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Message Subject: VHS bait regulations Detroit

Larrys

Posted 4/14/2009 12:55 PM (#80162)
Subject: VHS bait regulations Detroit

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Posts: 340

Location: McFarland, WI

Canadian authorities draw a line on fish virus
Jim Lynch / The Detroit News
Detroit -- Somewhere out there on the water between the United States and Canada is a line -- not something you can see, but you'd better know where it is. Crossing that line can mean several hundred dollars in fines, according to American anglers.

Fishing regulations designed to slow the spread of a particularly nasty fish virus -- viral hemorrhagic septicemia -- are raising the ire of anglers on both sides of the waters in and around Metro Detroit. However well intentioned, critics say the rules are overly restrictive, impractical, expensive and capable of taking the pleasure out of a pastime that used to be all about fun.

"I feel like (anglers) are just being singled out," said Harrison Township resident Michael Buchman, who fishes for perch on Lake St. Clair several times a month. "This has nothing to do with fish."

Since the end of last year's fishing season, complaints have been coming in to offices of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and many of them are similar, said Lt. David Malloch of the department's law enforcement division.
"Late last summer, we began receiving calls that Canadian conservation officers started to enforce a law that had been on their books for years," Malloch said. That law prohibited the use in Canadian waters of bait fish taken from or purchased in the United States. And according to some anglers and officials, fines for those who have been cited have ranged from $100-$300.

Samples have shown VHS in Lake St. Clair fish since 2003. It has been described as the Ebola virus of fish due to characteristics that include a high mortality rate and visible lesions.

More than five years later, the stretch of water from Lake Erie north through the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River to Lake Huron has been designated a VHS Positive Management Area -- meaning the virus has been found there in the past and is assumed to be present.

Rules to slow the spread of VHS focus primarily on live bait fish used in the waters between the U.S and Canada. Bait deemed free of VHS is sold as certified, and bait whose status is questionable gets labeled uncertified.

Officials with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources could not be reached for comment.

But Dennis Shaw, who runs the Bass Haven fishing store in Wallaceburg, Ontario, said he believes the furor over Canadian enforcement is based less on reality than perception.

"I've only been able to find one person who was ticketed in the last year," he said. "I think the situation has been blown out of proportion on Internet message and forum boards."

Either way, the situation is hurting Shaw's friend, Dan Chimelak, co-owner of Lakeside Fishing Shop in St. Clair Shores.

"During this perch season, our sales for bait have been down 70 percent because guys are going over to Canada to purchase minnows," Chimelak said.

At least one person feels the rules themselves are pointless for areas like St. Clair since the fish don't stay in one place.

"The fish move all over Lake St. Clair," said Doug Martz, the St. Clair Channelkeeper. "So to me, it's a moot point."

For all of the frustration they may be causing, rules regulating the use of bait fish have helped slow the spread of VHS more effectively than Michigan DNR officials expected. "We have gone back to places like Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River -- places where the virus was found before -- and resampled fish there and not found it," said Gary Whelan, a fish production manager with DNR.

In Lake Michigan, the western side is considered a VHS-positive zone, while the eastern side is not.

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http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090414/METRO/90...

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