The Michigan Department of Natural Resources recently stocked 25,740 muskellunge fingerlings into 12 waterbodies located throughout the state in an effort to further enhance Michigan’s world-class fisheries.

Michigan is home to two strains of naturally reproducing muskellunge, Great Lakes and northern. The DNR has been rearing muskellunge in its hatcheries since the 1950s. While the hatchery program initially focused on the northern muskellunge strain, it has shifted focus in recent years to the Great Lakes strain, as it is native to Michigan and widely distributed in waterbodies throughout the Lower Peninsula and eastern region of the Upper Peninsula. Read more

A new pilot program from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources now allows boaters to make slip-specific reservations in select Michigan state harbors during the 2017 season.The five facilities participating in the pilot project are:

• William G. Milliken State Harbor (Wayne County).
• Straits State Harbor (Cheboygan County).
• Grand Haven Marina (Ottawa County).
• Lake St. Clair Marina (Macomb County).
• Saint Clair Boat Harbor (St. Clair County).

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Fall is harvest time in Michigan, and while most may be thinking of picking apples or plucking pumpkins, Michigan Department of Natural Resources fisheries crews are thinking about walleye.Specifically, they’re collecting the last of the walleye fingerlings that are raised in rearing ponds for stocking and getting the fish to where they want them to be.

For the most part, walleye are reared for a short period of time in ponds and stocked as spring fingerlings – most at less than 2 inches in length – in high densities. But fisheries biologists know that fall fingerlings can be stocked at much lower densities and produce better results than spring fingerlings. Read more

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and several partners released more than 7,800 juvenile lake sturgeon into various public waters across the state this summer and fall in an effort to rehabilitate this culturally significant fish species.

The juvenile fish were collected from the wild last spring and reared in streamside facilities until they reached at least seven inches or larger in size. Most fish were tagged prior to being released into their respective rivers to allow future evaluations of stocked fish. Read more

For some, catching a lake sturgeon is the thrill of a lifetime. For many…that thrill will never be experienced. But what if it could be – simply by making a trip to the St. Clair River?According to Mike Thomas, a DNR fisheries research biologist at the Lake St. Clair Fisheries Research Station, the St. Clair River is one of the only waters within the Great Lakes (and their connecting waters) where you have a very good chance of targeting and catching a lake sturgeon.

“When someone calls and indicates they’re interested in getting involved in lake sturgeon fishing, the north channel of the St. Clair River is the first place I tell them to go.” Read more

Many people agree that steelhead are one of the country’s top sport fish. The bulk of anglers take advantage of their spring spawning runs in March, April and May, but some rivers also have a fall run of steelhead when fish come into the rivers well before their normal spawning period and then hang out all winter. This means the next fishing opportunity is just around the corner.

Most parts of the state offer great waters to target steelhead on – and southeast Michigan is no different! Primarily you’ll find fall steelhead runs in the Huron and Clinton rivers, which both have lots of public access points along the stream. Read more

Next level Micro DVR-DT Underwater Viewing Systems unlock overlooked fishCrosslake, Minn. – Still so much we don’t know about what’s really happening beneath the surface.

Interesting to consider that beyond water and oxygen itself, perhaps the single most important fish-locating factor remains the least understood. Water temperature is so vital to fish that each species’ existence depends on an optimal range. Locate the ideal temperature at the right depth, and you’ll almost always land on gamefish gold.

But how to put these key pieces together and solve the puzzle? Read more