- Hello everyone.

Welcome to, "Michigan Out-of-Doors".

I am Jenny Ciolek and we've got a brand new show in store for you this week and it's all about fishing, with hook and line and with arrows and spears.

I'll take you out on Saginaw Bay with a great group of guys that was bow fishing, trying to dodge a couple of storms made a little bit more exciting and a little more challenging but you won't wanna miss that story.

And Jimmy's got some other fishing excitement in store for us this week.

- Well Jenny, we do have one more story on this week's show.

And just a week or so back, I was able to get out of the Port of Muskegon and do a little salmon fishing on a very foggy morning, but we did find a few fish.

You won't wanna miss that.

And this is a shortened show this week because our PBS stations are in pledge, but it's all brand new, so you stay tuned.

I'm Jimmy Gretzinger, it's time for, "Michigan Out-of-Doors".

(gentle music) ♪ From the first spring rains ♪ ♪ To the soft summer breeze ♪ ♪ Dancing on the pine forest floor ♪ ♪ The autumn colors catch your eyes ♪ ♪ Here come the crystal winter skies ♪ ♪ It's Michigan, "Michigan Out-of-Doors" ♪ - [Speaker] What a beautiful day in the woods.

♪ Some day our children all we'll see ♪ ♪ This is their finest legacy ♪ ♪ Wonder and the love of Michigan ♪ ♪ As the wind comes whispering through the trees ♪ ♪ The sweet smell of nature's in the air ♪ ♪ From the Great Lakes to the quiet stream ♪ ♪ Shining like a sportsman's dream ♪ ♪ It's a love of Michigan we all share ♪ (gentle music fading) - [Speaker 3] "Michigan Out-of-Doors", is presented by... (gentle music) - By Country Smoke House, a sportsman's destination since 1988.

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(gentle music) - [Speaker 2] The Michigan Charter Boat Association has provided education of the Great Lakes fishery for over 52 years.

Information about Great Lakes fishing opportunities, as well as captain advocacy can be found at Michigancharterboats.com - [Speaker 3] By Green Mark Equipment.

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Green Mark provides sales and services to farmers, commercial businesses, large property owners and homeowners.

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(gentle music ends) (water rippling) (upbeat music) - Well we are in Saginaw Bay and we are gonna do one of my favorite things in the world to do and that is bow fishing.

I got my son Tommy and my very good friend Dave Tenet.

So we've been bow fishing now for, oh my goodness, almost 20 years.

And I look forward to this bow fishing season like I do deer hunting.

And I tell you what, if you want to take your kids, and the thing about deer hunting, when you take your kids, they're always on their phone, right?

You're not gonna be doing that today, I promise you.

We're gonna get after them for sure.

And that's what you gotta like about it.

If you enjoy archery hunting and you enjoy fishing, this is the sport.

And what people don't understand is, we have an amazing fishery here.

There's not a ton of bow fishermen.

And what we do, we offer a conservation service.

You know, I mean, adult carp have no natural predators.

And I was doing some research and they are invasive, there are four or five different types of carp that are invasive and they can eat up to 90 pounds of vegetation a day.

And they excrete half of that, they don't even process half of it, it's kind of amazing.

So whenever we get into an area that's full of carp, inevitably, the vegetation is tore up and the water's extremely dirty.

And you know, besides that, it's a lot of fun to go out there and get after these fish.

- [Jenny] Nice first fish.

- [David] What'd that take, Jenny?

About two minutes?

- Yeah.

- Not bad.

- [Jenny] Nice shooting, David.

- Got lucky.

(Jenny laughs) - [Jenny] So despite the stormy cold front that had moved through before we got out here, the guys were into some fish right away.

David's bowfin had bright green fins, which they see quite often out here when algae discolors them.

Tom connected with the next fish of the afternoon, a garpike.

Nice.

What did we get?

- Got a garpike.

(water splashing) Decent little fish.

- [Jenny] Woo hoo.

Wow.

That is a nice long one, huh?

- Yeah.

- Nice shooting.

- [Tom] Thank you.

Thank you.

(loud rustling) - [Jenny] Do a lot of people be curious, what do you do with the fish after you kill them?

- [Tom] Well we have a garden, and to this point, I haven't put any in my garden 'cause I haven't planted it yet, but, so they've all gone to my friend Dave's father's garden.

And I can tell you, fertilizing them, it's amazing fertilizer, it really works extremely well, so.

- [Jenny] It's nice to see the bow fishing sport keeping the fish population in check on Saginaw Bay and helping to fertilize gardens and farm fields alike.

This next big carp gave the guys a run for their money and had them on their toes.

- Did you get that Jenny?

- Yeah.

- It's not- - It's not on good.

- Yeah, that's all right.

Bring it in.

Bring it in.

It's a good one.

Bring him in.

- Holy moly.

- No, he got off.

- Oh!

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

He's coming around this way.

He's under the boat.

He didn't come out from under the boat.

- [Tommy] Oh shoot.

Wait, Dad, there's another one.

- Where is he?

- Long shot.

Long shot right there.

- David, are you good?

- [Jenny] Oh, here he is.

Here he is.

Nah.

(Jenny chuckles) - [Tommy] (indistinct) (arrow firing) - Oh.

(arrow firing) (laughing) - He's (indistinct).

- See now he's bullying them.

- [Jenny] He's got a little scar on his back.

- Wow.

There two in there.

- [Jenny] Yeah, he just swam towards another one.

- I can see the shadows.

- That was- - I don't even know why I shot at that.

- [Jenny] He was fast.

- [Tom] Jenny, fish.

- [Jenny] Oh, back.

- Okay.

- That's the one.

That's the one.

(arrow firing) - I got him.

- Yes!

- [Tommy] That's the one too.

- [Jenny] Oh.

Wait, there's two right there, there's one coming at us.

Can you see him over there?

- [Tom] I can see him.

I need to take a long shot.

- That's the same one.

- The same one right there.

- Yeah.

He's big.

He's coming back.

He's right by that log.

- [David] He's right there.

- [Jenny] Right there.

Who can get him?

Ah.

(arrow firing) You got him!

- I got him!

(laughing) Dad!

- [Tom] Put an arrow in him, David.

Put an arrow in him.

- Little bit closer, Tom.

- [Tommy] I can believe I got him.

- [Tom] Nice son.

Nice.

Just a little bit closer.

- [Jenny] Can you bring him in a little?

- [Tom] It's okay, we'll just get another arrow in him.

(arrow firing) - Yeah, it's through.

- [Tom] All right.

We're through now, we got him.

Boy, this one gave us a struggle, huh?

(laughing) It's a hog.

- Oh my word.

- It's a piglet.

- [Jenny] Somebody's gonna have to hold this up, you know.

- [Tom] So Jenny, one, two, three hits.

- I got that guy.

(laughing) - [Jenny] Tommy, you gotta hold this beast up.

- [Tom] Come on buddy.

- [Jenny] What the heck.

Woo.

Tell me what happened with this one.

- So I shot him and then he started swimming away.

Then my dad shot him.

Then he just started like swimming around the boat and then eventually went off and then we found him again a couple minutes later.

Dad shot at him, missed.

And then I took a far shot, got him.

Started reeling him in and then Dad finished him.

- He's been shot three times.

- Yeah.

(laughing) - That's great, guys.

- Good stuff bud, good stuff.

- This dude's fat.

- Yeah.

- [Jenny] Woo!

See one over here?

- There was two over there.

- Son careful, buddy.

Let's go.

(chuckles) - See this is what, we usually get them in these channels here and they have really nowhere to go.

- Yeah.

- And it's shallower.

That's a good sign, that means that they'll be all through here.

- Well Jenny, you and I have been planning this for three years now, so we haven't really, we've been looking at the weather and playing, you know, the weather along with, you know, I wanted to give you the best shoot that we could possibly have.

So low wind.

And that's the big thing about shooting the bay is the wind can really be a problem.

And tonight the wind was supposed to be, you know, top out at about eight miles per hour.

With one caveat, we had a storm that just rolled through and we went from 88 degrees down to 60 some degrees.

That's not very good for bow fishing.

Now of course this is the way it always work, you should have been here yesterday.

When we were here on Friday and right here in this cut and we were shooting fish, you know, 20, 25 pound fish that were rolling right here in the cut, not even on the boat.

And that's- - During the day.

- Yeah, during the day.

And that's actually when I called you, I was like, hey, check this out.

You know?

- Yeah.

- And so that has to be timed just right.

And I know that, you know, you see a lot of nighttime shoots, but you don't get a lot of good daytime video, and I thought that'd have been awfully cool.

But you know what, we're still gonna, we're here and we're gonna get after them.

- [Jenny] Daytime visibility was not great, so the guys took a three hour break and came back for nighttime fishing where the lights would increase their odds of seeing more fish.

- Alright, so we got a storm coming in in like two hours.

So we're just trying to, we're trying to get as much fish as we can in the time.

So hopefully the storm doesn't come near us and we can just shoot for a while, but I don't think that's gonna happen, it's already pretty dark.

I'm gonna put down the bow and I'm gonna start using my spear.

- Awesome.

All right.

- Yeah.

- Let's see what happens.

- Yep.

- [Jenny] So our original plan was to hit the bay again at sunset and get out to the bow fishing areas just in time for darkness to set in and the boat lights to flip the switch on crystal clear visibility for shooting and spearing.

Looking at the radar, we were watching another big storm making its way across the mitten and figured we'd better start a little earlier than planned.

The guys say it's actually easier to hit your mark when fishing at night.

- [Tom] So there is a little bit of a trick, you do want to aim low.

I mean, that's the thing.

And the deeper the fish is the lower you want to aim.

If they're out a bit, it's not as much, also that arrow will kind of plane down if you're not used to shooting it.

So yeah, you definitely do want to aim low with the reflection.

One of the things that my son really enjoys is, he enjoys spearing them.

I took him at an age when, you know, he was a little bit light in tail to be pulling back a bow.

So he got really, really good and confident with the spear.

So he would be, you know, bumping gums with my friends, you know, they would have like, "I'm gonna outshoot you", "Oh yeah, all right, let's go".

And I'm gonna be honest with you, a lot of the times Tommy will get him with that spear, he gets after them.

But the issue with the spear is it doesn't work as well during the day because they're not gonna sit pretty for you in the day.

So when you can roll up on them at night, I mean just the other night he got two gar in 30 seconds with that spear.

He just gets after them.

- [Jenny] Tommy was definitely dialing in his spearing accuracy out here this evening.

There was still quite a bit of daylight hanging on tonight, which made it difficult for the camera to see the fish with the glare on the water.

It was getting darker by the minute and the conditions were improving, but we were racing against the clock with the storm that was coming.

Tom cherishes his time on the water with his friends and family and says, this is a great family sport.

- [Tom] Well no, fortunately this is one of those setups where you can definitely bring your children, turn the radio on, have a good time.

I mean, you know, it's all about joking and comradery.

You do not have to be quiet because we're running a generator.

These fish are not scared for the most part, I mean they will after they've been shot at a little bit, they'll get a little bit shy.

But I mean, for the most part, you know, especially when it's cooler, they're gonna sit pretty for you.

(indistinct) buddy.

- You get him?

- Yep, he got it.

(boat engine whirring) - [Jenny] Alright.

- Another one of the green fish.

- [Jenny] Good job.

The fishing action was definitely starting to heat up, but sadly, after waiting three seasons for the right weather and our schedules to line up to do this trip, it would be over before it really got started.

- We got a storm moving in here in about half an hour.

We're just getting good light, just starting to see some fish, but we're gonna have to head off pretty soon because we got a storm moving in.

That's Michigan bow fishing for you.

- [Jenny] Living with the turbulent weather conditions that Saginaw Bay in May can bring is possibly the only downside of bow and spearfishing out here.

Tom's passion for the sport truly shines.

- [Tom] It's incredible.

We are so blessed in this state.

We have some of the..

Okay, so the Saginaw Bay in the nation is one of the top 10 in every magazine that you read for bow fishing.

One of the top 10.

Also for other things like small mouth fishing and the wildlife fishery.

But we have an amazing resource here and I think we just all wanna manage it as best as possible.

So I hope people can understand it.

You know, we're all sportsmen and at the end of the day we all want to, you know, take care of this resource as good as we can.

Whether, you know, whether you're sport fishing or you know, rough shoot fishing or anything like that, you know, or you're deer hunting, you know, we are the guys that (upbeat music) hopefully are the ones that are out there picking up the trash and trying to keep everything better than we left it.

- [Jenny] Spoken like the great steward that he is, Tom Heatwole and his crew are so incredibly passionate about bow fishing and promoting the sport and it shows.

I promised Tom, David and Tommy that I would return for another trip with them when Mother Nature isn't so fickle.

We spotted lightning on the horizon and quickly made our way back to the safety of shore, calling it quits.

It was quite the exciting night out here in, "Michigan's Out of Doors".

(upbeat music fading) - One of my favorite things to do this time of year is travel to the many different ports around the state of Michigan and fish some of the big water.

And I know we have a great resource here in the state of Michigan that sometimes we take for granted.

I was able to out a few weeks ago out of the Port of Manistee, we did really well up there.

And last week I dropped down to the Port of Muskegon with some new friends to check out the fishing there.

We had a good time on the water even though it was a little foggy.

(engine whirring) (water gurgling) (gentle music) (water rippling) (gentle music) It was a foggy mess a week or so back, out of the port of Muskegon.

We were aboard Ryan Bourdo's boat today with Dave DeVry, Nate Leo, Mike Best, and my brother-in-law's father, John Delp.

John was in the area for work, told me about his fishing trip, so I joined along.

We had fish on as soon as we set lines, so things were looking pretty good so far.

- [Ryan] So game plan is, work our way through the fog.

(laughing) Again, catch some fish.

- Yeah, it's a little- - Yeah.

- [Jimmy] Tough to see out here.

What's the fishing been like the last week or two?

- So fishing's been good.

Water temperatures have been warmer than normal for May out of the Muskegon port.

High limits and catches, but just don't have the size that we usually do this time of year.

But still fun to get out.

- Yes.

- Without a doubt.

- [Jimmy] How long you been doing the charter boat thing?

- [Ryan] So official captain for three years, been on the big lake for over 30.

- Okay.

- Yep.

- Nice.

- Yeah.

- [Jimmy] Have you always fished out of Muskegon then, or?

- [Ryan] Predominantly.

Yep.

Yep.

- Okay.

And how many charter boats does Muskegon have these days, any idea?

- There's got to be 12 to 15, I would say.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Nice.

- Yep.

The Port of Muskegon from a fishing standpoint's gotten a lot stronger over the last, I'd say probably five, six years.

- Okay.

Well he wasn't gonna win any style points, but John had a nice fish to kick off the day.

- I got slime all over my, "Michigan Out-of-Doors", shirt.

- [Jimmy] Oh geez.

Now this is something you don't see too often, we had two fish on the same rod, one on a slider and one on the main line.

They were not big fish by any means, but it was unique, and two really good fish for the table.

- Be ready in case it turns.

(water rippling) Gonna be ready with a net, Ryan?

(water rippling) You prepared the net.

- [Jimmy] We weren't setting the world on fire today, but the action was steady, even if seeing the planar boards was getting a little tricky.

As we kept finding fish, I asked Ryan what the next month or so will look like out of this port here in Muskegon.

- So usually through the 1st of May, end of April, 1st of May, we have very aggressive fishing, you know, good silver bite, some steelhead Skamania, lake trout cold water, aggressive fishing.

Usually, typically, beginning of June it will start to taper off a little bit and then the beginning of July it will pick back up.

Uncharacteristically, like last year or the year before that, June fishing is maintained pretty good, this year is a lot different for what we have for fishing.

So it's kind of unbetold what will happen.

A lot determines on the temperatures of the lake and what the bait fish are doing.

But so, remain hopeful.

But usually June will slow down a little bit and then out of Muskegon, port Southern like that will get really good mid-July.

The water's uncharacteristically warm, so you see right here we're at 54 degrees on the surface and it's through the whole water column, even down, it's 52 degrees 70 foot down, which is very uncharacteristic for this time of year.

You get up north, you get a lot more structure, a lot deeper water.

Not out far.

And the bait fish and the bigger fish are conglomerating and holding there right now, so.

- [Jimmy] And where are you fishing in the water column today and what seems to be working?

- [Ryan] So everything that we're doing right now, from a hundred copper, up to a 400 copper, down riggers down 35 to 80 foot.

Pretty much the whole water column is producing fish.

But like I said, the bigger fish and the more mature fish that are up north and holding up north is usually what we're experiencing right now.

But we'll take what we can get.

There's a good amount of fish, the plants are working, the DNR has done a great job stabilizing the fishery, the bait fish population is coming back up and overall the fishery's great.

(gentle music) - [Jimmy] We are sure lucky as Michiganders to have this resource for sure.

We had a great day on the water, met some new friends, got some good fish.

It was tough to beat.

Thanks to the guys for letting me tag along on another day of memories right here on, "Michigan's Out of Doors".

(gentle music fading) - Thank you so much for joining us this week for, "Michigan Out-of-Doors".

We're glad you're here and we hope you join us in upcoming weeks.

We've got a lot of great things headed your way, including some more fishing, some tips on backyard pond digging and some kids events.

If you'd like to see where we are and where we're headed, you can always check us out online.

- Well that's right Jenny.

Online is a good way to kinda keep tabs on us.

You can check us out on YouTube there, you can actually subscribe to our channel, get a email every time we post something new.

We're also on our website and social media platforms as well.

Make sure you are getting out and enjoying all that our state has to offer.

It is a great time of the year to be a sportsman.

And if we don't see you in the woods or on the water, hopefully we'll see you right back here next week on your PBS station.

(gentle music) - "Michigan Out-of-Doors", is presented by... - [Speaker 4] Do you dream of somewhere bigger than your backyard?

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(gentle music) - [Speaker 3] Closed captioning brought to you by Double D Ranch Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) foundation, working to make hunting and fishing accessible for those with disabilities.

(gentle music ends) (upbeat music) ♪ When I wonder far away ♪ ♪ A dream stays with me night and day ♪ ♪ It's the road that leads to my home state ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ Changing seasons paint the sea ♪ ♪ Like rainbow trout in a hidden stream ♪ ♪ The whitetail deer in the tall pine trees ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ I am, I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ Ask where I'm from ♪ ♪ And I'll show you my hands ♪ ♪ Lord above, I love this land ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ From the Keweenaw ♪ ♪ Down to St. Joe ♪ ♪ Kalamazoo, East to Monroe ♪ ♪ Sault Ste.

Marie and back again ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪