Michigan Department of Natural Resources Director Dan Eichinger Tuesday confirmed the commitment of $8 million in state funds for the preconstruction, engineering and design phase of a multifaceted barrier system to prevent invasive Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes.

In a Nov. 4, 2019 letter to Lieutenant General Todd Semonite, chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Eichinger explained that the funds were appropriated as non-federal match for design of a system of structural and non-structural control measures at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam in the Chicago Area Waterway System near Joliet, Illinois. Brandon Road is a critical pinch point for keeping bighead, silver and black carp – the Asian carp species of greatest concern – out of the Great Lakes. Read more

Grand Prairie, TX If you want to test fishing tackle or products to see how good they really are, do it in a saltwater environment. Nothing tests gear more than saltwater. That’s what the Texas Saltwater Fishing Magazine did with Plano’s new Rustrictor Stowaway, and it passed with flying colors.

Saltwater anglers are acutely aware of how important it is to wash, rinse, clean and dry everything after a day of fishing. Too often, though, we procrastinate or neglect our lures. What we’re faced with the next time we go fishing is not pretty.

That’s where Plano’s Rustrictor Stowaway comes in. It’s not a replacement for a thorough scrubbing, but you’re not going to have a bunch of rusted hooks and junk lures if you don’t. Read more

Brown trout, coho salmon, steelhead, walleye and nine other species and one hybrid were among the 21,281,411 fish stocked in Michigan’s public waters so far this year. These fish weighed a combined total of 311 tons.

DNR staff made 449 stocking trips to 857 stocking sites, including Great Lakes, inland lakes and rivers. Eighteen specialized stocking trucks traveled 106,000 miles over the course of 2,693 hours to get the job done.

The number and type of fish stocked varies depending on stocking requests, hatchery rearing assignments, and the source and temperature of each facility’s rearing water. Michigan has six state fish hatcheries and two cooperative hatcheries that together produce the species, strain and size of fish requested by fisheries managers. These fish are delivered at a specific time and location to ensure their survival and success.

Each hatchery stocked the following fish (details on weight and sites are available on the DNR’s website):

• Harrietta State Fish Hatchery (west of Cadillac) stocked 916,630 brown and rainbow trout.
• Marquette State Fish Hatchery (near Marquette) stocked 377,076 yearling lake trout, brook trout and splake (a hybrid of lake trout and brook trout).
• Oden State Fish Hatchery (near Petoskey) stocked 647,699 brown and rainbow trout.
• Platte River State Fish Hatchery (near Honor) stocked 3,090,753 fish that included yearling Atlantic and coho salmon, spring fingerling chinook salmon and walleye fry.
• Thompson State Fish Hatchery (near Manistique) stocked 6,944,722 fish that included yearling steelhead, spring fingerling chinook salmon and walleye fry.
• Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery (near Kalamazoo) stocked 6,233,314 fish that included yearling steelhead, spring fingerling chinook salmon, Great Lakes strain muskellunge, walleye fry and channel catfish obtained from the Ohio DNR.

A cooperative teaching hatchery at Lake Superior State University (in Sault Ste. Marie) stocked 19,894 Atlantic salmon. Read more

This summer was a fantastic time to catch some reel big fishing memories. A few top-notch Catch a Florida Memory anglers took home exciting prizes in the process, including custom fish mounts courtesy of Mount This! Fish Company.

Christina Saridakis and Remington Colt Thompson both won custom fish mounts in August by qualifying for the Reel Big Fish that most exceeded its qualifying length from April to July. In the adult category, Christina’s whopping 46-inch Reel Big red drum was definitely a milestone to remember, while Remington dominated the youth category with an impressive 36-inch red drum. Read more

A vintner in Northern California is upgrading a concrete fish barrier to return native salmon and steelhead to valuable spawning habitat that has been blocked for nearly a century. A cooperative “Safe Harbor” agreement between the landowner Barbara Banke, Chairman and proprietor of Jackson Family Wines, and NOAA Fisheries and other state and local agencies has fostered the improvements. These agreements provide incentives to private landowners who help recover threatened and endangered species.

The story begins in the late 1800s, when two real estate speculators, F.E. Kellogg and W.A. Stuart, bought part of a Spanish land grant in Sonoma County and built a post office, general store, school, cottages, a hotel, and a diversion structure on a nearby stream to provide water for residents and visitors to the town.

Bypassed by the railroads, however, the little town of Kellogg eventually faded away, its remains razed by a wildfire in the 1960s that left only a handful of homes, agricultural buildings, and the water diversion structure and associated water system. Like many such remnant barriers, the concrete barrier reduced stream flow and blocked native fish, such as Central California Coast (CCC) steelhead and CCC coho salmon, a critically endangered species, from reaching their spawning habitat.

Fulfilling the recovery plan

NOAA Fisheries considers restoration of Yellow Jacket Creek an essential component in the Central California Coast Coho Recovery Plan. Read more

Garmin® to offer most comprehensive U.S. coast line coverage with its expanded and enhanced high-resolution relief shading cartography

Premium charts and maps offer industry-leading coverage and advanced detail

OLATHE, Kan. – Garmin International, Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN), today announced significant coverage and detail improvements of the high-resolution relief shading coverage and detail offered in its exclusive BlueChart g3 Vision and LakeVü g3 Ultra cartography products for coastal and inland fishing and boating. Now available with coverage for the entire continental U.S. coast line and more than 150 lakes, Garmin’s high-resolution relief shading combines color and shadow to bring an entirely new level of detail to the ocean floor and lake bottom. Garmin will display its latest relief shading data in booths #326/355 at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, Oct. 30 to Nov. 3.

“We remain committed to giving our customers the highest quality and most detailed, accurate charts and maps on the water, so we’re pleased to now offer the most comprehensive U.S. coast line coverage available on the market today,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of global consumer sales. “By blending Garmin’s high-resolution relief shading with the fishing layer contours generated from the Navionics detail in our charts, anglers and divers will see a tremendous improvement both in freshwater and saltwater, making it easier than ever to find structure, artificial reefs, underwater shelves and more.” Read more

Starting next year, Michigan plans to increase chinook salmon stocking by 150,000, increasing the total statewide stocking from 504,000 to 654,000 fish. This move is in response to a recent recommendation of the Lake Michigan Citizens Fishery Advisory Committee to boost lakewide stocking levels.

“The Lake Michigan predator and prey balance has improved in recent years,” said Jay Wesley, the DNR’s Lake Michigan Basin coordinator. “The size of the salmon has also improved, with hundreds weighing more than 30 pounds caught at multiple ports.”

This marks the first salmon-stocking increase in Lake Michigan since 1999. The committee has worked continuously with stakeholders and resource agencies around the lake to bring balance to its ecosystem.

“Although some anglers would prefer a larger stocking increase, biologists are still concerned with the uncertainty of alewife year-class strength and how much wild reproduction of salmon to expect,” Wesley said. “Alewife are the main diet of chinook salmon.”

The Lake Michigan Citizens Fishery Advisory Committee and the DNR will continue to monitor Lake Michigan conditions and adjust stocking accordingly to sustain a healthy, diverse salmon and trout fishery. Visit Michigan.gov/Fishing to learn more about how the DNR manages the state’s fisheries.