Sporting Journal on September 16th, 2009 by Brandon Butler from Driftwood Outdoors.  You can find a link to photographer Bill Konway’s site here.

Dear Lord,

When I die, please send my soul to Barothy Lodge…

Tucked away in the pristine hardwoods of northern Michigan is a lodge so rustic, yet so elegant it redefines the upper crust of sporting passion. A place where campfires are meant to be shared, scotch is meant to be poured, and fly rods are meant to remain at the ready.

Barothy Lodge consists of 320 acres of Pere Marquette River frontage. Deer, turkey, black squirrels, grouse and many more species of birds and animals parade about the private land as if their interaction with man was meant to be.
The fishing, well to put it quite simply, is amazing. Trout, steelhead and salmon swim the river. A pair of waders will allow you access to water as magnificent as any I have ever fished. A wilderness jaunt down the delicate, pleasing waters of the PM in a drift boat rowed by one of the professionals from Indigo Guide Service though, makes the experience all the sweeter.

Lodging at Barothy is reminiscent of the setting for Thomas McGuane’s novel of elite Michigan outdoors, “The Sporting Club.”  What was once reserved for sporting royalty can now be yours. The vast log structures range in size from one to nine bedrooms. Fabulously decorated with sporting motifs, all the lodges are set up to provide the ultimate capabilities of north woods relaxation. Pool tables and jacuzzis are highlights.

The grounds abound with outdoor opportunity. There are hiking, biking and cross country skiing trails, a swimming pool, a playground, shuffleboard, horseshoes, and volleyball, tennis and basketball courts.

For a true wilderness retreat in luxurious comfort, visit Barothy Lodge.

P.S. Lord,

Please send one of my guide friends with me. I need someone to row the boat.