Mike Schoonveld: Will licensing inland fishing guides in Michigan hurt the sport?
I had the chance to sit down to visit with Gary Roach (a.k.a. Mr. Walleye) at an outdoor communicator’s conference last fall.
He explained how he got into the “fishing” business that became his life’s calling. Born with a passion for fishing, Roach started guiding fishermen before he was even a teenager, he invented and sold fishing tackle, won major fishing tournaments, and he still loves to fish.
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Mike Schoonveld: Federal funding, or lack thereof, has hindered development of wind energy projects on the Great Lakes
A report released by the Dept. of Energy in 2014 was supposed to be the green flag for a race to establish wind energy projects on the Great Lakes.
If that’s the case why, after a decade, aren’t there any wind farms established or being built in the Great Lakes? It shows that even with government backing, most developers are smart enough to realize such projects would be more boondoggle than boom.
Mike Schoonveld: Find the warmest water for early-season fishing success
Humans and other warm-blooded creatures have internal systems to help them adjust to a wide range of temperatures.
Cold-blooded creatures, like fish, don’t have those systems but they do have “preferred” temperature ranges. When they get too hot or too cold, they move. If the water is too hot, they often just go deeper.
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Single or treble hooks for fishing: Which one are you going with?
Hypothetical situation: You’re stranded, starving, and close to death from lack of food.
You’ve just found some fishing gear and it includes two identical fishing lures, identical except one of them has a single hook, the other is fitted with a treble hook. You know you may only have one chance to catch a fish. Which lure are you going to pick?
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So many options: What to consider when buying a fishing rod
Even an experienced angler can walk into a store that sells fishing rods and quickly become baffled.
In a small shop, there may be a couple dozen rods from which to choose. In a large store, there may be a couple hundred. How do you choose which one is right for you?
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Mike Schoonveld: A win for boat dealers; a caution for boat buyers
Would you buy a car from a dealership called Honest Al’s Autos? Perhaps, but you’d probably believe Honest Al about as much as you’d believe a fortune teller at a carnival.
It’s bad enough that Al will pontificate exponentially about the features, reliability, history and other aspects of the cars he trying to sell, but once you’ve finally negotiated a price and decided to purchase the vehicle, by the time you get the paperwork done in Al’s office, you are apt to have a few hundred (or more) dollars tacked onto the bill.
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Mike Schoonveld: Deep thoughts about fishing with earthworms
I’m not a particularly deep thinker, and most of the time, like when I’m threading a worm on a hook, I’m not thinking much deeper than how deep I should dangle the worm.
Most fish like to eat worms. But why? The answer to that question takes some deep thinking.
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Know your insurance coverage before taking a vehicle out on the ice
I recently saw a photo of an airplane that landed on the ice of a frozen lake and then skidded onto thin ice where it nosedived into the water below.
Until then, I’d never even heard of a plane landing on an ice-covered lake, but I suppose in “up-north” areas where lakes seem to be ice-covered more than they are open water, it happens frequently. I’ve seen dozens of photos of cars, trucks, snow machines and ATVs that took the plunge.
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Michigan contains two carp species… and counting?
In a mostly unscientific poll I took at a Christmas party, I asked the attendees how many species of carp are now present in America. Most of them said two – the common carp that has always been here (one guy called it the American carp) and the Asian carp.
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