Michigan Governor Whitmer extends Stay Home order through April 30, 2020

[djkimmel]

By now I imagine many of you have already seen the latest Executive Order 2020-42 from today. Effective 11:59 PM today (4/9/2020) Governor Whitmer is extending her Stay Home, Stay Safe order through April 30, 2020.

In case you haven't done a thorough reading of all the available information, through April 30:

• ALL gatherings public or private of any size are prohibited unless they consist of only people who live in the same household;
• Traveling in a vehicle with anyone not from your household is prohibited;
• Boating (or fishing in the same boat) with anyone not from your household is prohibited.

So no fishing with your buddy, no bass tournaments, and no driving to the lake with your buddy. Plus, you are not supposed to travel to outdoor recreation activities outside of your 'local' area. They have NOT defined what that means by time or distance. They only refer to limited to 'your local community.' This new order also 'closes' all vacation properties, and ends advertising for products that are not allowed in the order. Fishing guides and fishing charters are all closed - this already existed with the previous order.

More restrictions and clarifications were made in this latest EO that replaces her original EO-21. I highly recommend that you read all of the available information before you risk doing something prohibited. Everything is available from michigan.gov/coronavirus. There are a number of other things in this order that will affect you in other areas. There are lots of other orders that may impact you in some way (~42 orders as of this moment).

Services and staff are not available at state public accesses but most of them remain open. We can help keep it that way by making sure we are following ALL guidelines including keep the 6 foot separation! Also, do not leave trash! While you're at it pick up trash after others because we can see closures if these kinds of things continue!

Tippy Dam Recreation Area was closed recently because anglers were not practicing separation, and the DNR found anglers from all over Michigan and even from out-of-state fishing there, and Wisconsin's Governor just ordered almost 50 of their state parks and other outdoor areas closed due to things like crowding and trash. The same thing can easily happen here.

I was made aware a couple nights ago the anglers who were not practicing separation, and fishing with persons not in their household were getting ticketed at Sterling State Park. That's a $1,000 fine! Ouch! Don't risk it, and help stop this virus from spreading. You CAN spread the illness BEFORE you are symptomatic, which is why social distancing is necessary.

It will take a while for things to return to 'normal' but the Governor outlined a number of indicators she would need to see to end these restrictions after April 30. We can't start finding normal until we can return to whatever the 'new normal' will be.

[21XDC]

I still like fishing by myself.... But I need to get back to work...

[21XDC]

Well, I'm not near the fisherman as some... I'm still young and a working man...

[fiker]

This week I spoke with the DNR office here at Island Lake Rec.   They told me that the docks that are in are good to go. 
No new docks will be installed until, after the EO expires as they are not considered essential.

[nitroderrek]

DNR website says all motor boat fishing is closed through april 30
You risk a $1,000 fine
Fyi

[Hollada]

https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/0,9753,7-406-98810-525445--,00.html

[djkimmel]

We are just finding out about this new 'restriction' that truly came with no warning out of left field. I am working with whatever contacts to find out who exactly came up with this ridiculous, completely unfair and poorly supported additional restriction.

I have read EO 42 several times and nowhere in it does it disallow motorized boats. Nowhere in ANY order does it disallow motorized boats. I'm trying to determine at minimum is this truly an MDNR interpretation, or did someone in the Governor's office think this up (find that hard to believe).

I know the few rationales I have seen put out so far for this interpretation make no sense. This is NOT about boating/fishing being for exercise only as it's ridiculous to claim 'sail boating' is exercise while fishing from any kind of boat is not.

Another reason given is that 'motorized' boats are more likely to "need parts" and gasoline... So there are no kayakers, canoes or sail boaters buying gas to get to the lake?? What does it matter if I buy $10 worth of gas verses $40?? I know I haven't bought a single 'part' this spring to go fishing by myself with my little stern-mounted electric motor.

This is clearly somebody's bad idea to not close fishing/boating altogether, but to restrict how many are able to go by choosing a tiny subset of boaters who can still do so using obviously ridiculous reasons to make it okay to play choose some over others. Completely Un-American to me.

I don't feel the failure to have 'better social separation' is primarily on the anglers. Everyone saw repeated references that you could still go fishing, while the further restriction that you could ONLY do so with others from your own household did not even get clearly spelled out until a few days ago, and you had to do some persistent hunting and pecking to figure that out. The State of Michigan did not pull all that information together and put it all available from the main michigan.gov/coronavirus page until Thursday evening (4/9/2020).

No wonder very few anglers knew the extent of what they were supposed to do, and yet someone is complaining that some of them weren't doing things right. FIRST, they have to know they are supposed to do them, and that lies with the State of Michigan to put that information out where most people will find it and understand it. That simply did not happen until the last couple days. You had to know to read EVERYTHING linked from the main State coronavirus page  AND EVERYTHING on multiple pages on the DNR website to put it all together. I KNOW to do that and I still wasn't able to find everything and figure out the full extent until later Wednesday!?!

The link that Hollada shared above - the information was NOT there until sometime Thursday (April 10). Some unknown person with a bee in their bonnet saw a chance to swing this home and took it despite people not even knowing in numbers yet of the 'earlier' household only restriction. How can people demonstrate acceptance for a restriction they don't even know about?? And then we punish them further by singling out certain parts of that public group for complete dis-allowance because they supposedly didn't properly obey a restriction they didn't yet know existed.

It's a travesty to single out a part of a group for exclusion because what you really want to do is reduce the number of people doing something you are actually ALLOWING, and they are the easiest part of the group to exclude. As I said, this is Un-American. What I know it will do is increase the stress and strain on our Michiganders, and our natural resources economy. This could, and should, DEFINITELY have been handled better. I could easily justify all kinds of bad decisions in a strange and uniquely foreign situation like this, but plenty of people would still see it for what it is, a crock of something...

To make sure there is no misunderstanding, all of the words in this post are my own opinions, having nothing to do with any group I might work with in some capacity. I do know other groups ARE up in arms about this situation, and I wish them fast and total success. This has been such a crazy situation I don't think there's anything wrong with waking up tomorrow and admitting, 'we screwed up' while rescinding this bad idea.

[TheFishinPollock]

I read an article with a link to peta donations and who they come from about 3 weeks ago Dan.( I will dig around and see if i can find it) Our AG's name was clearly printed out that she is a donater to them, so I would venture to guess she had a giant hand in all this. Clearly this is discrimination. When you take a group of people and single out a certain percentage of it , that is discrimination. Plain and simple. What really ticks me off is up here we have low cases , mostly because there are not many of us, but because we are not crowding ramps and boats. WE are being punished and treated like we are part of detroit and we are not.

Two things this new order will defiantly do is increase pier, river and shore fishing thus putting more people in closer contact with each other. Secondly, as water temps are hovering around the 45 degree mark, flipping over in a canoe or kayak becomes a real life threatening possibility, thus endangering our state citizens even more.

I am completely astounded that the high ups at the DNR did nothing about this and have yet to do anything about it. Not sure what they can do , but for the love of God , say something publicly so we know you actually care about the 800,000 sportsperson's in this state.

[21XDC]

https://www.change.org/p/gretchen-whitmer-allow-motorized-boats-on-michigan-waterways-during-covid-19-quarantine


(edited link for length and forum formatting by dropping the unique identification attributions, does not change the use of the link, thanks - Dan)

[Bloomer]

sooooo, I can still ride my atv around, and get my pot delivered to my doorstep, But taking out a bassboat is illegal?.......makes perfect sense.....?

[triton22]

My btother who lives in wyandotte said the ramps downriver were so full the city's ask the DNR to shut them down

[cameraguy]

I read an article with a link to peta donations and who they come from about 3 weeks ago Dan.( I will dig around and see if i can find it) Our AG's name was clearly printed out that she is a donater to them, so I would venture to guess she had a giant hand in all this. Clearly this is discrimination. When you take a group of people and single out a certain percentage of it , that is discrimination. Plain and simple. What really ticks me off is up here we have low cases , mostly because there are not many of us, but because we are not crowding ramps and boats. WE are being punished and treated like we are part of detroit and we are not.

Two things this new order will defiantly do is increase pier, river and shore fishing thus putting more people in closer contact with each other. Secondly, as water temps are hovering around the 45 degree mark, flipping over in a canoe or kayak becomes a real life threatening possibility, thus endangering our state citizens even more.

I am completely astounded that the high ups at the DNR did nothing about this and have yet to do anything about it. Not sure what they can do , but for the love of God , say something publicly so we know you actually care about the 800,000 sportsperson's in this state.

Not sure you read Dan?s posts thoroughly (I know they are long-but they are informative) but the motorized boat exclusion was NOT part of the executive order. That provision can be found on the MI DNR site.

[cameraguy]

First attachment is passage from Gov. Whitmer?s actual order. Second is from DNR site.
Where did this addition come from? Did it go through Gov. office? Or was it a single DNR division head making their own interpretation and taking things too far?

[djkimmel]

That's a great question! How did the tiny mention in the actual Executive Order of a few particular outdoor examples turn into a complete ban on motorized boats (including electric)?!? I've always believed punishing the majority of good people because of a minority of bad people a horrible mistake that is costing the future of hunting and fishing every time it happens.

[21XDC]

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B-3OB3yjAMs/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

[TheFishinPollock]

It's so muddled up now. I don't think anyone knows cameraguy.  Either way it's a total mule fritter show out there. Reports all over the state of DNR escorting people and their boats out of launches, tickets being given, and now some ramps on st clare or the DR are being totally blocked off by concrete barriers even restricting access to row boats sailboats and kayaks and canoes.  Guys talking directly to CO's stating they think it is garbage , but they are following the rules that their bosses told them to.

On her FAQ page , she did clarify that it is no boats with a motor . I did all I could by writing her on her website, contacting my rep and senator for the state. Not sure what else I personally can do beyond blatantly disregarding her order , risking one of the 1000.00 tickets.

She seemed to cherry pick on this go around of order for sure.

One thing I do know. May 1st, if the weather is not snowing like it is supposed to all week up here, I'm going out. Because of this the walleye opener on my lake will be interesting to say the least. I'm not sure I can row my little boat fast enough to troll .

[cameraguy]

Many stores in my area offer senior hours. That?s when I go. I am far more concerned being in a store even during these hours and even though I wear a mask and gloves. Aisles are smaller and many people do not respect the 6? safe distance. When I went fishing in the last week or so, I never came within 30 or 40? of someone who wasn?t fishing with me. Not hard to keep separate at all at a gas pump or ramp.