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Representative Cam Cavitt is a proponent of a House bill that would give commercial fishers a chunk of the walleye and lake trout in Lake Huron. Is this a good idea?
House Bill 5801 would require the Fisheries Division of the DNR to allow commercial harvest of lake trout, walleye, and yellow perch in all commercial fishing waters of Michigan's Great Lakes. There is a lot more, 45 pages of it, but this is at the heart of the bill.
I had the opportunity to discuss this bill at a meeting at TackleLand bait and tackle in Harrisville. TackleLand's owner had asked Rep. Cavitt to explain his position on HB 5801 and offered to host a meeting of recreational anglers to hear Rep. Cavitt's point of view. Rep. Cavitt agreed and invited the Commercial Fish Producers Association's hired lobbyist and their fisheries biologist as well as several commercial fishers. They led the discussion. There were 8 or 9 recreational fishers there, including yours truly. The presence of both sides gave us a chance to hear each other's points of view.
The commercial fishery is not allowed to harvest walleye or lake trout. Until the invasion of our lakes by zebra and quagga mussels, the commercial fishers targeted whitefish, which were not readily caught by hook and line, and anglers focused on salmon, trout, and walleye. But then came the plankton-sucking mussels that undermined the food supply for both whitefish and salmon. The commercial and recreational fishers lost the staples of their fishing. Recreational fishing for trout and salmon on Lake Huron shrunk 3-fold. The number of full-time State-licensed commercial fishers on Lake Huron has dropped to about a half dozen. Saginaw Bay faired much better because mussels could not completely throttle the plankton there, thanks to the steady infusion of nutrients from the Saginaw River (maybe not all nutrient enrichment is bad?). In the Bay, whitefish fry seem to be getting plenty to eat, whitefish commercial harvest has held steady, and a robust walleye recreational fishery brings millions of dollars to our coastal communities.
I have described these issues in previous columns: the plight of the commercial fishery in northern Lake Huron, the slow but promising recovery from near extinction of lake trout in the main basin, and the partnership of the DNR and local angling groups to stock and restore walleye in Saginaw Bay. The recovered walleye of Saginaw Bay is probably the principal driver behind HB 5801. Walleye fillets are worth as much or more than whitefish in the marketplace and are being caught in trap nets set for whitefish. Why is the commercial fishery prohibited from keeping some of them?
One argument for commercial harvest we heard at the TackleLand meeting was that harvesting more walleye would help bring back Lake Huron's prey base. There are two flaws to this: 1) the invasive mussels have pulled the rug out from under the prey base and harvesting more walleye won't change that, and 2) if enough walleye were harvested to measurably restore a prey base there would likely be too few walleyes left to be attractive as a recreational species. Walleye must be abundant to attract the number of anglers Saginaw Bay enjoys today. Lowering the number of walleyes puts that fishery at risk and could cost our coastal communities important economic activity derived from this world-class fishery.
Besides, it is comforting to know that a dense walleye population is our best guard against the next invader. It seems we get a new invasive species every few years. Besides maintaining a balance with the invasive round goby, rainbow smelt, and alewives, walleye are our first line of defense against the next invader.
Because walleyes in Lake Huron are centered in Saginaw Bay, a "walleye dividend" for the commercial fishery would mostly go to those fishing Saginaw Bay, where whitefish are still doing fine and the commercial fishery is already thriving. The beleaguered commercial operations of northern Lake Huron would realize much less benefit.
HB 5801 would also let the commercial fishery harvest lake trout. The commercial interests at the TackleLand meeting argued, erroneously, that there are "billions of lake trout" in Lake Huron. Nope. Maybe that's the perception now that whitefish have almost disappeared from the northern half of the lake, meaning the nets now catch mostly lake trout. Because a Consent Decree dictates allocation in Treaty Waters, the State cannot legally allocate lake trout to state-licensed fishers there. Elsewhere, the quota would likely be at the expense of recreational fishing because there may be too few lake trout to supply a commercial harvest without a sacrifice by recreational fishers, who can expect more stringent harvest limits
There are so few commercial fishers that their license fees have never been sufficient to fund the commercial fishing program. Recreational license revenues have been used to fund the commercial fishing program because the legislature seldom gives the Fishery Division tax dollars (this is so wrong!). This budget year is no exception: the Fishery Division will be operating almost entirely off its license fee revenue and Federal Aid to Sportfishing dollars. Recreational fishers have not, to date, objected to this arrangement, but will they support this new use of their license dollars to subsidize commercial fishing for species their license revenues and volunteer work helped to restore?
The Great Lakes and their fish populations are vested in the people of Michigan - they are administered for you and me by the State for maximum public benefit. Under this "Public Trust Doctrine", how can walleye and lake trout quotas be allocated to a half dozen Lake Huron commercial fishers without damaging recreational fishing that benefits 10s of thousands of anglers and our coastal tourism industry?
I can see room for accommodating some of the concerns voiced by commercial interests represented at the TackleLand meeting. For example, Lake Huron's warming water means lake trout are not surviving trap net lifts in July and August like they used to. And we know that walleye caught in deep-set trap nets are unlikely to survive. Maybe there are ways to focus on these issues that would also allow for a modest harvest of these lake trout and walleye by the commercial fishery - by modest, I mean numbers that would not tip the scales and require expensive stock assessments to accommodate them. There may be some remedies, but is HB 5801 the answer? I don't think so. You might want to let Rep. Cavitt know what you think.