The Ile Camera
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
New regulations shouldn't affect anglers
By Mike Zielinski, Heritage Newspapers
PUBLISHED: January 12, 2007
If you are involved in tournament fishing on Michigan's Great Lakes or inland waters, there are probably some rule changes affecting this sport in the immediate future.
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The reason for new regulations is an attempt to stop or at least slow the spread of viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS).
As the rules originally came down from the US Dept. of Agriculture, it would have been illegal (for anyone, not just tourney anglers) to transport any of 29 species of live fish across state lines of those states bordering the Great Lakes plus Ontario and Quebec.
That would have put a damper on tourneys that originate in Michigan waters whose contestants travel by boat to Canada or Ohio to catch their fish.
Most serious anglers are aware of the problems with this disease, but here is a recap.
Officials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIDS) say that VHS was responsible for the recent spring die-offs of musky, (we saw many examples floating on the Detroit River this spring), yellow perch, mud puppies, sheephead and gizzard shad and sheesphead in the Detroit River and Lake Erie.
On Oct. 30, 2006, APHIDS banned interstate shipments of these live fish species from (Ontario and Quebec) and the states where the disease has been found, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.
Originally issued was a list of nearly 27 fish species that cannot legally be transported in live condition across the borders of the mentioned states and provinces. These include black crappie, bluegills, blunt nose minnows, brown bullhead, brown trout, burbot, channel catfish, chinook salmon, coho salmon, emerald shiners, sheephead, gizzard shad, largemouth and smallmouth bass and walleyes.
As a result, many questions have been raised concerning the fallout of such broad regulation, including the potential to destroy the live bait industry in Michigan and others states surrounding the Great Lakes.
To its credit, it appears as if Michigan's DNR personnel are responding to these complications as swiftly as they arise.
There are a number of professional fishing tournaments for really big money scheduled on Lake St. Clair, The Detroit River and Lake Erie in 2007.
Still wondering how the emergency regulations would affect tournaments, I asked Dr. Kurt Newman of the Michigan DNR Fisheries Division.
"The Michigan DNR and other Great Lakes States and Ontario are all instituting several measures to slow the spread of VHS throughout the basin and especially inland, into hatcheries and outside of the basin," said Newman.
"There are a number of related updates on our internet site and we will likely make this a major topic of concern at the next Lake Erie Lake St. Clair Fishing Advisory Committee.
"The bottom line in Michigan for the tourney anglers is that they will not be allowed to transport fish from infected waters into those not known to be infected already."
To my thinking, this is sort of a "status quo" for tournament anglers.
As it now stands, most of the areas known to be tournament waters are already included in those known as being infected.
However, I guess someone fishing in Lake St. Clair could feasibly make a run up the St. Clair River into Lake Huron, or on to Saginaw Bay where the disease is not yet known to exist, and then catch their fish and return.
All in all, the current rulings should be tolerable to Great Lakes anglers but I suspect they will be far tougher on those fishing inland lakes.
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