Mike Schoonveld: Game fish spearing expanded in Michigan… Hooray!

Michigan has a long history of creating rules and regulations designed to increase opportunities for hunters, anglers, and other outdoor lovers.

Most recently, the Michigan Natural Resources Commission expanded the places where underwater spearfishing for walleyes, northern pike, and lake trout will be allowed. Good for them! Michigan has often been the leader when it comes to fish and game regulations and now they are showing the way by promoting participation in this little-known fishing adventure.

Only about half of the states allow underwater spearfishing at all. Why not more? I’m sure there are several reasons. Many, I suppose, have never had much demand for it. Scuba diving and snorkeling are “background” recreational activities in most inland states and only a portion of the participants of scuba or free-diving want to spear any fish while they are underwater.

Those states that do allow underwater spearfishing mostly restrict it to spearing “rough” fish – usually carp, suckers and others. Catfish? Some places yes, some no. Hardly any states allow spearing or arrowing what most people call game fish – the ones anglers like to angle for and the ones most people enjoy eating. Again, why not?

Perhaps the rule-setters think spearfishing is unsporting or too easy. There could be places where spearfishing would be like shooting fish in a barrel. When I’m fishing with conventional tackle, I like to cast a lure into those “fish in a barrel” hotspots. Would spearfishing there be too easy?

I don’t think so, but what do I know. I’ve only done it once and that was on a saltwater reef teeming with fish.

Most fish swam away out of range. Some turned to look at me presenting a tiny target. I barely speared enough for lunch.

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Perhaps the rule-setters think spearfishing would lead to overharvest of game species. Really? There are hundreds of thousands of conventional tackle anglers in most of the states that allow spearfishing (over 800,000 in Michigan.)

Most spearfishing-legal states don’t require a special permit. Michigan does, allowing the DNR to track effort and success. In the past few years, fewer than 5,000 underwater spearfishing permits have been issued each year. How many fish are a few thousand spearfishers going to harvest compared to hundreds of thousands of boat and bank anglers? Not many.

Spearfishers have been required to report their efforts since 2022 when they were first allowed to target walleye, northern pike and lake trout and report how many of these game fish they harvested.

What’s your guess of the total harvest?

In the first three years an average of 430 walleyes per season were speared, 19 northern pike, and five lake trout.

Most days, most spearfishers go home empty handed.

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From 2022 to 2025 spearfishing has been allowed in Lake Huron from the mouth of the St. Clair River to the south pier of the Thunder Bay River. In Lake Michigan it’s been allowed from Grand Haven south to the Michigan/Indiana state line. There are closed areas in these zones, most notably within 150 feet of designated swimming areas, boat docks, boat access sites and other areas.

Weather regulates spearfishing activity much more than it does conventional tackle fishing. Even if spearfisher-folks fished as much as anglers, and if they were able to harvest a limit every time they fished, the spearfishing harvest would be insignificant.

Realistically, most spearfishing participants targeting lakers, walleyes or northern pike consider getting one fish a good outing. A conventional angler can choose to release a fish caught with a hook or lure if it’s undersized or they just don’t elect to keep it.

There’s no catch-and-release with spearfishing. Being skewered by a spear is a death sentence for a fish. Doesn’t that make it different? Certainly, but remember, a conventional angler has little control over what species of fish bites his hook or the size of the fish.

Spearfishing participants have to be able to see the fish in order to spear it. They can pass on unwanted fish, fish illegal to harvest, or fish of certain sizes, just as hunter can choose to not shoot if they encounter an animal not legal to harvest or not up to their personal standards.

The NRC voted to expand underwater spear fishing beginning in April of 2026 to include Lake Superior and Lake Erie. Good for them!

The Michigan DNR’s 2026 Fishing Guide and the DNR’s eRegulation website will detail these changes and other pertinent information long before the spearfishing season opens.