- Hi everyone.

Welcome to Michigan Out of Doors.

I'm Jenny Silek, and we've got an exciting show in store for you this week.

Jordan is gonna take us on an underwater adventure spearfishing for walleye on Lake Huron.

You won't wanna miss that story.

And Jimmy's got another adventure in store for us this week.

- Well, that's right Jenny.

We do have a couple more stories on this week's show.

We are gonna stop in at the weigh in at a national bow fishing tournament that was just hosted here in Michigan a few weeks back.

You won't wanna miss that.

And we're gonna learn a few things about food plots that maybe you didn't know on this week's episode as well in hopes of bringing that big monster buck a little closer this fall.

Lots of good variety on this week's show.

You stay tuned.

I'm Jimmy Retsinger and it's time for Michigan Out of Doors.

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(upbeat music) (water burbles) (guitar music) (birds chirping) - We kick off this week's show way over in the thumb where I was able to tag along with a group of spear fishermen for a day on the water.

Today we would be targeting walleye, something that has only recently become legal here in Michigan.

- Now we can legally spear Northern Pike walleye and Lake Trout and Lake Michigan and Lake Huron from, let's see, from Grand Haven South on Lake Michigan and from the Thunder Bay of Lake Huron down to Fort Gratiot Lighthouse on Lake Huron.

Those are the new waters that are available for the game fish only.

All the other rough fish can still be speared and all bodies of water open to spear fishing year round, just like boat fishing.

But the the new game fish, if you wanna spear 'em, you gotta come to Lake Michigan or Lake Huron in those certain portions.

And that all changed in October.

I think it was October 14th of 2021 is when the commissioners passed it and they gave us a couple caveats.

So we have to get a underwater spearfishing license.

It's an online license, it's the only place you can get it.

And when you get that license, you will be required to report your effort and harvest every month.

That's mandatory.

And now you have to go online or through the app and you can get those, get that elicence and report online.

You have to do that every month.

Whether you went or you didn't go, they wanna know if you went and if you did go, they wanna know how much time you put in, what areas you went to and then what you got.

If you got anything at all.

- [Narrator] The idea of spearfishing may seem pretty daunting, but the equipment is pretty basic.

However, there are a few things you need to have in order to do it safely.

- If you wanna go spear fishing, you're gonna need a couple things.

You're gonna want a diver down flag and put that on a float.

And that has to be within 100 feet view at all times.

And boaters need to stay 250 feet away from that flag to give you your space and make sure you're safe.

Voters and divers can absolutely share the water and it could be a cohesive relationship, but you just gotta be careful when you're on the water.

Water temperatures are very cold, so you want a wet suit, mask, fins, and those are gonna be some of the kind of things you need to get in the water.

Weight belt, dive knives, dive knives are real important because you're gonna encounter braided line, regular line, anchor lines and things of that.

And if you ever end up anywhere near it or something and you need to get out, you need a dive knife to make sure that happens.

Spear guns, I recommend a spear gun about anywhere from 60 to 80 centimeters long.

Two bands just in case one band breaks you always have a second one so your trip isn't ruined.

Safety, you could also always dive with a buddy if you ever get in a situation where you need help or your big waves or something crazy happens, you just always have a buddy with you so that you have that system of helping yourself if you can't help yourself.

Having buddy to help you out.

We were somewhere down the edge and as we started to approach that corner, we see really big spawn drum and there was a big walleye with him.

So I took a dive down, me and Riley did and then I seen one good size, like 22 inches.

So I lined up, took that shot, dropped that one, and then I'm pretty sure Nate ran into a school right around that same corner.

He got one and then Riley picked off one.

So I think we got some carp, drum and three walleye also.

- Oh, there's a lot of fish here.

Sheephead, carp, walleye.

But they're spooky right now.

They're running.

So we gotta get down, we're gonna pick up, move to a different spot and see if we can find some more walleye.

- [Narrator] I was impressed by just how many walleye these guys were finding in a short amount of time.

The regulation change that made this trip possible is something that John himself spearheaded a few years ago.

- Well my brother Nathan actually took me out for the first time.

And I was like, "Hey, I love doing this and I love regular hooking line fishing."

I felt it was odd that we couldn't spearfish for the same game fish that we can hook and line fish for.

So I went and talked to the commission, the Natural Resource Commission and told 'em how I feel and they asked me to take it up with the Fisheries Division Chief Dexter.

And we talked about it and they said, "We're interested in pursuing this.

Let's just talk."

They wanna talk with their biologists and with the community as a whole.

And we did that and over two years we formulated an order that allows Great Lakes anglers to take to the waters, dive under and shoot some fish that are better table worthy game fish 'cause a lot of bow fishing and spear fishing before that was just fish that you generally wouldn't eat.

You know, carp and suckers and bow fin and drum and things that weren't really great and a lot of people just would kill and dispose of their fish and I didn't really like that.

So I felt like we were being missed out in a good opportunity to harvest good fish to eat and do it in a ecological and humane way.

And you can't have the greatest fishery in the world if you don't allow spearfishing for the game fish.

(guitar music) (birds chirping) - Nate and I were working the drop off on a rock ledge.

We spotted a walleye and a sheephead.

So these guys are a little spooky.

So we go, we dive down and sit there for a second.

I called down, he came in to check us out, gave you a nice shot.

It's my personal best walleye right now with the spear gun.

(guitar music) (birds chirping) - What up with that one?

- Swimming.

- Just right here.

- No, yeah, no, I'm swimming.

All of a sudden there's a walleye.

- Well, we got two more over there on the corner.

We seen a laker out just past the edge, but it wouldn't get close enough.

That's the first time I've ever seen one of those.

Riley show what you got brother.

He got one.

It was just laying right on top of a rock and we dove down and the buddy on this go from dive.

So he just bails on that, takes his shot and then we swim around, we chase that Lake Trout for a bit.

We come back and he takes another dive, and I see him stop and he just kind of freezes.

I'm like, "What's he doing?"

And I see him shoot.

And he comes out and I'm like, "Oh look at that.

He's got a walleye under there."

I was like, "Let's go."

I think diving into the environment and actually getting to see the underwater world that these fish live in is by far the coolest thing.

Getting to interact with them on a eye to eye level is super cool.

And one thing I really like about spearfishing now over time is that when we go out to spearfish, we don't touch harm or handle any fish we don't intend to.

So when I'm down there, I'm looking at fish, I'm pick a fish and that's the one I want.

There's no dragon crawler harnesses along or crank baits and if I catch an undersized fish, and I stagger 'em in the eye or hit 'em in the gill or whatever, I don't have to just throw that fish back.

I look and I evaluate each fish that I wanna shoot.

I take that fish and I don't hurt another fish while I'm doing it.

And I think between the actually and getting to interact with them and being really selective and actually getting to clean up lures and trash while you're out there, it's just out just generally a good thing.

And I love being underwater and getting to see things and get cool video and stuff like that.

(soft guitar music) - We started off on the other side of the break wall.

Quickly shot three or four walleye over there, stuff started getting scattered spooky over there.

So we relocated once, came inside a little calmer water, a little warmer.

We shot one nice six or seven pounder, couple sheepshead, couple carp, and we kind of, John and Riley hit the drop off and they found two or three more walleye and had a shot at Lake Trout.

They were chasing it down.

Just couldn't close the deal on it.

But chasing that one drew 'em into some more walleye.

So it's been a good day so far.

(soft guitar music) - 27.

- 27, okay.

Man, she is chunky.

- Oh, I have a fat one.

Yeah, couple more out there like that.

- Eight pounds.

- Oh Scott.

- That's all eight pounds.

- Yeah, that's an eight pound off.

- Okay, well let's see.

- I bet there's lot weights in the belly.

- Yeah.

- Weight on fast.

- We ended the trip with about 10 walleye total and all enjoyed a beautiful day on Lake Huron.

It's easy to see why these guys love this sport so much.

If you'd like to learn more information about spearfishing, check out the Michigan Spearfishing Association on Facebook, which is where most of these guys met.

Special thanks to John and the crew for letting me tag along on a fun day here in the thumb.

Well, that last segment was a lot of fun to shoot and I learned a lot about the world of spearfishing in the process.

Hopefully you guys did too.

For our next segment on this week's show, I'm gonna stay in that same vein and bring you a bull fishing tournament I was able to cover a little while back.

(upbeat guitar music) So we're at the Shiawassee County Fairgrounds.

This is the BAA, which is Bow Fishing Association of America's World's Tournament.

We've got somewhere around 80 teams weighing in.

There's the two main, which is numbers, which is the most fish.

There's also big 20, you weigh your 20 biggest fish, then there's the side pots, which are DNR added in a thousand dollars for the biggest grass carp, which I don't know if there's one here yet or not.

There's the biggest buffalo sucker, biggest common carp and biggest dogfish, biggest gar, I believe.

- [Narrator] This tournament is held in different locations around the country and changes every year.

But it's no surprise that it ended up here with Saginaw Bay being one of the premier bow fishing destinations in the Midwest.

It's a great location for the anglers, but it's also good for the area.

- It's different representatives from different states put in bids and then it's voted on and whoever gets the most votes, that's where it's put on in the United States.

Saginaw Bay is, in my opinion, the mecca for boat fishing is perfect conditions.

Tons of shallow water weeds that the carp can disappear in.

We have a lot of common carp in there, good sized common carp, a lot of dogfish, gar, goldfish and people love to come out here, especially this time of year, they're all moving up into the shallows spawning.

There's thousands and thousands of 'em.

So there's a lot to offer.

Having big tournaments in areas like this.

And it helps bring in a lot of money from other states.

Guys are doing lodging for a week in advance.

They're out here scouting, they're paying for gas, all of their food.

So it's pouring a lot of money back into our local businesses.

- [Narrator] The Michigan DNR was also a part of this tournament, hoping to leverage the number of anglers on the water to learn more about the invasive grass carp.

- This is the weighing spot for the World Bow Fishing Tournament.

The championships are here in Michigan this year, and the DNR got interested in this.

These are a group of anglers that typically are a large number of reports or at least get a few reports of invasive grass carp around the state every year.

And so we thought this would be a good opportunity to get involved with some anglers that go to some areas we don't normally get to go and see if they can shoot some grass carps, see if we could incentivize them to shoot some grass carp for us in some Michigan waters - Weigh a pot of gold, 84.3 pound.

- Most people when they think about bow fishing, they think of just a lot of fish being being shot.

But these guys are also typically taking a number of fish that are non-native or in some cases invasive.

And so they have a role there to play I think.

- [Narrator] Although bow fishing may not be for everyone, the benefits of bow fishing are felt by anglers around the state.

And that's just one of the reasons why many of the anglers on hand today enjoy this sport.

- There's a lot of good that happens from us doing this.

One, we enjoy it.

It's what we do.

We really like.

I mean it gives us an opportunity to shoot our bows.

You hunt, you shoot your bow three or four times other than practice at game three or four times a year.

I bet I shot my bow 600 times last night.

I mean if you like shoot a bow, this is where you're at and it's really a cheap sport as well to get on a little jump boat, go.

You don't have to have these rigs.

I mean these are tournament shooters.

These are guys that are going all over the country shooting fish.

And you don't have to do that though.

You can wade some of the stuff, there's a lot of ways to bow fish and just the benefit of taking these rough fish and these invasive species out is it just really helps our native fish.

So it makes the wildlife fishing better.

It makes the bass fishermen better.

The probably everything benefits from these carp and rough fish getting their numbers controlled as much as we can control 'em.

(upbeat music) - If you're into hunting or you're into fishing, this is the best of both worlds.

You get to go hang out with your friends, go on a boat.

You don't have to be quiet.

You can drive around as long as you're not near houses and bothering people.

That's a big thing that we push is be courteous, be respectful, have a good time, and help clean up the waterways.

- [Narrator] The big fish for the tournament was a carp weighing in at over 48 pounds and the boat with the most fish weighed in over 900.

Special thanks to all of the event organizers that made this tournament possible.

And good luck to all of the bow fishermen still planning on hitting the water yet this summer.

- Well, when you start talking about deer hunting here in the state of Michigan, you get a lot of passion and opinions no matter what the topic is.

But one topic that comes up quite often when you start talking about deer hunting is baiting and the baiting ban.

And really, whatever you think about that, that's really not what we're here to talk about today.

But what it has done has generated a lot of deer hunters to become deer farmers and putting in food plots.

And this next story we're gonna learn a little bit more about food plots from a guy who not only has started put in food plots, started a podcast about that very topic, in fact has become part owner in a seed company as well.

I thought we'd sit down with him and learn a little bit more about putting in food plots and some new twists and some new tactics on how to do that.

Maybe a little bit better, a little bit smarter.

(motor engine revvs) A few weeks back found me in Jackson County tagging along with Jared Van Heese, learning some tips and tricks about food plots.

Jared is part owner of a seed company and has a popular podcast about habitat.

So my first question was just, how did you get started?

- I always wanted my own property.

That was a big goal of mine.

And then realizing once you had that the improvements you could make to literally have better deer hunting and better wildlife habitat, they can be done.

So I got just got fit by the habitat bug.

That's not what you normally find out.

Couldn't remember all the amount of information that's out there.

There's so much information on it.

So I started a podcast to interview people smarter than me and record it at the same time for selfish reasons so I could remember it.

And then other people were in the same boat as me.

So that's kind of how that got started.

And then throughout that there are food plots, there's timber work, there's all kinds of stuff we can do.

And I've kind of transitioned my food plot strategy over time.

- [Jordan] One of the questions that comes up a lot on Jared's podcast is the common mistakes that he sees first time food plot planners make.

- There's a few that we hit all the time on the podcast.

It would be location.

So most people wanna go and they have a nice opening, right?

You know, wherever it is on the property and they plant that opening.

It's easy to do that versus cut a bunch of trees down and create a new food plot.

Number one mistake would be where it is.

If you have to walk through it or walk out of it at night when the deer are feeding, you scare 'em out every time, that's a big mistake we see.

The convenience of maybe where you wanna put it versus where it should be are two different things.

Another one would be to plant too much of one seed at one time.

Proper seed ratio in terms of like brass, 'cause the really tiny ones.

Don't just throw the whole bag out there because you have a little bit left in the bottom of the bag.

Measure it correctly for the size of your plot.

So they don't compete with each other, otherwise they compete with each other and don't get to their full potential.

Those are two main ones.

- [Jordan] It was really interesting to see what Jared was doing here today on this plot.

- So this is more of a, if folks know about regenerative agriculture, it's kind of down that line.

Farmers have been doing it a long time.

What you're trying to do is keep living roots in the soil for as long as possible.

So before when I first got this property, I'd come out here, I'd spray roundup or glyphosate, I would wait two weeks, spray again, come back a third time, then I would disc it all up, turn the soil up, plant the seed, and call the packet in and pray for rain.

Well that's three trips down here for one planting and hoping you get some rain.

And I live an hour and 15 minutes from here so you can see how time and money add up with that.

And I have three little kids at home.

So it's always me trying to be more efficient.

Now today we're going with a whole different method where I'm not spraying herbicide, I'm not tilling up the ground at all.

I'm planting my seed into what's already out there, which is the fall mix.

And I'm running over the top of the fall mix, which will terminate it with this tool and plant itself.

So the five foot tall grasses and end mixes that are in the food plot right now that we'll see when I run them over are gonna go on top of the seed and form a thatch layer, which is like mulch, if you will, in your yard.

And it holds the seed under it, holds moisture to it and plants it, essentially plants it for you.

One pass, one trip.

- [Jordan] This was something I had not seen before.

The crimper that was on the other side of the pecker basically cut and killed the existing plants that were here in the plot.

So instead of spraying and tilling, the plants were making a great bed of nutrients for the new seed Jared had laid out all in hopes of bringing in the deer this fall.

- So access first.

It needs to be in a spot where you can come and go and the deer and wildlife, you not know you're there.

If you're blowing a deer out every time you walk by your food plot or into your food plot, in Michigan our deer will be outta here and become nocturnal.

So as you can see, we can't even see where the food plot and we're probably 30, 40 yards from it.

So I would say location is most important, but know how to get to that location with your access first, downwind, out of the wind and don't be bumping deer on the way in there.

Okay, so now that we've broadcasted our seed, we've used the roller crimper to crimp this ride down, this vitalized fall mix over it.

Look at what we have here.

We have a mat of vegetation covering our seeds.

That one here, one here, one here.

That acts as we just planted the seed that will decompose over time, that will feed the seeds.

It'll protect them from the hot sun like it's out today.

Seedlings trying to germinate.

It'll hold moisture and give them a greenhouse effect under this mulch canopy.

We literally planted our seed within one or two passes and it's all break down and feed each other and revitalize the soil over time.

- [Jordan] Nice, so it's better than trying to do it with the dirt?

- If you give great rain all the time, that works.

We've been dealing with some seasonal droughts here in Michigan.

Last fall we had a drought.

This spring we have a drought.

So anything we can do to keep the soil armored, to keep living roots in the soil.

12 months outta the year if we can.

And we're putting nutrients from the roots and from this plant back into the dirt.

We're feeding it, we're fertilizing.

So essentially over time, if you do the system enough, you will reduce your herbicide use, reduce your fertilizer use, doing a practice like we did today.

- [Jordan] Food plots have become a big deal here in Michigan over the years, and there is a lot to learn.

Jared's podcast might be a way to avoid some mistakes and hopefully bring more deer in range this fall here in Michigan's Out of Doors.

- Thank you so much for joining us this week for Michigan Out of Doors.

Make sure you stick around in upcoming weeks.

We've got all sorts of great summertime fishing adventures headed your way.

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

- Well, that's right.

Online is a good way to kinda keep track of us.

You can do that through our website, our different social media platforms, as well as YouTube.

You can actually subscribe to our channel there and get an email every time we post something new.

Make sure you are joining us over the next several weeks.

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

- [Jenny] Michigan Out of Doors is presented by.

- [Reporter] Do you dream of somewhere bigger than your backyard?

You can get there with GreenStone, whether you wanna hunt fish, hike, or just watch the sunset, we're ready to help you own your place in the great outdoors.

To learn more, visit greenstonefcs.com - [Announcer] By Network Outdoors, connecting members to share experiences, help grow businesses, and to give back to the outdoor community.

Learn more at one of 10 monthly meetups or online at networkoutdoors.com.

- [Jenny] By Alta Equipment Company providing sales rental service and parts because uptime matters from earth moving to landscaping and light construction, Alta offers over 50 brands across seven Michigan locations to serve you.

More information online or 844, go the number two Alta.

- [Jenny] Closed Captioning brought to you by WD Ranch Foundation, a non-profit 501c3 foundation, working to make hunting and fishing accessible for those with disabilities.

♪ When I want far away ♪ ♪ Dream stays with me night and days ♪ ♪ It's the road that leads to my home state ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ Changing seasons paint the sea ♪ ♪ Like rain boat crowd in a hidden stream ♪ ♪ The whitetail deer in the tall pine trees ♪