Michigan Bass Season MDNR Public Meetings Report
The MDNR Bass Season Public Meetings – so far
What are they saying and what you can expect…
I’ve attended 6 MDNR public meetings so far as of today (8/14/04) including:
Newaygo (6 anglers/3 MDNR),
Cadillac (10 anglers/5 MDNR),
Novi (33 anglers/8 MDNR),
Flint (26 anglers/5 MDNR),
Jackson (10 anglers/7 MDNR),
and Caledonia (32 anglers/7 MDNR).
The majority attending the meetings have been bass tournament anglers with only Jackson and Newaygo being in a minority. Very few non-bass tournament anglers have attended. This all started with the MDNR SALBRC (Smallmouth and Largemouth Bass Regulations Committee) ‘report’ that’s surprised fisheries biologists in other states who view the report as misleading, full of misconceptions and biased towards bass tournament anglers.
At Newaygo there was one club member who let us in, an angler who said he used to fish bass tournaments and wasn’t feeling real strong about any particular scenario and would probably leave things as is, and a guy who came in ½ an hour late and didn’t say anything. There was myself, and Dan Shine from the Tear Drop Bass circuit. At Cadillac, there was one walleye/lake association guy who mainly just wanted to ask the rest of us bass tournament guys what we have given back to the lakes. Some of us were interviewed by a writer for the Ludington Daily News, but he seemed more interested in the controversy over bass tournaments in some areas than the proposals at that time. I did not get to see the column he wrote.
At Novi, a group calling themselves the downriver bass association had one member say he was a board member and supported practicing catch-and-release all the time and told the rest of us that if we would just change all our tournaments to some kind of instant catch-and-release, we wouldn’t need all these ‘hysterics.’ He says his group has only had 2 or 3 cheaters in 28 years using instant release in all their tournaments. Another member (I think there were 5 there altogether) also spoke more to us than the MDNR to tell us how we could change to accommodate the MDNR season proposal of taking away 3 to 4 weeks of our season. I believe they were coached to come to the meeting and ‘teach’ us. They spent most of their time preaching, in a friendly manner overall, than talking about the MDNR report and scenarios.
The rest of the attendees seemed to be our guys (Gerry Gostenik, Kim Stricker, Dennis Beltz, Ron Spitler, Jim Sprague, George Terrien, Anthony Adams, Dave Reault, Jeff Cheetam and many others). Bob Gwizdz was there taking notes. Another person I did not recognize also just took notes. Ron Spitler presented the new Scenario 8 to the MDNR for the Michigan BASS Chapter Federation.
Flint was dominated by bass tournament anglers. I’m not sure if anyone there was not supportive of us. If so, they kept quiet which not very many did. Anthony and I really upset the top MDNR person before that meeting even started by handing out our new survey. We worked out a shaky truce, but she tested me on the definition of fish recruitment in front of everyone before the meeting got going. I think I passed the test, although she tried to twist that a little by saying there were two types of recruitment.
Jackson, there was myself and 3 anglers from the South Central Michigan Bass Anglers. I was disappointed at the turnout, but the 3 anglers present did very well. There were 5 members of the local host outdoor club present and only 1 spoke. He seemed mostly ambivalent too. He told afterwards that the Jackson Outdoor Club has bass tournaments on their lake to drum up membership and that he as has fished some tournaments too.
There was one guy who spoke and said he was representing all the anglers, tackles shop owners and others who wouldn’t attend meetings, but he had spoken to many of them and they were against fishing for spawning bass and represented the vast majority of anglers (I believe he said 98%). Pretty impressive I thought. He must have a big phone bill and spent a lot of hours to talk to that many people. There was also a person present recording some of us for a local radio show on AM 1450.
Caledonia saw a very strong bass tournament angler turnout with a few members from the host Caledonia club also present. There was one guy there from the ‘Gull Lake Quality Association’ or something like that. He just wanted to complain that one guy he knows says there’s no more big bass on Gull Lake and his group also wanted the MDNR to do post-tournament bass mortality studies at Gull. One Caledonia club member spoke and told the MDNR not to change the traditional season and to give us more spring catch-and-release bass fishing if they can’t show it will harm the populations – which they’ve admitted they don’t know. More anglers spoke here than any of the other meetings – about 14 people.
Unfortunately, there have been almost as many opinions as there have been anglers. Some anglers are demanding to know why the MDNR is trying to change things in the first place. At some meetings, they’ve pointed at me. At some, they said they periodically review the regs and that bass anglers have been asking for a change. Some anglers demanded to know exactly how many persons wanted change. Some have said “leave it alone if it ain’t broke.” Some are saying this because they are afraid of change. Some are saying it because scenario 3 that leaves the season as is, is the only scenario of the 4 the MDNR is supporting that they can accept. They are saying the MDNR is not giving them any other choice. Which is true so for.
A common theme is that the MDNR has already made up their mind. Several variations on that – some anglers say the MDNR will change whether they want it or not, and some say the MDNR is just determined to make the change of taking away part of our catch-and-keep season no matter what. Many tournament anglers have voiced their disappointment with the MDNR’s bias and obvious negativity towards bass tournaments. Many brought up how they have never seen an MDNR person at a weigh in. The MDNR claims they now want to work with us. One actually admitted the MDNR had a ‘hands off’ policy with bass tournaments before and couldn’t work with us. Some MDNR said we never invited them, but no one was really buying that even though some said it was true in their area. A couple anglers just said it was the MDNR’s job to see what was going on at bass tournaments.
I heard there were only 7 anglers at the Traverse City meeting. One spoke out for what we want very well, but 4 of them picked no change because they again felt the MDNR was determined to get scenario 3 to 6 only, and that 3 was the only acceptable choice the MDNR is allowing so far. A number of people have made comment that some of the MDNR seems very arrogant in this process. I have noticed that as they go along, they tweak their message and their behavior.
The MDNR Meeting Process
-The MDNR asks you to sign in, take a survey and fill it out. You are asked to sign a card if you want to speak or write comments. You are asked to sign in also naming any affiliation. The survey is aimed at only allowing you to give your opinion on the 4 scenarios the MDNR has approved. It categorizes you also. It’s designed so they know if you’re a bass tournament angler or not.
- The meetings start out with a 25 to 30 minute slide presentation by the MDNR.
- Then the MDNR allows up to a half an hour or so for questions about the presentation.
- After that, they allow those who chose to speak for 3 to 5 minutes each depending on the number of persons who have asked to speak.
Their presentation is something special. It includes new things they really didn’t get into in their report and is designed to convince you that 1) Michigan is different so what all other states are doing doesn’t count unless they say it does, and 2) You believe your only choices are what they want them to be, but you really do have a choice and they haven’t made up their mind. A big part of their presentation is they are so uncertain and don’t know so many things that we have no choice but to be over-conservative.
The MDNR says they will consider additional scenarios/options IF they meet 3 criteria the MDNR gets to decide on at some time in the future (possibly not until the NRC part next fall):
- The option must be biologically sound;
- The option can not previously be rejected by the MDNR;
- The option must not reduce the quality of the fishing.
Interesting that they admit they know so little about bass populations, I don’t know how they can determine accurately if something is biologically sound. Additionally, I was told by Todd Grischke that all 7 original scenarios would go to the public to be discussed, yet at the very first meeting, Tom Rozich, unit fisheries biologist for the Cadillac area, told us that scenario 1, 2 and 7 had been rejected by the MDNR and could not be discussed.
The last option is possibly the best though since any fisheries biologist knows that ‘quality of fishing’ means many different things to different anglers. It’s not really possible to manage every body of water to meet every angler’s expectations of quality. Some anglers want to catch a lot of bass. Some anglers want to catch mainly big bass. Some anglers want both. Some anglers think all bass should be catch-and-release and some want to keep the bass they catch.
Since the MDNR has already misled us by rejecting options before any of the public was heard, I do not believe they should be the ones to decide the 3 criteria above either and I told them that at Cadillac. My goal now is to try to force them to include the new scenario 8 as soon as possible. They don’t want to, I’m sure. Even though they say they haven’t made up their minds already, they really only mean leave it the same or lose 3 to 4 weeks of the existing catch-and-keep season. If they leave their 4 options as they only choices between now and the NRC meetings next fall, how do you think their ‘data’ will look?
Our Invalid Catch-and-Release Study
As we know, the MDNR now says our own MDNR catch-and-release bass study was so flawed, poorly designed and with no follow-up that it is useless. They say the 6 test lakes are completely different from any other lakes in the state. They say bass come from upriver (and one said downriver – they must be dam-leapers on some of the lakes) to replenish the stock that is caught. They admit they know hardly anything about the lakes now. Anglers were open to telling them about our tournament catches on some of the lakes, but we aren’t scientists, so our input isn’t apparently very valuable.
The Map
Possibly my favorite slide, the Map they put up to show that Michigan is unlike any other state in the US except possibly Maine, and most like Canada. They started out at the first meetings leading anglers to believe it was climate and therefore would make all of our bass be exactly like Ontario.
It didn’t take very long for many anglers to show their disbelief that the MDNR really expected us to buy that Minnesota, Wisconsin and Montana were more like Ohio and Indiana than Michigan. The MDNR had already said Michigan was very different than Ohio or Indiana.
The MDNR has changed their presentation of the ‘Map’ each meeting to try to clarify what it means. They now say it is a zooeography1 map that just means our distribution of animals is more like Ontario, and Minnesota, Wisconsin and Montana are more like Ohio and Indiana and some southern states. They say it just means Michigan is different. I said I felt the map was irrelevant and confusing unless their goal is to mislead the public. The MDNR needs to know about productivity of the lakes and growth rates, not whether we have more or less weasels.
1zooeography – a branch of biogeography concerned with the geographical distribution of animals and especially with the determination of the areas characterized by special groups of animals and the study of the causes and significance of such groups
Ontario has many shield lakes, which Michigan does not have. Many of their smallmouth studies have been done on shield lakes, which are very infertile lakes with low productivity – like comparing our lakes to Florida lakes – a large difference in productivity at times. It has also been shown that some of these Ontario bass lay much less eggs per bed than U.S. bass do. Even this has not been demonstrated to be a factor on bass populations, but it is a real difference compared to zoogeography. Same fish, different dynamics.
Growth Rates
The MDNR has also claimed our bass grow much slower than Ohio and Indiana. They then contradicted their selves at Novi by saying we have bass up north growing faster than some bass in the south and vice versa – in other words growth rates are affected by much more than just climate or location. They also admitted that productivity of our lakes varies widely around the state (what they know anyway) again with many differences in the north and south that don’t just directly correlate to a farther north means less productivity decision.
But they still state we can’t be compared to Indiana and Ohio – those states have legal catch-and-keep on most of their lakes all year (no closed seasons). At Novi, I asked one of the co-authors of the SALBRC ‘report’ to compare the growth rates of bass in southern Michigan to northern Ohio and Indiana. He told me in front of a good crowd that he did not know. I would think that a definite factor to compare our bass to other states’ bass would be to investigate growth rates. Luckily, I knew the answer since I have actually asked Indiana and Ohio fisheries biologists. On average, the inland bass in Ohio and Indiana have the same growth rates as Michigan bass. He did not seem appreciative of the info.
Actually, our MDNR has reported that Lake St. Clair smallmouth bass grow above the national average. They said at the meetings that the Great Lakes bass spawn later because of the cold water; That the Great Lakes are different from inland lakes because they are colder. I guess by different they mean the bass grow faster anyway? Maybe growth rates involve more than just climate and water temperature?
Western Bass
Another new thing almost as impressive as the ‘Map’ is that the MDNR has announced they are completely ignoring western states’ bass because they are a non-native species and therefore any management doesn’t matter. The first couple of meetings, the MDNR said the western states all considered bass a nuisance species and were trying to get rid of or lower their numbers to help ‘native’ species do better. As this was questioned the story changed that they just couldn’t go by any management of bass where they were not native. Do we have any non-native fish managed in Michigan?
I asked in Flint if another of the parties to the SALBRC report could name the western states that were trying to wipe out their bass verses actually manage them for good bass fishing. They said they didn’t actually say the western states were trying to wipe them out. They also couldn’t really answer my question because they didn’t have any information with them to review. Hmm? I read them the quote from Jim Martin in a BASS TIMES article about “overzealous” biologists meaning well, but restricting fishing and therefore hurting the very vehicle that provides them with their operating money. Jim Martin was the fisheries chief for the State of Oregon before going to work for Pure Fishing.
Uncertainty
The MDNR mantra is ‘UNCERTAINTY.’ They say the ‘available’ science shows that bass fishing beds negatively affects the success of individual beds. They repeatedly admit they do not know what the affects are on the bass population. They say no one has studies that show that. I keep asking about all the states that don’t seem to have the same level of uncertainty which may explain why 43 of them allow bass fishing all year legally, and they still have bass.
The MDNR tried to make a point at Novi that many states have ‘seasons’ but seemed to miss the point that they weren’t CLOSED seasons. The other states’ anglers can still fish legally for bass. They also exaggerated and claimed I was telling everyone only 3 states had seasons. I guess they don’t have a very good attention span or attention to detail. What I said is in my letter to them that many of them received.
They also claim that spring fishing may reduce recruitment and size structure. I read the information from the Minnesota DNR website to them that says, “In fact, researchers have found no correlation between the number of spawning bass and the subsequent number of young-of-the-year fish. The success of the spawn depends entirely on good spawning areas and stable weather.” The MDNR just asked me “what research?” I guess they consider the MN DNR to be liars. So I read a study result that I found with ease, despite having a full-time job, from Wisconsin entitled “The Use of a Spawning Season Closure to Protect Black Bass from Overharvest in Northern Wisconsin.” “Results from the study indicate that the spawning season closure had little effects on black bass populations, with the major change being a shift in maximum harvest from spawning season until later in the year.”
The MDNR asked me for the study since they weren’t familiar with it (nor many other studies apparently). Apparently, the MDNR has forgotten their own studies on recruitment. “Generally, there is no close relationship between the number of adult bass and the number of fingerling recruits they produce” Latta-MDNR 1974, 1975; “Only six adults per acre can produce excessive numbers of fingerlings” Schrouder et al. 1989, Mraz 1964-MDNR; “Generally, anglers are unable to catch every bass, or even enough bass to harm recruitment” Bennett 1972-MDNR. They also don’t seem to remember things about angler behavior that has been shown in studies to shift their effort accordingly with season attempts – which is another reason closed seasons are not a commonly accepted bass management tool.
Compensation
The big issue with us is the loss of the 3 to 4 weeks of existing bass season. The MDNR says we need to compensate for increased mortality of longer catch-and-release fishing with less catch-and-keep. They have been unable to answer our questions about real numbers for justifying how many weeks of catch-and-keep are needed to ‘offset’ this ‘increased’ mortality. I brought up their own study on bass delayed mortality that showed it was very low and many of them seemed unfamiliar with it or its results.
They are disregarding that a lot of incidental and purposeful spring bass fishing has been going on for decades and that our present season has not protected some or all of the bass spawn on many lakes for decades either, yet we have some of the best bass fishing ever. They agreed that some of our bass populations have improved, but they claim there will be many more anglers out there increasing mortality to some unknown number. We keep asking how can there be enough mortality to need offsetting when even during the catch-and-keep season, 70 to 92% of anglers are letting their bass go anyway. The MDNR claims the worse-case scenario they could find of up to 30% delayed mortality.
The MDNR’s own delayed mortality study shows a rate of 4% for lures and only up to 10% for live bait. That’s after repeated releases of many of the same bass. Most studies will show that mortality of bass due to fishing can be in the mid-30 to 40% and still have a good bass fishery. If the MDNR is right on St. Clair for example, and the kill rate during the season of bass is only 8% and delayed mortality is their worse-case in their own study of 10%, that would still mean a totally mortality of only 18%. Very low. Well below any threshold for a good bass fishery.
Of course, the MDNR has little data on the numbers of anglers and how many bass they are catching on many lakes. How can they know anything? What they are doing is trying to manage our bass on all our lakes down to our worst lakes. I have pointed this out and said they are not fulfilling their mission of providing optimum fishing opportunity if they restrict bass fishing on our many good bass lakes to attempt to help out the minority of our lakes that need help. Help they aren’t really getting, although the MDNR has said they may change that by increasing the emphasis on bass.
Genetics
A confusion tactic the MDNR is using is the transporting of bass by tournament anglers over long distances. We are all aware that the MDNR is attempting to make bass tournament anglers look bad since they expect us to put up a fight. They want division between us and non-tournament anglers. This genetics mixing is another muddying-the-water attempt. They say that they know walleye in Lake Erie have different genetics so they can assume bass do too. They say we may be damaging the genetics of our bass and it could have serious consequences in an unknown number of years.
One MDNR fish biologist did a really neat impromptu show about the history of man starting with the ice age to show that it has been such a tiny number of years we have been doing this that we can’t know anything yet, but beware. Based on his presentation, I will be long dead before we ever know if we’ve done something. But, the MDNR has also shown through tagging studies that smallmouth bass on the St. Clair River (even southern Lake Huron) to Lake Erie have some long distance natural movements that may have already mixed their own genetics before we did anything. I’m curious how they reconcile these two things. Of course, bass have been planted in so many new waters throughout the U.S. since the 1800’s, I wonder if there are any pure original genetic strains left anywhere.
Good Bass Lakes aren’t Fished
Another point they try to make is that we all ‘know’ good fishing lakes are those that aren’t fished so conversely, if we fish the lakes less, they will get better. Pretty simple, right? If only the dynamics of fishing populations were that simple. I’ve asked a couple of times that if it is that simple, how do they explain lakes that are fished, including legally during the spawn, being really good fishing too, such as the incredible fishing at Burt & Mullet? I can think of many other examples of lakes of all sizes.
I asked at the Caledonia meeting if the MDNR fish biologist presenter could explain to the anglers present what factors effect a bass population and to rank each one as to the impact of the factor. He looked caught off guard. Then he said productivity and climate would be involved and of course “fishing has an impact.” I asked what other factors and again how he would rank them and he replied, “I’m not a bass biologist.”
He also said we have to be careful because, “there could be other viruses out there we don’t even know about.” I have to wonder how these guys can even get out of bed in the morning with all the scary things that might happen.
One angler asked where the wisdom was in taking away more of the early tournament season forcing us to crowd more tournaments into the July – August timeframe that the MDNR claims is a higher risk to bass? They had no real answer to this. I get the impression they just think we will reduce our number of tournaments. They obviously believe we will change the way we have tournaments to meet their expectations.
At the Caledonia meeting (most recent), the MDNR announced it takes 5 to 6 years for a Michigan bass to reach 14” while it only takes 4 years in Indiana and Ohio. I know this is worse-case verses best case, but I also know many anglers have not called biologist from other states to confirm this, nor have they seen what information is available from Michigan to show that growth rates vary widely from as low as 3 years to reach 14” to six years. The same amount of time it does in many inland Ohio and Indiana lakes.
Where to go from here
We need to keep working on getting real data out to more anglers. We need to continue to work towards a consistent message from the majority of anglers who are taking the time to go to these meetings. Too many messages have been across the board. Scenario 8 is a good compromise, especially if MUCC comes on in favor of it. We may not get everything we want, but we are up against challenges of an MDNR that is opposed to bass tournaments as they are run now, and a public that has many who believe bass spawns must be protected all while fishing other fish during their spawn.
We need many more signatures on our petitions than there are bass tournament anglers. We need a large number of our own surveys completed to show to the MDNR and to others above that level. We need as many anglers as possible to be clear at least that they do not want the existing season shortened and they want more catch and release opportunity. We need to convince as many anglers as possible that they do not only have the 4 choices that MDNR wants them to believe they have (some anglers are choosing scenario 3 because they believe it is the “lesser of the evils”). I’m concerned too about just adding a few more lakes since that may end up requiring more meetings near each lake and hearing from each lake association how they don’t want more people on their lakes. I’ve been there before.
I’m also thinking that it may not be a good idea to turn in the MDNR survey since it only allows your opinions on the 4 scenarios they are limiting anglers to so far. If you make it clear you will not accept scenarios 4, 5 and 6, and that you want more than leaving things like they are (scenario 3), then it may be helpful
Do you want your MDNR to manage our bass based on uncertainty and guessing, using trout models to predict bass population effects? Or do you want them to look at what other states are doing and have shown to match our own experiences, especially those states that actually put an emphasis on bass management, and have real data and bass management expertise, and have recognized population models for bass?
For more information, please contact the Michigan Bass Anglers at 810-658-2540 or visit:
http://www.michiganbassanglers.com (no longer exists) or http://greatlakesbass.com/fishing/bassseason.htm