Big fish hunting on Lake St. Clair

Video by ERIC SHARP/DFP
Join Freep outdoor writer Eric Sharp for a look at the fishing that has made Lake St. Clair one of the top destinations for the elusive muskellunge.

Click here for the video:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080627/VIDEO02/80626077/1058/SPORTS10

Lake Erie is giving up good catches of walleye on purple and gold spoons in 18-20 feet of water. Yellow perch are active in the shipping channels, near the Detroit Light and farther south toward the Bessie Power Plant. Near Lake Erie Metro Park the bass and pan fish are active, and out in front of Pointe Mouille, anglers are using green crawlers for good catches of catfish. Off of the Monroe area, decent fishing taking place around Bolles Harbor and in and around the cuts and channels of Sterling State Park and the Detroit Beach Boat Club. The River Raisin is giving up some nice perch when trolling with spoons, also around Luna Pier is a good location.

Ford and Belleville lakes are giving up good catches of crappie, blue gill and walleye. Hot spots include near Edison Lake Road by the Dam and near Rawsonville Road and bridges in town. Anglers are using leeches and minnows with good results.

Anchor Bay near Fair Haven is giving up decent catches of bass and blue gill on minnows, worms and crawlers.

Click here for the entire fishing report:
http://www.autoclubgroup.com/michigan/fishing.asp?zip=48220

Madison Mackie
June 26, 2008 at 6:47 pm
7 pounds, 5 ounces
20 inches long

Perch are being caught in the Great Lakes. Inland, anglers are catching bass, pike, walleye and catfish. Lots of rock bass are also being caught.

Lake Erie - Walleye fishing has improved to fair. Fish have been found in 25 to 27 feet of water near the Fermi Plant and Stony Point. Pink, gold and purple baits were the ticket. A few yellow perch freshwater drum were also caught. Smallmouth bass were caught near Bolles Harbor.

Huron River - Good numbers of catfish have been caught on crawlers, shrimp and even chicken liver. Smallmouth bass are hitting on spinners, crank baits or crawlers.

Detroit River - Jigging or handlining is producing fair to good numbers of walleye. Try rapalas, worms or leeches.

Lake St. Clair - Yellow perch have been caught by those willing to put in the time. Locate a school of perch and fish until the bite stops. Try perch rigs with shiners.

Lexington - Trout and salmon are being caught in 45 to 65 feet of water. Those fishing inside the harbor have caught walleye, pike and a variety of panfish.

Click here for the entire DNR fishing report:
http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10364-34956--,00.html

In the Fair Haven area, perch are active in the shipping channels and around number 26 and 28 buoys. Anglers are using minnows for best results. Small mouth bass are active in 6-8 feet of water on green or brown tubes. Walleye anglers are trolling all parts of the river and using bottom bouncers, activity has slowed however. Blue gill catches are decent around Harsen’s Island on leaf worms and small crawlers.

Walleye fishing is great on both sides of Grosse Ile, the mouth of the Detroit River, and the Trenton Channel. Anglers are hand line trolling with Rapalas or bottom bouncers. Walleye action is also good in Lake Erie in 20-feet of water using blue, silver and clown pattern spoons, as well as reef runners. Off of the Flat Rock area the perch action is good on Lake Erie right around the Ohio/Michigan line and near the Sputnik Buoy. Off of Pointe Mouille and Lake Erie Metro Park, anglers will find easy access, and some great conditions for catching catfish, perch and blue gill. Bass season opens Saturday.

Near the Monroe area, Lake Erie is giving up good catches of walleye in 20-feet of water in front of the Fermi Plant, and also around Little Sister Island between Ohio and Monroe. Three miles off of Bolles Harbor the perch fishing is good. Anglers are trolling with purple, gold and silver spoons and mini divers.

Click here for the entire fishing report:
http://www.autoclubgroup.com/michigan/fishing.asp?zip=48220

They are catching perch by the South Channel past the Fire Cracker on both the American and Canadian side of the lake. Perch are also are being caught in Anchor Bay.

Around the Fair Haven area, small mouth bass are plentiful on tube jigs and spinner bait however it is still catch and release at this point. The official bass season starts on June 21, 2008. Walleye action has slowed on the river this week. The shipping channels are producing good numbers of perch on minnows around buoys 26 and 28.

n the Port Huron area, the mouth of the Black River continues to give up decent catches of silver bass, smallmouth bass and pike.

St. Clair anglers have good action this week for walleye in the 14-21 inch range between St. Clair and Marine City. Crawler harnesses, Rapalas, and pencil plugs are doing the trick.

Click here for the entire fishing report:
http://www.autoclubgroup.com/michigan/fishing.asp?zip=48220

Waste site planned north of Sarnia, stirring fears of water contamination

By Chad Selweski
Macomb Daily Staff Writer

An online petition drive launched to protest a proposed nuclear waste dump on Lake Huron has gathered 2,000 signatures in its first 24 hours.

Two groups, Progress Michigan and Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, initiated the petition drive to raise the prospect of water contamination posed by the waste site, which is planned for an Ontario location north of Sarnia.

The drive began Monday, in advance of the June 18 close of a "public comment period" offered by the Canadian government.

Rivers around the state are experiencing high water levels, especially in areas that received heavy rainfall over the last week. Panfish are being caught in shallow waters or near the drop offs. We should start to move into the summer fishing mode now that warmer weather is finally here.

Lake Erie - Is producing good catches of walleye in the 17 to 21 inch size range. Most anglers are using crawler harnesses on bottom bouncers while others are doing well on spoons and body baits. Most recently, the best fishing has been in 23 to 25 feet of water near Stony Point and straight out from Bolles Harbor around the E-Buoy.

Huron River - Water levels are up but the river is still fishable. Anglers are catching good numbers of smallmouth bass, catfish and carp. Those fishing below the dam are still taking some nice crappie on minnows.

Detroit River - White bass are still biting, but not with the same intensity.

Lexington - The salmon and lake trout are scattered in waters 30 to 100 feet deep. Perch were caught in 50 to 60 feet of water south of the port. Pier anglers have caught smallmouth bass, rock bass and other panfish.

ScienceDaily (Jun. 4, 2008) — A Michigan Technological University professor has developed a new water treatment that could help keep a deadly fish disease out of Lake Superior.

David Hand, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan Tech, has devised a simple way to treat ballast water in vessels ranging from pleasure craft to ore boats. His method is designed to kill the virus that causes viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS), an often-fatal disease that has been attacking fish populations in the lower Great Lakes.

Hand's treatment is simple. The ballast water is disinfected with sodium hypochlorite—ordinary household bleach. Then it is treated with ascorbic acid, or vitamin C, which neutralizes the bleach before the water is released into the lake.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080604104354.htm

U.S. officials say state's water, air at risk
BY TINA LAM • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • JUNE 6, 2008

• Environmental groups and U.S. officials are sounding alarms about two major new Canadian projects -- a heavy oil mega refinery along the St. Clair River and an underground radioactive waste repository near Lake Huron -- they say could put Michigan air and water at risk for decades.

Michigan residents and businesses won't benefit from the projects and are largely unaware of them. Opponents say U.S. concerns are not represented in Canada, where the prospect of new jobs makes locals welcome the projects.

Shell Canada plans a giant refinery along five miles of St. Clair River shoreline now dotted with farms and marinas, across from St. Clair and Marine City. The refinery would process up to 250,000 barrels a day of heavy crude oil from rich tar sands in Alberta, making fuel for the Canadian market.

The new refinery would be more than twice the size of the Marathon refinery in southwest Detroit, which is seeking state permits to expand by 15% to 115,000 barrels per day.

Ontario nuclear officials are making plans to dig 2,150 feet underground to bury low- and medium-level radioactive waste from 20 nuclear plants for hundreds of years. The site is half a mile from Lake Huron, across the lake from Michigan's Thumb.

BY ERIC SHARP • FREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITER • MAY 29, 2008

We're using a three-weight fly rod and an ultralight spinning rod to cast a glass minnow fly and a small white bucktail jig at boils on the surface of the Detroit River, and every cast results in a strike and a hard fight.

The target is white bass, and we've located a big school of them off Lake Erie Metropark by watching for baitfish exploding through the surface as they were attacked by the white bass from below.

They aren't the biggest fish in the Great Lakes, but matched with the right tackle they are among the scrappiest.