# The Negativity about the Boardman Dam Removals Debunked



## UltimateOutdoorsman (Sep 13, 2001)

P.S. Nice catch, Andrew.


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## Alldone88 (Nov 13, 2009)

Floated the boardman this weekend. The DNR was out recording numbers of fisherman and catches. Love to see them out there on a holiday weekend getting work done. Caught a nice brook and a brown after switching to a pretty small streamer. Most of the day was spent teaching a friend to get his line out there.

My 2 cents
Steelhead in that river would have a tough time hiding from the trebble hooks and the flossers. I love steelhead and visit TC regularly. Not sure I would vote to have them in there though. 
Salmon just stink up the place. 
If I controlled the red pen I would try to make it a great trout stream. Barbless only. Catch and release sections. Limit of 1 fish/day in the other sections.
I am a meat eater, and at times have cooked fish on the bank when allowed. There are just so many other types of fish, and so many other lakes and rivers in the area, to use for days like that.

Trout are a very fun fish to target. Especially when you know there is a large population of trophy fish hiding in the system, and not rotting in a freezer somewhere nearby.


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## swampbuck (Dec 23, 2004)

I don't have a dog in the fight, but have been following since the dam gave way....

In my opinion....it's too soon to be making decisions. I think they should let it develop naturally and see what happens, in say 5 years.

Could also make a good example for future restorations, if they don't mess with it before the natural recovery has peaked.

Let it ride for now


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## Robert Holmes (Oct 13, 2008)

Alldone88 said:


> Floated the boardman this weekend. The DNR was out recording numbers of fisherman and catches. Love to see them out there on a holiday weekend getting work done. Caught a nice brook and a brown after switching to a pretty small streamer. Most of the day was spent teaching a friend to get his line out there.
> 
> My 2 cents
> Steelhead in that river would have a tough time hiding from the trebble hooks and the flossers. I love steelhead and visit TC regularly. Not sure I would vote to have them in there though.
> ...


I don't fish there but if you give the fly fishermen another inch they will own every river in the state. I pay an equal amount of money for my license and I will gladly throw a spinner in any fly only section in this state.


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## Alldone88 (Nov 13, 2009)

"Barbless only. Catch and release sections. Limit of 1 fish/day in the other sections."

Catch and release and no/low limits has little to do with flyfishing, except that the fly fisherman are typically the ones pushing for it. 

I will throw spinners and bait, but only where its legal. Admitting you break the fishing regulations on public forums speaks to how much I would trust your judgment and/or input Mr Holmes.


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## Dirtybird25 (Aug 5, 2014)

Robert Holmes said:


> I don't fish there but if you give the fly fishermen another inch they will own every river in the state. I pay an equal amount of money for my license and I will gladly throw a spinner in any fly only section in this state.


Take your spinners to the Holy Waters on the Ausable. 

Let us know how that works out for you...


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## kzoofisher (Mar 6, 2011)

swampbuck said:


> I don't have a dog in the fight, but have been following since the dam gave way....
> 
> In my opinion....it's too soon to be making decisions. I think they should let it develop naturally and see what happens, in say 5 years.
> 
> ...


That's a very good suggestion. It will be years before the lower dams come out, let's see how the river develops.


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## Boardman Brookies (Dec 20, 2007)

Alldone88 said:


> "Barbless only. Catch and release sections. Limit of 1 fish/day in the other sections."
> 
> 
> 
> Catch and release and no/low limits has little to do with flyfishing, except that the fly fisherman are typically the ones pushing.



The Boardman is doing just w/o special regualtions. The last time time it was up for review the local TU chapter wrote up a proposal asking for a large section to be flies only. The DNR biologists didnt agree it was needed or would significantly increase/ protect the fish. At the root of it is all about social science. I have evolved in my trout fishing to primarily use flies but that is just a personal choice abd opposed to flies only. I have a 5 year old that just caught he first brookie floating a worm. That is how it is gonna be for a few years. If she wants to try fly fishing with me, cool. If she wants to dunk worms, cool. If it is proven that bait fishing is destroying the river I love then bring on the regulations. After years of fishing it I am not seeing an issue.


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## Tron322 (Oct 29, 2011)

kzoofisher said:


> The DNR definitely plans to keep a lamprey barrier in place (Boardman Weir?) which could be used as a barrier for salmon and steelhead as well. .


hopefully the team keeps sabin in...be nice to reconnect boardman Lake to lake MI, shame seeing jumbo perch and huge northerns stuck at union..be nice to get fresh blood in the lake..maybe even sturgeon spawning below sabin.

and some nice steelie and salmon water there too.

just my .02 cents, hopefully it happens but who knows.

either union or sabin is staying in some form to keep out lampreys.


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## Tron322 (Oct 29, 2011)

swampbuck said:


> I don't have a dog in the fight, but have been following since the dam gave way....
> 
> In my opinion....it's too soon to be making decisions. I think they should let it develop naturally and see what happens, in say 5 years.
> 
> ...


love it, especially since I think it is comin from another nish...

I don't think the people trying to take out the dams will wait five years for an assessment to be done annually.

but I love patience..best way to see how thing naturally go.


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## Robert Holmes (Oct 13, 2008)

Alldone88 said:


> "Barbless only. Catch and release sections. Limit of 1 fish/day in the other sections."
> 
> Catch and release and no/low limits has little to do with flyfishing, except that the fly fisherman are typically the ones pushing for it.
> 
> I will throw spinners and bait, but only where its legal. Admitting you break the fishing regulations on public forums speaks to how much I would trust your judgment and/or input Mr Holmes.


 Take a history lesson and find out for yourself why there is flies only designated sections of streams in Michigan. It has absolutely nothing to do with protecting the resource. As soon as special regulations are applied to a waterway then special interest people want more designations on that waterway. 
Here is where I have a problem with flies only designated waters. I pay into the pool that plants fish in these waters. How many streams in Michigan have spinner only sections? 
I never claimed that I would fish in these waters with spinners. The closest one is about 80 miles away. I said that I would have no problem doing so. Fortunately there is plenty of waters in my own area for me to throw spinners. The other side of the coin is that no matter what happens it would be difficult for the state to extend or name any new flies only waters.
I find it very interesting now that the fly guys are fighting to determine what is legal on the fly only sections.


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## Benzie Rover (Mar 17, 2008)

Fishslayer5789 said:


> A lot of folks were thinking it would take decades to recover.....well, it took two years for it to surpass what it was initially with the dam there. With the removal of Sabin & Boardman dam in the future, the only thing that would irritate me a LOT is if the stream "type" gets changed for the sections that are not open year round currently. They definitely need to keep a closed period while the trout spawn. Hopefully the fish ladder at Union street dam will get blocked off too because Great Lakes species getting up there would create a conflict of interest for the trout spawning areas.


Cheers for bringing this up Slayer - I've been a staunch defender of the dams project since it's inception and I am thrilled to see such a huge rebound just this spring in the section below brown bridge. The biggest turn around thus far has been with the macroinvertebrates - the Hendrickson flights this spring were the thickest and heaviest I've ever seen on that river. Some evenings rivaled a good holy waters flight. Unfortunately the fish have not keyed back on them yet, so few risers observed in various sections I looked. And overall numbers of fish still seem a bit down for me, but they will rebound soon given the bugs are back already. Every time I read or hear about 'the destruction of the river from the dam removal' I want to take the fool out to the actual river and show them first hand what is going on. Facts are facts folks - emotion is emotion. The habitat has recovered well, the fish stocks will soon follow, but those with bitter feelings still fling lies and mud long after brown bridge quite spitting it out. 

Regarding potadromous passage (steelies, coho upstream), this is the one issue I have evolved on... I have done a lot of research on Mr. Neupher's findings on interspecific comp and spoken with him directly a few times. When I was young there were never enough steelhead in any river. But now, I have come to love pure trout fishing. Thus my stance has changed too. Basically I agree that fish passage does not harm stream trout population. The PM is a shinning example of the potential here. However - juvenile trout and salmon absolutely change the fishery. Dry fly fisherman such as myself would be really bummed because fat browns eat fry and smolts over hennies/bugs. What we would end up catching are 4-6" smolts all day long, which is how it goes on the Platte now a days. And small spinners or crawlers meet the same fate - juvenille steelies or cohos. The browns are there in great numbers, but, try and target them with anything other than a rapala or 4-6" streamer and you're wasting time. That's the main issues, fishery wise, in my opinion. The traditional trout fishery is diminished significantly in a potadromous system, even though the trout are there. Think about how many 6-13" browns you catch in the PM fly's only? Exactly my point. Those fish are there, but you don't catch them. 

The bulk of what we catch on the Boardman would be lost in the masses of smolts - but sadly there is little to no support for this argument within fisheries management currently. The steelhead potential of the Boardman is huge - like Little M huge. Given this fact and simple economics, the almighty steelhead will almost certainly get introduced and we'll shift to targeting large browns fish with streamers and the era of the Adams fly on the Boardman will sadly be over.


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## Robert Holmes (Oct 13, 2008)

Dirtybird25 said:


> Take your spinners to the Holy Waters on the Ausable.
> 
> Let us know how that works out for you...


I have no need or desire to do that. I will just take my money and spend it where I can toss a crawler or spinner. I will take bets that most people on this forum don't know the real reason behind the flies only sections. It has very little to do with scientific management of the resource.


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## m delp (Dec 23, 2003)

"Sadly" is an understatement. This issue was decided well before the first removal meeting years back. I know because I was there and asked to participate, but did not further my involvement because it was blatantly obvious that the DNR crew at that meeting was lusting for steelhead in the upper river.


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## Boardman Brookies (Dec 20, 2007)

Excellent write up Benize Rover


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## Robert Holmes (Oct 13, 2008)

You have a point about catching smolts on small flies. If there are big brown trout in a river system they will feed on the small stuff as well as the big stuff. Here is where most fishermen have a problem catching the larger fish. Most fishermen travel 100 miles or more to fish for a weekend. They spend the night by the camp fire drinking barley cokes and get out of bed to fish at 10:00 am. 
If you want those big brown trout you should fish all night and sleep all day. I learned this at a very early age and have caught plenty of big brown trout while spending sleepless nights on various rivers. I have applied the same technique to catch steelhead and salmon and it works.


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## kzoofisher (Mar 6, 2011)

The big fish feed in the most energy efficient way, just like the small fish. When bugs are the food source most plentiful, that's what they focus on. Later in the summer many foods are plentiful and behavior changes. This is true for walleye and pike too, which are available in shallow water in the spring but spread out to deeper water in high summer. Rivers with an influx of easy food, like stocked fish or aggressive young steelhead, tend to start the summer pattern much earlier and the bigger fish may not ever focus on bugs. 

There is also the pressure of fishing which artificially selects for fish that are most active when fisherman are least active. There is a thread going right now about behavior changes in pressured ruffed grouse, you can read about pressured turkey, deer and ducks too. The pattern exists for any species that receives plenty of attention from sportsmen. On the stretch of the Au Sable that I fish most frequently the bigger fish "disappear" in July except at night. If you get a cool rainy week with a wet weekend and canoe/fisherman activity drops off, poof!, they magically reappear. Pressure decreases and food availability changes making the bigger fish more vulnerable to daytime fishing. 

Now you take a river that is full of steelhead smolts and they alter the fishing tremendously. They have the feed bags on all the time preparing to make the run to the lake. That makes them much more available to the more piscivorous fish in the spring. At least the young salmon drop out of the system almost immediately. Because young steel are feeding so heavily they are very likely to take a bait intended for their betters, fish 10" and up. Non-stop 6" fish can get very frustrating. And when they finally do smolt out of the system what do you get? Just a few weeks and the salmon start to show up, dominating the best lies and forcing out the trout. Yes, rivers that have lots of prime big fish habitat can absorb much of the pressure. The Boardman is not that sort of river. Maybe the attraction of creating a big fish fishery where one is otherwise unlikely to exist is driving some of the plans. Big fish create destination fisheries and that is economics. I'd like to know how much of a destination a numbers fishery with occasional big fish near a major tourism center would be? Hope we can find out in the next few years.


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## Boardman Brookies (Dec 20, 2007)

What you will see is a beautiful and productive section of public land below the present location of Sabin Dam ruined by slobs.


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## Robert Holmes (Oct 13, 2008)

Due to the boardman running through Traverse City there may or may not be sufficient cover to host a year round supply of larger trout. They may hang in the upper river where they can find natural cover. Once the dam is removed there may be a need for stream improvements to make for better spawning habitat, colder water, and cover. If this is done then the river should provide some good fishing.


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## UltimateOutdoorsman (Sep 13, 2001)

Benzie Rover said:


> The steelhead potential of the Boardman is huge - like Little M huge. Given this fact and simple economics, the almighty steelhead will almost certainly get introduced and we'll shift to targeting large browns fish with streamers and the era of the Adams fly on the Boardman will sadly be over.


Well said. 



Boardman Brookies said:


> What you will see is a beautiful and productive section of public land below the present location of Sabin Dam ruined by slobs.


I hope you're wrong, but fear you're not. 

Look at the bright side, we could likely experience a spring run that rivals that of the PM or Little Man. It's got the potential to be great.


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## Sparky23 (Aug 15, 2007)

I dont realllly care either way, i fish the boardman maybe once a year, more just because i have always. If there were steelhead I would be there more personally. My question is why would it destroy it so much? So would it be as bad as...the muskegon, the pm, little man. big man? They are all amazing trout fisheries, with steel, and salmon. The best brook trout stream in SW Michgan in my opinion and a very good brown fishery is only 4 ft. wide in most spots and gets very large salmon and steelhead runs. The numbers on the boardman may dip but size would greatly increase as there would actually be more forage. Rotting salmon, salmon fry, and the big one...eggs, and then repeat this in the spring. The steelhead and salmon havent destroyed the PM, the fly;s only bs maybe:evil: Just my 2 cents


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## TVCJohn (Nov 30, 2005)

I only trout fish the Boardman and it's no-name tribs so that is my frame of reference for Michigan. I have fished a bit in Kodiak on those streams. From my experience, other trout seem to do ok with the salmon runs there. The one of note is the dollies that come in and eat the salmon eggs. I have seen a single egg pattern and orange blended flies work for those. There is a stream fed lake that has rainbows in it. I can't recall if the salmon get into it from downstream.


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## Ranger Ray (Mar 2, 2003)

Bad thing about letting salmon into any trout stream system, the PCB's that start showing up in the resident trout from eating the salmon eggs.


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## m delp (Dec 23, 2003)

The saving grace for me: the middle section of the river has poor access, and will not accommodate large drift boats because of low bridges.


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## johnny5alive (Jun 11, 2011)

Ranger Ray said:


> Bad thing about letting salmon into any trout stream system, the PCB's that start showing up in the resident trout from eating the salmon eggs.


Old myth that is still pushed by the energy industry who doesn't want the damage hat dams do to get out to the general public.

Think about it salmon out in he lake that don't have PCBs suddenly have a ton after a week in he river? No any PCBs in trout comes from the river itself and likely the dams that hold it back


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## Ranger Ray (Mar 2, 2003)

johnny5alive said:


> Old myth that is still pushed by the energy industry who doesn't want the damage hat dams do to get out to the general public.
> 
> Think about it salmon out in he lake that don't have PCBs suddenly have a ton after a week in he river? No any PCBs in trout comes from the river itself and likely the dams that hold it back


http://www.gvsu.edu/gvnow/?articleId=7E946D71-C2B2-E2A4-4BECD20782581AEC

http://news.nd.edu/news/36015-resea...eat-lakes-salmon-carry-contaminants-upstream/


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## m delp (Dec 23, 2003)

Does this apply to steelhead eggs also?


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## -Axiom- (Jul 24, 2010)

If they are going to let andromadus fish into the upper Boardman they should put in a 2nd weir, do we really need these fish in Kalkaska?


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## Boardman Brookies (Dec 20, 2007)

-Axiom- said:


> If they are going to let andromadus fish into the upper Boardman they should put in a 2nd weir, do we really need these fish in Kalkaska?


Yes, right after they yank out Sabin Dam put it right there.


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## Benzie Rover (Mar 17, 2008)

I also concur - move the weir to Sabin!!! This would solve A LOT of issues. First of all, the upper river would remain a true trout fishery. I love that idea. Secondly, you would have a solid lower Boardman fishery for salmon and steelhead with actual room to spread out!?!? Imagine that - more than 6 holes that would hold fish. And, not all of them would be located downtown. The entire Boardman lake section would have potential as well. Think of the Loon Lake/Manistee Lake fishery. 

And who would not support shutting down that slob/snag festival that currently goes on below the downtown weir?! IMO that is just about the ugliest salmonid fishing experience north of Clare. 10' dirt, eroded banks, trash everywhere and snaggers all over. The skein-clan is usually nice enough to let my son hop in-line, but it's tough to get one of the 4 or 5 spots available in the drift-rotation on that bank - the JS bank is typically full of trash - both literal and the human sort. Anyway - love to get that moved out of town and spread-out the fish. But, we would then need to work on that goofed up fish ladder at Union because it passes fish as well as a straw drains a bath tub. 

But - DNR just doubled down on that facility with recent investment and improvement, so just like their decision on putting steelies up there - it's most likely a foregone conclusion. But we can hope!!!


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