Detroit Life

Commercial fishing families say Michiganders who can’t afford their own boats would lose more than just tradition if the industry continues to decline.

“All your restaurants — you're not going to buy [Great Lakes] fish because that sports fishery can't help the restaurant,” said Denise Purvis, who handles sales and marketing for Purvis Fisheries, which harvests fish off Lake Huron’s Manitoulin Island and buys some Michigan-caught fish.

Aside from perch, farms don’t raise the most popular Great Lakes fish to eat. For folks ordering whitefish, walleye or tribal-caught lake trout in Michigan, the only question is whether it was caught on the U.S. or Canadian side of a lake, Amber Mae Petersen said.

Order one of those fish in Northern Michigan or the U.P., and it most likely came from Michigan waters, she said. Restaurateurs downstate are less guaranteed to see Michigan-caught fish on their plates.

“If we go away as a commercial fishery, your only option will be farm-raised. So anybody that's desiring wild-caught Great Lakes fish from the United States, you're going to look hard and long and far — or go catch it yourself,” Petersen said.

Following her emotional testimony Tuesday, committee chair Rep. Gary Howell, R-North Branch, said he would assemble a workgroup to hash out differences over the legislation this summer.

Paltry fines and fees

Michigan last updated fines and fees for commercial fishermen in 1928, while the value of a dollar has since increased 15-fold.  Currently, fines top out at $100 for offenses such as for keeping fish illegally. That makes prosecutors less likely to pursue charges.  

“That is not much of a disincentive if you're a fisherman landing tens of thousands of dollars worth of fish in an outing — over your licensed allocation,” Jim Dexter, the DNR fisheries chief, told lawmakers on June 11.

Recreational anglers, in contrast, face up to $500 in fines for keeping one too many fish.

Under the proposed legislation, law-breaking commercial fishermen could see fines as high as $5,000. Annual license fees would jump to $1,400 from $200, with the potential for more increases in coming years.  

The hikes would come at a time when commercial fishermen seek looser regulations.

Calls to ease up

Joel Petersen splits his time fishing outside of Leland and Muskegon. The Leland side of his business couldn’t stay afloat without a nonprofit’s subsidy; The Fishtown Preservation Society, whose mission includes preserving Michigan’s commercial fishing heritage by keeping an active operation on Fishtown’s docks, owns and maintains the Joy and its state license.

“We’re a niche fishery,” Petersen said. “We can’t catch the volumes. There’s not enough guys left. There’s not enough fishermen left, and the lake’s changing where there might not be the fish to support a fishery anymore.”

He says allowing him to keep lake trout — just those that inevitably swim into the nets he sets for far more valuable whitefish — would improve his fortunes. Petersen sees so many lake trout darting beneath Lake Michigan’s waters that he believes the fish are fully rehabilitated — and that the state needs of higher quotas.