Fishing report: Individuals seeking West Michigan fish have found them - The Muskegon Chronicle

Kyle Buck of effective Ponds Guide Service submitted this photo of his clients fighting three seafood simultaneously. (Led/Kyle Buck)

MUSKEGON, MI – Because the bestseller states, seek and also you shall find.

Fish have moved father in the West Michigan shoreline during the last week but continue to be caught, the Muskegon area's fanatics from the sport.

"The fishing continues to be excellent earlier this week, the very best we view to date this summer time," stated Kyle Buck of effective Ponds Guide Service. "We're catching good amounts of four-year-old king fish (finally) with a lot of coho included.

"We've also saw seafood still being caught in Muskegon funnel and lake yesteryear couple of days," Buck ongoing. "Once the water turned a week ago the fish turned up within the funnel and you will find still some inside milling around even just in the nice and cozy water."

Dallas Guptill of Snug Harbor Outfitters stated the moving target has become in 70 to 110 ft water in Lake Michigan near Muskegon. He suggests setting blue-and-eco-friendly fishing lures in a depth of 30 ft for the reason that area.

"On friday, there is a 24-pounder which was drawn in 85 ft water,Inch Guptill stated. The boat that arrived that large seafood reeled in seven from nine seafood that bit throughout that specific fishing outing.

In Lake Michigan near Whitened Lake, Tim Courneya, an worker for Johnson's Outdoors situated in Montague, states the fish are found in 70 ft water using a number of fishing lures: meat rigs, spoons, and J-plugs.

Bits and pieces

On Whitened Lake, Bluegill are now being caught in 10-15 ft water, Courneya stated. Bass will also be being caught. A couple of walleye are now being caught by motorboats reading with crawler harnesses within 20-25 ft water.The Michigan Department of Natural Assets is marketing maps it's readily available for inland anglers. The DNR keeps online maps of two,700 of Michigan's greater than 11,000 inland ponds in addition to maps to help fishermen in finding waters which contain trout and fish and also the rules that apply particularly to individuals waters. New maps just added this season include Designated Trout Streams Maps for that Lower and upper peninsulas. Sportsmen for Youth's Youth Day is approaching fast. It will likely be held 9 a.m. to three p.m. Saturday, Sept. 6 in the Muskegon County Fairgrounds, 6621 Levels Ravenna Road near Muskegon. About 40 outdoor organizations will have exhibits for kids: a trout pond with 1,000 trout readily available for kids to trap, a boy scout village, a mountain climbing wall, archery trap, virtual fishing machine, taxidermy, wild birds of prey display, reptile display, ATVs to ride on and more. This season the Hawg Trough will show a a presentation of native seafood. You will see workshops on fishing by Mark Martin, Chris Noffsinger, Shaun Sowa, Todd Sokloow and Mike Schneider during the day. You'll also have demos through the fire and EMT models. The big event is free of charge and available to the general public. This can be a family-friendly event, only youth -- 17-year-olds and under -- may take part in some occasions.  The very first 2,500 youth with the gate will get a totally free T-shirt and lunch. For more details, go to the group's website.  For our hunting buddies: The 2014 Lake Effect Chapter of Michigan Duck Predators Association holds a Youth Waterfowl Day Saturday, August. 23 in the DNR Headquarters in the Muskegon Condition Game Area, 7600 E. Messinger Road in Twin Lake. Registration starts at 9:30 a.m., with occasions scheduled 10 a.m. to two p.m. A totally free lunch is going to be held at noon. One lucky youth will win a drawing for any fully-fitted waterfowl search. To learn more, go to the group's Facebook page.

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Two men found guilty of criminal elver fishing, sentenced to pay $4250 - Bangor Daily News

BELFAST, Maine — The smelts were just a red herring.

That was the determination of Judge Susan Sparaco Tuesday afternoon in Belfast District Court, after overseeing the criminal trial of two Hancock County fishermen who were charged with fishing for elvers without a license. The two men said they’d been fishing for smelts with their finely-meshed dip nets one night this April in the Goose River in Belfast, but Sparaco didn’t buy it.

“The story just does not stand up in my mind,” she said before finding the men guilty of all charges. “It really defies credibility that they would travel so far to go to a river not known for smelting.”

Ralph E. Fowler, Jr., 41, of Franklin, and Gregory A. Trundy, 49, of Hancock, may be the first in the state to face a criminal trial for charges related to fishing for the tiny, lucrative glass eels. Fishing for elvers without a license became a criminal offense on April 23, the same day that Matthew Talbot and Wesley Dean of the Maine Marine Patrol spotted Fowler and Trundy fishing with headlamps and dip nets in the Belfast river.

Sparaco sentenced the men to pay fines of $4,250 each but did not sentence them to any jail time. The class D crime of elver fishing without a license carries a mandatory $2,000 fine. Additionally, they were charged with fishing for elvers during a closed period, which also carries a mandatory $2,000 fine and elver fishing while standing in the water, for which they were fined $250 each.

Defense attorney Ferdinand Slater of Ellsworth said that his clients will appeal their convictions.

“They were fishing for smelts, not elvers,” he said after the trial concluded. “The evidence, in my opinion, doesn’t support a conviction of beyond reasonable doubt of fishing for elvers.”

Elvers, or juvenile American eels, recently have surged in value from roughly $100 per pound in 2009 to nearly $2,000 per pound in 2012. The prices generally remained above $1,500 per pound this spring, and have been tempting for many people who have no licenses but are willing to risk getting caught while taking part in the lucrative fishery. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has said that for conservation reasons there should be no more than 744 elver licenses issued statewide.

Fowler and Trundy told the court Tuesday that they were unaware of the price of elvers and instead were interested in bringing smelts home to cook for their families. The men, who had gone smelting before, said that they had purchased the dip nets at the Tideway Market in Hancock and then they headed to Belfast to go fishing. That night — a closed night for elver fishing — the men told the court they rinsed out a dirty plastic bucket from the back of their truck to store their catch and headed down to the tidal portion of the river with their nets.

“I didn’t need a license for smelting,” Fowler told the court while on the witness stand.

But Talbot and Dean, who were surveilling the river that evening, said that men’s behavior did not appear to be in line with smelt fishing. From the stakeout place a short distance away, Talbot told the judge he saw two men filling a bucket with water, passing a long-handled dip net through the water with shallow, sweeping motions and then emptying the net into the bucket. At one point, one of the men peered into the net, Talbot said, as if he was trying to see what he had caught.

“Smelts are larger. You would be able to see them,” he said. “People dip for elvers or set nets for them every year on Goose River. I’ve never seen anyone fishing for smelts there.”

The two marine patrollers drove and walked to the other side of the river to quietly confront the two fishermen. Talbot said he believed one of the men might have spotted him when he went up the bank to answer a cell phone call.

Talbot and Dean identified themselves and asked to see the bucket and the dip nets, but found that all were empty except for some sand fleas. They did not see the fishermen empty the bucket, but Talbot said that the nets were of finer mesh than smelt fishermen usually use.

“Both subjects denied harvesting elvers,” Dean said. “My impression is that they had a story and they were sticking to it.”

Fowler and Trundy told the court that they were uninterested in elvers, that they hadn’t dumped out the buckets and that they had caught smelts on the Belfast river a couple of nights before.

Eric Walker, Deputy District Attorney for Waldo County, said that the marine patrollers were more reliable witnesses than the two fishermen.

“I think both of these defendants have gone a long way to minimize what they were doing,” he said.

But Slater said that his clients were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“The officers wanted to see elver fishing and that’s what they saw,” he said.

After the trial concluded, Walker said he expects the state will be seeing a lot more elver-related trials in coming months because of the mandatory fines.

“What incentive does anyone have to not go to trial?” he asked.

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