Outdoor commentary and legislative issues.
Michigan: home to outstanding fishing, more than 3,000 miles of Great Lakes shoreline, 11,000 inland lakes, and tens of thousands of miles of rivers and streams.
There’s no shortage of recreational opportunities to explore – and what better time to do so than the 2017 Summer Free Fishing Weekend!
The 2017 Summer Free Fishing Weekend will be held Saturday, June 10 and Sunday, June 11. Read more
Jan Mladek, General Manager of the Smith & Wesson and M&P Brands, said “We’ve enhanced the M&P15 Magpul Spec Series of rifles with some exciting new hardware upgrades from Magpul. The M&P15 MOE SL rifles incorporate many of the popular slim line Magpul accessories that shooters were adding to their rifles in a ready-to-shoot package, as well as a new Stealth Gray option. These additions expand Smith & Wesson’s advanced line of sporting firearms, while addressing consumer demands for exceptional performance and design.” Read more
At-One’s “Bring-It” push-button adjustment technology is easy to use, elegant in its simplicity and completely reliable. And, it allows you to make adjustments in the field in seconds, without tools or hardware.
The butt pad adjustment modifies the stock length from 12-1/2″ – 14.” The comb adjustment has a 9/16″ range. Together, these two adjustments allow any gun to fit anyone! Read more
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources, in collaboration with DJ Case & Associates, recently released a report on a nearly yearlong study of Michigan deer hunters. Following up on recent DNR research into deer hunting participation trends, the project was designed to be completed before the 2017-2019 deer hunting regulations are established.
Report findings were presented at the April 13 Natural Resources Commission meeting. The full written report, which includes more than 100 pages of detailed information on the study process and results, is available online at michigan.gov/deer, under “MI Deer Resources.”
A few key findings included:
• Most respondents (79 percent) did not think the current deer hunting regulations are too complex.
• Differences of opinions across age categories were greater than differences between males and females.
• Regulations changes did not receive a majority of support among any group of hunters, though younger hunters generally were more supportive of changes than older hunters.
• As the hunter population ages, differences of opinions across age categories indicate the DNR should re-examine future support for regulations changes.
• Among options for possible discounts and prize drawings, a majority of younger hunters did believe they would be likely to purchase a multiyear license bundle at a discounted rate. Read more
Thornapple Lake is a 409 acre lake that lies in eastern Barry County, about five miles west of the village of Nashville. It is a popular recreation lake with two boat launches and shore fishing opportunities.
The lake originally supported a native Great Lakes-strain muskellunge population until it declined in the 1950s. Stocking of Northern-strain muskellunge in Thornapple Lake began in 1964, and the lake was used as a muskellunge broodstock source from the early 1970s to 2010.
Each spring, Department of Natural Resources biologists collected eggs from muskellunge in Thornapple Lake and then reared the offspring of these fish at Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery in Mattawan.
In the fall, these fish were stocked throughout the state to support muskellunge fisheries. Recently the DNR implemented a program to stock only native Great Lakes-strain muskellunge in waters connected to the Great Lakes to reduce the potential for negative genetic effects on naturally reproducing muskellunge populations.
Currently, the Great Lakes muskellunge eggs for Michigan’s state fish hatcheries are collected from fish located in Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River. There are two disadvantages with the current system. The muskellunge are hard to locate in such a large system, and the late spawning period for fish in these Great Lakes connecting waters reduces the rearing period in the hatchery and, thus, the size of the muskellunge at the time of stocking into other waters. (Please note, 2017’s egg collection efforts have been cancelled due to a disease outbreak.) Read more
WEST HARTFORD, CT – Colt, historic manufacturer of what many have heralded as the finest double-action revolvers ever made, is excited to announce its re-entry into the market with the release of the Cobra®. The all stainless steel small frame revolver features the classic lines of a traditional Colt double-action revolver, along with some great upgrades and modernizations, including Colt’s new LL2™ (Linear Leaf spring, version 2) trigger spring which offers a premium trigger pull experience without the need for hand-fitting.
“The bar was set so high,” said Paul Spitale, SVP for Colt, referring to the legacy of fine double-action revolvers in Colt’s history. “And the team in Colt’s Innovation Center really knocked this one out of the park. The grip was moved rearward to not only allow for more comfort and recoil control, but this also opened up the trigger guard area to allow for a flatter, more intuitive feeling trigger, as well as easy use with gloved hands. The trigger pull is phenomenal. The feel of this trigger both in the hand and when measured by a computer is very favorable to, and some might say better than, the triggers in Colt’s legacy double-action revolvers.” Read more
The Northern Lake Huron Management Unit includes most of the St. Marys River, a large international boundary water connecting Lake Superior to Lake Huron.
River management is coordinated by the St. Marys River Fisheries Task Group, which has representatives from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority and member tribes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Lake Superior State University, Sault College, and Algoma University also participate as resource members.
Member agencies will be conducting a fish community survey of the entire St. Marys River during the month of August 2017. During that time fisheries biologists and technicians will be setting survey nets at predetermined sites in the river and capturing a variety of species to collect information on abundance, growth, mortality and size structure of fish populations and compare this latest information against the data collected in previous surveys. Read more
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The oldest conservation organization in North America has released its position on gun ownership and its historical influence on wildlife conservation.
“Sportsmen have known for a long time that hunting supports and funds wildlife conservation and management programs,” said Ben B. Hollingsworth Jr., president of the Boone and Crockett Club. “What is often overlooked is that the most successful system of wildlife conservation ever devised – the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation – would not have been possible without sportsmen and their right to own and use firearms.”
Public ownership of firearms was instrumental to the birth of the conservation movement in North America and still contributes to its continued success. The Boone and Crockett Club supports the right of citizens to own and use firearms. This right allows hunters to contribute to and maintain the longstanding success of wildlife conservation and management in North America.
“By the late nineteenth century wildlife species were depleted everywhere in North America,” said Hollingsworth. “It is indisputable that the hunter-conservationist movement rescued many species from certain extinction.”
Early hunter-conservationists like Theodore Roosevelt, who formed the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887, took action to allow game species to recover in the abundance we have today. Sportsmen across the nation joined Roosevelt in choosing to restrict themselves, limit their take, and abide by newly formed game laws and regulated hunting seasons. But they took one more step, explained Hollingsworth Jr.
“Even in the height of the Great Depression, sportsmen voted to tax themselves for the benefit of wildlife.” The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act (Pittman-Robertson Act), proposed by sportsmen and passed by Congress in 1937, placed an excise tax on the sale of sporting arms and ammunition with the funds earmarked for wildlife conservation and distributed to state fish and wildlife agencies. In 2016, $700 million were generated and to date, nearly $10 billion has been distributed to states.
“As we know, game species did recover, but the habitats that were secured and managed for game species now benefit all wildlife,” said Hollingsworth. “None of this would be possible without the Second Amendment. It is why protecting and maintaining gun ownership by the public is so critical to wildlife conservation.”
The full position statement and video can be found at this link.