With a name like the Blue Water region, our community has a reputation to live up to. Surrounded by water, local and out-of-town fishermen alike scour Lake St. Clair and its adjoining rivers year-round. They have already contributed heavily to the economy here, and St. Clair County is working hard to make changes to entice the fishermen even more.
The fishing community
Jaron Anderson, whose father owns Anderson’s Pro Bait in Port Huron, has seen customers come in and out of the shop for more than 15 years. He and his father are the eyes and ears of the community. He talks with anglers stopping in from the Flint area, south toward Detroit, and up in the Thumb. He guesses about half of the store's customers aren’t from St. Clair County.
Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources 2016 Lake St. Clair creel survey shows 19 percent of anglers interviewed came from out of state, mostly Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, but as far as Arizona.
“At my DNR office, I get more and more inquiries from out of state folks about making a trip here to fish,” says Sara Creque Thomas, DNR Fisheries’ Lake Erie unit manager.
DNR conducted a 2016 survey on Lake St. Clair that estimated its boat anglers spent over half a million hours fishing and caught about 630,800 fish. This means 16 percent of fish caught in the state and 15 percent of time spent fishing is attributed to Lake St. Clair’s anglers. By size, Lake St. Clair would only be behind Lake Erie in terms of hours of fishing, logging in about 3,400 hours per square mile, Thomas says.
Our rare opportunities
Visitors come because not only are there plenty of opportunities for fishing, but the river system here is very unique with its fast current and the variety in catches.
“All of the water is coming right through a 150 yard stretch, so it’s a lot of current,” Anderson says, adding that the next closest comparison would be the speedy Niagara River.
In St. Clair County, most anglers cast into the St. Clair River, Lake Huron, and Lake St. Clair, according to its Parks and Recreation Commission.
While fishing in these waters is popular year-round, once the water warms up, anglers see smallmouth and silver bass. Before that, these rivers and lakes are full of walleye, common in Michigan, but in our area they can even be caught from shore.
In Lake St. Clair, a recent DNR fishing report found walleye, especially at night, and bass, and noted carp and catfish near the Clinton River spillway. In the spring, Anderson suggests the area where the St. Clair River meets the Black River to spot walleye. He likes to fish there and in Lake Huron near the shipping channels.
Thomas says St. Clair River’s top harvest is white bass, but panfish, channel catfish, and northern pike can be found in our waters too, along with the many aforementioned species. She calls the smallmouth bass and muskellunge fishing in the area “world-class,” and 2016 Lake St. Clair non-charter DNR data reports over 9,000 muskies. It doesn’t end there. The St. Clair River and Black River are home to brown trout and can bring in salmon and whitefish coming from Lake Huron. PARC adds that anglers catch lake trout, steelhead, smelt, perch, pike, carp, and catfish within the county.
From April to September last year, Lake St. Clair boat anglers were estimated to have caught over a quarter of a million yellow perch, the most common catches for them, then smallmouth bass, followed by largemouth bass, bluegill, rock bass, and walleye as the sixth most commonly caught.
Friends of the St. Clair River host the Blue Water Sturgeon Festival in early June to highlight one of the most impressive fish in the river. Lake sturgeon are a threatened species in Michigan, but the St. Clair River has the most of them along with Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River. According to DNR Fisheries, there are more lake sturgeon caught in St. Clair’s waterways than the rest of the state.
Sturgeon go back to their sites of birth to spawn. Many of these areas were ruined by transportation channels and pollution in the past, but both of the historic sites active today are in the St. Clair River.
“They’re kind of like dinosaurs; they’ve never changed in hundreds and hundreds of years,” Anderson says of the large, powerful fish.
Regulations to wrangle them are catch-and-immediate-release with special permits and a limit of one per permit-holder per year.
DNR’s best choices for edible fish in St. Clair County are bluegill, black crappie, white (silver) bass, and yellow perch.
Local advancements
With fishing comes boating, and the Blue Water region has made recent advancements to get more people on the water.
Kayaking and canoeing has increased as a result of community and government efforts, and the fact that it is cost effective. If people can’t afford large boats, they can still get out on the water. While many people with small watercraft paddle simply to explore narrow paths and relax, some choose to fish from them.
Over Memorial Day, Anderson saw 50-60 people kayaking while he was on the Black River, where many kayakers say is a good spot, compared to less than five about three years ago. The shop has paid attention to this trend and now carries rod holders for kayaks and other equipment for small watercraft fishermen.
Part of this rise has to do with the many handicap accessible floating launches, EZ Launches, that have been popping up over the last decade.
Because the launches, made for kayaks and canoes, float, they can align to the water level. The accessible launches have a bench overlooking a rail-lined board with rollers on the bottom to make transitioning from a wheelchair to the kayak or canoe manageable. Transfer boards slide out and directly above the vessel, into a support for stabilization, providing a sort of bridge from the floating launch to the vessel.
The first one, in Ft. Gratiot Twp.’s North River Road Park, was built in 2008 through the Kellogg Foundation’s Access to Recreation grant program. St. Clair County’s PARC started out applying for the grant with help from the St. Clair County Community Foundation. The commission pioneered these EZ Launches in the state, working with EZ Dock’s Michigan distributor to create and improve them, Mark Brochu, PARC’s director, says.
“Our portion of the grant project was to develop and install accessible canoe and kayak launches in Fort Gratiot Township and the city of St. Clair,” Brochu says. “Based on the success and popularity of the launches, the Parks and Recreation Commission decided to offer launches to all communities in St. Clair County.”
There are now seven launches in the county: the initial Fort Gratiot Twp. launch on the Black River; two in Port Huron Twp., one in Bakers Field Park and another at the 40th Street Pond; the newest on Port Huron’s Seventh Street Bridge on the Black River, Marysville’s Chrysler Beach; St. Clair’s marina on the Pine River; and East China Twp. on Belle River Road north of Springborn. There are plans to build this summer at Woodsong County Park. Fort Gratiot Twp., Port Huron Twp., and Port Huron’s Black River launches are part of the Island Loop Water Trail, the county’s first National Water Trail.
Cities and townships in the county hoping to gain an EZ Launch partner with PARC to make it happen. According to St. Clair County PARC, it methodically and consistently allocates millage funds to local units of government (about 25 percent, or well over $4 million in five years), something no other county in the state does. The commission contributes through its millage by providing the launch, promoting it, and providing upgrades and a sign. Local government, then, has its own responsibilities including securing a park site and safe route to access and general maintenance after installation, like moving the launch so it is not damaged by the seasons.
Thank a fisherman
The results of the county’s prospering water recreation and fishing spots have no bounds. Local kayakers might grab a cold drink after their time on the water. An out-of-town angler might stop at a store for fishing gear and bait, pay for gas at the marina, eat at a restaurant, and spend the night at a hotel.
“Rough estimates of dollars spent by Lake St. Clair anglers during 2016 was just under $4 million,” DNR’s Thomas says, looking at a United States Fish and Wildlife Service survey. “These are just rough estimates, and it’s likely higher than that.”
St. Clair County provides anglers excitement, an array of fish, and uncommon opportunities, and they in turn help the economy.