Fishtown Preservation Society (FPS) harvested nearly 7,000 pounds of whitefish in the past year, which is just a fraction of the historical haul for state-licensed commercial fishers operating out of Leland.
The challenge is biological rather than equipment, effort or funding. The Great Lakes just aren’t producing as many whitefi sh, the result of a changed ecosystem that in practical terms wiped out the species’ primary food source through most of its habitat.
But there was good news in the numbers. FPS nets brought in only 3,842 pounds of whitefi sh in 2022, meaning the catch nearly doubled this year.
Executive director Amanda Holmes said the jump can be attributed to a too-short stretch of good fishing early in the season. Eventually whitefish schools moved away and FPS trap-nets were mostly filled with lake trout, which were released as required by the state.
“It was good for awhile. But it’s a tremendous amount of effort (to release lake trout). We’re not allowed to keep them. I don’t know how trout are doing in other parts of the state, but they are doing well here,” Holmes said.
At one time it was not unusual for fish tugs working out of the Leland Harbor to return from Lake Michigan laden with catches, which might consist of whitefish, chubs or lake trout before the 1960s. But the chub population plummeted for the same reason whitefish declined — despite owning a chub fishing license, the FPS tug Janice Sue did not pull a net this year — and state-licensed commercial fishing operations are not part of a court order dividing lake trout stocks between Tribal commercial fishers and hookand- line anglers. Whitefish catches are also regulated by the order.
Retired fourth generation commercial fisherman Bill Carlson is glad to be out of the business. Now a resident of Leland Township and Florida, Carlson in the 1970s, 80s and 90s expanded his family’s operation to include most buildings lining the Leland River mouth. After growing weary of relying on the whims of wholesalers who supplied big-city markets with his catch, Carlson recognized that the Carlson’s Fishery business could weather tough times better if anchored in retail. Carlson’s Fishery, whose retail building in Fishtown is owned by FPS and underwent a $500,000 renovation and expansion in 2021, is now owned by Mike Burda and Nels Carlson, Bill’s nephew.
“The big difference now,” Bill Carlson said, “is not how we go about catching fish, but that there are not fish out there for us to catch. The whitefish population went downhill. Whitefish were consistent and people liked to eat them fresh or smoked. I would not want to deal with all that now.”
A good fishing season for Carlson’s in its heyday might bring in 50,000 pounds of whitefi sh and a whopping 200,000 pounds of lake chubs that were favored smoked as kosher food for markets in Detroit and Chicago.
To those without a history to the area, word that FPS does more than own, maintain and promote Fishtown as a tourist destination may come as a surprise. The intent of FPS in purchasing the iconic historic site, Holmes said, was always to preserve the legacy of commercial fishing not just as a place but also as an occupation. FPS in 2006 purchased the fishing licenses, equipment and two tugs from Carlson’s as well as its real property for $3 million.
FPS’s whitefish allocation, which is under control of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, has been reduced through the years to 17,800 pounds, according to information provided by Thomas Goniea, program director for the state commercial fish program. As recently as 2009 the quota was 62,000, he said. No lake chubs have been caught by commercial netters working out of Leland or Frankfort in the past two years.
The whitefish allocation for state-licensed netters is set according to what the Great Lakes can provide, Goniea continued, minus fish stocks reserved for Indian tribes. Data sampling, which is weighed from several sources, all point to a whitefish population in trouble because invasive quagga mussels have overpopulated the lake bottom. The quaggas gorge on phytoplankton, which are microscopic algae and the food source for zooplankton.
And whitefish and chubs were engineered to eat zooplankton.
“We’ve seen a declining whitefi sh population in most of the Great Lakes. This isn’t a surprise. This is a function of the quagga mussel invasion, and we are now seeing the effect on Lake Michigan,” Goniea said.
While some gamefish such as perch rely on zooplankton for only a short period in their development before turning predatory on smaller fish, whitefish are perfectly happy living to eight, nine and ten years on a much smaller member of the animal kingdom.
“They don’t have a mouth like a bass or a trout,” Goniea continued.”and they have to reach size before they can eat minnows. (A minnow) doesn’t help them out in the first eight to nine years of their existence … whitefish were never created to eat other fish.”
While a multi-agency effort to boost whitefish numbers by planting fertilized whitefish eggs in incubators in the Carp River is being pursued, Goniea said the scale is tipped against the program saving commercial netters. Even if eggs hatch, survive and migrate into Lake Michigan, growth rates have fallen off so much that no quick rebound will result. Whitefish at one time grew to 17 inches in three or four years; now attaining such a size can take up to ten years.
“The systems are going to find a new equilibrium point for population size. I just don’t think you’ll find (whitefish) populations at the level of 50 years ago. That’s a hard thing to swallow,” Goniea said.
Where does that leave statelicensed operations such as FPS?
Tossing back lake trout for now, although there is a legislative effort by the industry to keep and sell some of their bycatch, according to Scott Everett, legislative director of the Michigan Fish Producers Association (MFPA). Fishtown Preservation Society is a MFPA member.
Everett noted that statelicensed netters caught more than 4 million pounds of whitefi sh in the 1990s, compared to 1.3. million pounds in 2017. MFPA operators mostly use trap nets, which allow for the safe release of species not targeted, while Tribal outfits have been moving toward gill nets that kill all fish caught. Presently all of the state’s lake trout harvest in Tribal zones is reserved for sport fishing interests; MFPA wants the state to allocate part of its share of lake trout to MFPA members.
“We’re just trying to keep operations like Fishtown able to maintain their business and sell to people like the Carlsons,” Everett said. “One of the huge challenges in Fishtown is the number of lake trout they catch compared to whitefish. State licensed commercial fishermen cannot retain lake trout; tribal fishermen can.”
Bills have been introduced that would reserve MFPA members a cut of the state’s share of trout, as well as open the possibility of harvesting walleye and perch in productive state waters such as Saginaw Bay. So far, all have failed.
Everett believes in trap nets. “That is the one way to really get a marketable, superior product. The fish can hang out for days or weeks down there, and when they bring them up they are as fresh as can be. Trip nets don’t kill fish like other methods … and they are the safest way to go. It’s almost impossible for a craft to hit a trap net with its motor,” he said.
Holmes credits the work ethic of Joel Peterson, whose family for generations has made a living through commercial netting in waters off Muskegon, for continuing the legacy of Fishtown. Peterson has been with FPS since 2008, when he and his cousin Eric were hired to skipper the FPS tugs Janice Sue and Joy.
“They couldn’t bear to see a good license sit fallow. We took them seriously, and (Joel) has been a part of what we do ever since. Joel is captain of both vessels. If and when chubs come back, we will get out the Janice Sue, which is only licensed for chubs,” she said.
