Whitefish waning. Should Michigan have commercial trout, walleye catches?

With whitefish stocks plummeting in the lower Great Lakes, commercial fishing advocates want the right to target new species
Bills under consideration in the house would rewrite fishing laws so commercial boats could target walleye and trout
Recreational anglers and state regulators oppose the change

With Great Lakes whitefish in steep decline, should Michigan cast a lifeline to commercial fishers and allow them to catch other species?

That was the subject of debate Wednesday, as the state House Natural Resources and Tourism Committee took up a pair of bills that would overhaul the state’s commercial fishing regulations.

The biggest change would open access lake trout and walleye that are currently off-limits to most state-licensed commercial fishers.

Lake whitefish are the livelihood of Michigan’s struggling commercial industry, and they’re vanishing because invasive mussels siphon their main food source. Catches have plunged 70% since 2009.

“If something’s not done, we’re all going to go away in the next five or 10 years,” said Dana Serafin, a commercial fisherman out of Pinconning.

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The proposition faces opposition from recreational fishers who vastly outnumber commercial ones: There are 1.2 million recreational fishing licenses in Michigan, with a collective economic impact of about $4 billion, while the state’s commercial fleet has dwindled to just a handful of boats bringing in a few million-dollars’ worth of fish.

In a letter, the Michigan Anglers Consortium contended commercial fishing would “introduce industrial-scale harvest pressure on species whose populations remain fragile.”

The Department of Natural Resources also opposes the bills, predicting they would invite lawsuits and increase tensions.

“These attempts at (a) wholesale rewrite of the entire commercial fishing statute (are) accomplishing one thing,” said Randy Claramount, the state’s fisheries chief. “It’s deepening the divide between recreational and commercial fishers.”

Both sides agree regulations are outdated. Many were written decades ago, when overfishing and invasive lamprey were the top concerns and the mussel crisis had not yet begun.

“Temporary rules became permanent policy while the lakes changed, the science changed, the economy changed,” said Rep. Jason Morgan, D-Ann Arbor, a chief sponsor of the legislation.

Fishing access in the Great Lakes is controlled by a web of state law, policy and court settlements that divide access between recreational anglers, tribal anglers and state-regulated commercial fishers.

For the most part, commercial operations get the whitefish, recreational ones get the salmon and tribes and recreational anglers share the lake trout.

Lawmakers appeared divided on the legislation, with some criticizing the DNR’s current management tactics and others expressing concern about how the bills would affect the agency’s budget.

Rep. David Preston, R-Cedar River and a cosponsor of the legislation, described the hearing as the start of a prolonged conversation about the future of fisheries.

“We’re going to solve this,” Prestin said, adding that “I’ve got a room full of people that love fish, and we’re talking about fishing.”

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