I kept waiting for the disappointment.
It didn’t come. I’d seen a deer dart across the abandoned lane over which I was sitting. I heard scrambling in the brush and, this being the thick of the rut, figured a buck was chasing a doe. Sure enough, a mature doe walked out of the thicket and paused to look back, 25 yards away.
Steve Griffin: No disappointment in taking a Michigan doe Read More »
If you build it, bending a phrase from the classic baseball film “Field of Dreams,” they will come. And spawn.
“They” are fish, and the proof is in reproduction observed on the Coreyon Reef, constructed five years ago about seven miles off Saginaw Bay’s eastern shoreline in Michigan and now known to have attracted spawning walleyes and lake whitefish.
A new spawning reef will benefit Michigan’s Saginaw Bay fish Read More »
We’re a long way from the phrase’s origins, cradled as we are by fresh, not saltwater seas, and yet there’s something that stirs some anglers’ souls by the notion that “surf’s up!”
Sure, on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and even some Great Lakes shorelines, “Surf’s up!” signals a scramble for boards and, often, wetsuits. That’s fun. I found out when I tried it a half-century ago. But what I truly love about surf is the great fishing that can accompany a series of breaking waves.
Steve Griffin: The lure of the surf and chance at a big fish is alive and well Read More »
The horn’s blare was aimed at us, a grandpa and grandson putting through one of the extensive slow/no-wake sections of Spring Lake and adjacent Grand River in Michigan.
We’d been talking, as such oldster/youngster teams do, about anything and everything. Now we were talking about (and soon with) an officer at the bow of the Sheriff Department Marine Patrol Boat, its bright blue light flashing on the hardtop.
Steve Griffin: Creating wake in a no-wake zone on Michigan waters can court trouble Read More »
I cringe when I hear talk of the “good old days.”
I know for many, the past is cloaked in warm memories, and I’ve got a few of them, but for me there’s also a lot of cold feet, deer-free woods, clunky fishing tackle, and hassles of all kinds in my mental scrapbook. I’ll take today, any day.
Among the deer regulation changes considered and acted upon by the Michigan Natural Resources Commission a few weeks ago, I don’t like the change in September (Liberty – for youths and hunters with disabilities) and October (Independence – for disabled veterans and other hunters with disabilities) special hunts.
In a professed effort to boost the harvest of antlerless deer, both hunts will become antlerless-only beginning next year. The July slate of proposals reflected, in large part, the wide range of issues and potential solutions surrounding the Michigan white-tailed deer. The big issues, though, boil down to two, at least in the Lower Peninsula: too many deer on the landscape, and a shrinking number of hunters to harvest them into balance.
Steve Griffin: Antlerless-only rule for special hunts in Michigan is a bad idea Read More »
For many Michigan anglers on Saginaw Bay, Great Lakes piers and other places, catching a sheepshead or freshwater drum is a rather novel addition to a day focused on walleye, steelhead, perch or other quarry.
But for a seemingly increasing number of anglers, particularly on Great Lakes piers such as those on Lake Michigan at Grand Haven, the drum is a native species hard to – pardon the pun – beat.
Steve Griffin: For fun, you can’t beat a drum! Read More »
Why should I care about restoring coaster brook trout to Lake Superior and its shoreline tributaries? Because they’re native, they’re spectacular, they’re fascinating – and we put them on the ropes.
Yes, and especially because they swim in a bit of mystery. Coaster brook trout are big-water-roaming versions – Trout Unlimited calls them a “life history variation” – of stream brook trout.
Steve Griffin: Here’s why I care about Lake Superior coaster brook trout Read More »
What’s a “coaster” brook trout? And what can be done to foster stronger populations of them?
Such questions were among those addressed by a panel including Michigan DNR Fisheries Biologist Troy Zorn; Michigan Tech University Professor Chris Adams, who heads the conservation committee of the Michigan Council of Trout Unlimited; and Seth Waters, a local guide who’s made a specialty of pursuing the fish.
Michigan program seeks more information on coaster brook trout Read More »
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