In Michigan, a Fight Over the Future of a Fabled Trout River

I grew up less than a mile from this hatchery. We used to go pay a quarter and feed the fish. It has been there for a long time. I don't see what is different now. What are there, a couple thousand fish? Or has he added more?

I love to fly fish, and I love the rivers up North, including the Main Branch of the Au Sable. I would like to see some facts, if facts exist anymore, about the amount of phosphates that would be allowed on a regular basis, and what the worst case scenario would be if the fish farmer were maxing out the facility and a major release occurred.

This guy does not sound like he's the Monsanto of fish farming. It sounds like kind of a cool way to use that old facility, if done in a responsible manner. I'd just like more info before saying no way.

Finally, the article is a bit confusing, because the author jumps from the Mason Tract, through which the South Branch flows to the Holy Waters, which is part of the Main Branch. I certainly don't want any of the Main Branch impacted, but the South and North Branches would not be impacted by the fish farm.

Great article JC. "Love" the story. Have another "great" story for you with "magnificent" "big stuff" about our "river story" here in Traverse City, MI. 49684.
Goes something like this in brief. 2003 the local power company decides to decommission and remove four dams on a "blue ribbon", natural river trout stream called the Boardman River. In the process the first dam fails during the removal process and floods the homes on the river. That's "big stuff" by itself but gets better. Well, the rest of the story is waiting for you to come and write in a "phenomenal" James Card way. "Love" to hear from you.

These days I read articles like this and think, oh well. And wonder how many of those against the fish farm voted for trump and other republicans. Because this is what you get when you embrace the "free market" in all things, and shun laws and regulations. Money is king, nature is not. I'm going to feel the same way when I start reading about people in other red states complaining about the earthquakes from fracking, the oil spills, the toxic waste leaks from massive pig farms stinking everything up and causing all sorts of ailments. Oh well. You reap what you sow.

I lived in Grayling just outside of town right on the Au sable river. It is such a lovely river and many who are not anglers also enjoy its beauty. The summer draws many to canoe its waters and once a year athletes from near and far compete in a canoe race that runs its full length. They paddle special boats with fierce intensity along the twists and turns. I would float in my kayak along remote miles and find river otters and bald eagles. You can hear grouse calling and there was a flock of waxwings just across the river from my cottage. Beavers, Loons they're all there. Then in May the flies would erupt in massive clouds with their wings back lit by the low sun. Glorious!
I also lived in Maryland not far from the Chesapeake Bay. That great body of water was suffocated by excessive nutrification and silt from run off that comes from the farms and construction in surrounding states. So far the Au Sable has survived these issues. I would argue against any dumping of excess nutrients into this magical little river. There will be other places to put a fish farm with less risk to something so close to pristine. There are better ways for Grayling to create jobs.

People come from all over the world to fly fish that river.

It's another ruinous decision by Michigan Governor Snyder. ANY pollution is enough to damage that water for anglers, wildlife, and anyone who appreciates clean water.

Snyder gave them the ok to pollute without any of the restrictions and filtrations that other fisheries n this state are subject to.

I fish because I love to;
Because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly;
Because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape;
Because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion;
Because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience;
Because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don’t want to waste the trip; because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters;
Because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness;
Because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there;
Because maybe one day I will catch a mermaid;
And, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant – and not nearly so much fun.

- John Voelker

Run the wastewater through a field of willows.

I do not fly-fish and I am not likely to even visit the Au Sable, so my opinion is ecological and objective.
The permit was a terrible mistake, not just for the damage that the fish farm will do, but for the precedent it sets. The next application will want more of the river and its beauty and the next one after will want it all. Either to farm fish - or other crop - or to take it into private ownership.
Once the "camel's nose is under the tent flap" there is not stopping or turning back. Once beauty is seen only as profit, beauty is gone never to return.

The Au Sable folks might want to talk to the Platte Lake Improvement Association, to their West. The PLIA sued a state run hatchery years ago, reached an agreement, and now monitor water quality to ensure the still operating hatchery is not exceeding its agreed upon discharge limits.

https://plia.wildapricot.org/

An American industrialist, George Mason from Michigan upon his death in 1954 donated HIS 1,500 acres along the Au Sable River to the state. In 2012, the county approached Dan Vogler, a fish farmer who figured the only way he could keep the historic hatchery open for tourism was to be able to raise fish there year round and sell those fish to his customers. What’s the matter with a profitable enterprise contributing and enabling the survival of the community and the intent of the donor that HIS property be enjoyed by the public: not only those who fish. The trout are still wild – but it appears a point of pride among anglers on the Au Sable River that they want pristine, virgin waters, similar to the flow of the ‘50’s. Although much of the river is still considered a naturally reproducing trout fishery. The essay has the same high stench of the agitated protestors too willing to denigrate anyone who has a different opinion than the one they hold tightly while in angst with anyone who would think differently. Get over it – and be thankful George Mason gave his property to the people for their enjoyment – and not just to those who relish fly-fishing (their choice) and want to ignore tourists, hunters and the county.

That fish hatchery sure isn't very big to be generating all this furor. If the state has permitted the trout farm with permissible limits of discharge then, unless these limits can be PROVEN to be wrong, the farm should be free to operate within those limits. All the upset fisherman who ally themselves with the dishonest environmental groups are very foolish. They don't realize that they, the fisherman, are probably next to be banned. In the West the environmental groups have gone from, successfully, fighting the miners to the loggers to the snowmobilers and now to trying to ban hunters from vast swaths of, formerly open, public lands. I'm sure the enviros can gin up a study showing that catch and release causes increased fish kill (how could it not?) and thus fishing should be banned to protect these "fragile" species!
If you don't think it can happen to your stream you are very naive. Public resource users need to work together and not allow themselves to be picked off one by one. Support that fish farm, fisherman, to protect your own access tomorrow! The environmental groups are not your friend. They, ultimately, don't want humans on the land.

The original donor of this land, the one after Native American peoples, was an industrialist and yet could still see the beauty in preserving the river and surrounding land so that it would remain vital and pristine far into the future. Shouldn't the intent of the man who wanted the river preserved, and the fish within, be taken into account, as well?

I once saw a trout in a tributary creek of the rouge river near Detroit. I have canoed and fished extensively in Michigan my home. No one persons business venture should ever endanger our prescious remaining natural resources. I have zero optimism for our future, I bet over half of our outdoor loving men in Michigan voted for the con. Ask if he ever wetted a line in a trout stream, the only thing he ever got wet is too small to even measure.

Last fall, on the stretch of the Holy Water near where your photograph accompanying the article was taken--it's a stretch I know well--the mats of weeds were more expansive than I've ever seen them. Already. Warmer temperatures were the culprit. Throw in phosphates from a hatchery we don't need, and you have a recipe for a disaster.

The Au Sable has already suffered enough: grayling, for which the city of Grayling is named, have already been driven to extinction in the river. Will trout be next? While brown trout are not native to the river, they have developed a self-sustaining population of wild fish--and self-sustaining ecosystems are always fragile. The hatchery is a mistake--we have enough challenges to face protecting the river in the face of the effects of climate change.

At least these fisherpersons presumably eat what they catch. "Catch and Release" fanatics are the ones that mystify me. How is it "sporting" to hook an animal with a piece of metal, make it struggle for its life until it is utterly exhausted, remove it from its environment to one where it literally cannot breathe, remove the hook, gawk at it while it suffocates, then return it to the water to likely experience it again? Why don't we similarly have a sport where we lasso or hoof loop a deer, play tug-o-war with it until it collapses, hold its head underwater for a while, remove the rope and let it run away?

Same thing, but sounds barbarous. But "catch and release" is a sport?

My father spent all his growing up summers on this river, sometimes completely alone, starting at age 10. He built two tiny cabins near it, having cut down all the trees for it. And, then he brought his children for summer vacations, to learn to fish, shoot, and canoe. Why do humans ruin everything they touch?

Another article about the spectrum of our relationship with nature from absence to stewardship to enslavement. The fact that even in Grayling we have such a large footprint is discouraging, and it is not likely to get better in the near future.

Michigan produced probably the greatest trout fisherman who ever lived & that was your John Voelker, writing under the pen name of Robert Traver. He had a special & private trout pond & cabin in the UP he called Frenchmans, that apparently was virtually unknown to the public.
Writer James McCullough said, "He found beauty there, loved it, and brought it to our eyes. So, while one lesson of Voelker's Pond is that there is no place like it, another is that there are millions more just as moving, just as magical."

For all those who've lost their treasured, remote fishing spots to environmental devastation by timber companies, fracking or some other economic activity, there can be no outcry; to protest would be to unlock the secret & lose the magical solitude to the crowds.
But this famous Au Sable of yours, Michiganders, can be saved & to share it with others into the future may be the best outcome of all. Good luck to you.

Just looked as the Google map image for the area. The river upstream runs past a golf course and through a town where the hatchery's located. The hatchery's about the same size as the hospital parking lot on the opposite river bank. There are miles and miles of homes along the river. It's hard to see how the hatchery will make much of a difference given all the development that's already there. The river may run sweet for trout, but pristine the countryside is not.

I am a Michigander and have known the Au Sable for a long time. I hope the state and local governments don't allow it to be trashed. Mr. Capitalist is sure to stink the place up if given free rein, as is seen in the equivocating trout farmer's talk about how it is not going to be hurt that much. That, of course, is pollution creep. The cold weather and the bears used to keep the population density relatively low up North, now both are in shorter supply; as the years go on, it will take some active prevention to keep it from deteriorating.

Corrected.
In my fishing group of relatives. There are spining fisherman fly fishermen and bait fisherman.
Every year we as a group lose more stream to flys only. Or artificial only.
Funny the people who scream about natural and wild insist on artificial gear. LOL
The big issue to us is that. A fly fisherman can fish every inch of stream from the headwaters to the mouth of the lake. We keep getting pushed into a smaller and smaller bit of stream. That is still crowded with fly fisherman. I believe this is wrong. Open the stream to all conservationists.
The license cost the same yet we get more and more limited waters. The rivers i fished with my grand father and father. Are now off limits. Its wrong it needs to stop. Figure out how much more stream is being used by fly fisherman and raise the license cost for a fly stamp by that much state wide.
If only 20 % of michigans designated trout streams is open to all tackle. Thats the base line. Then there should be a artificial tag/stamp with an 80% price increase. My choice would be our waters are just that.OURS. WE ARE ALL RIVER AND TROUT LOVING CONSERVATIONIST. Im a broken hearted fisherman. Missing the waters I learned on with grampa.

I have fished the AuSable and the nearby Manistee River my whole life.
So does my 80 year old father. As did his father before him.
The hatchery is an important Icon to us. The Hysteria over the Hatchery is nonsense. It has been there as long as 3 Generations have sucked air.
The bigger threat would be the it wasn't maintained and falls into disrepair and erodes into a disaster.
There was a sewage release from Grayling last year. Now that concerns me.

The South Branch of the Au Sable is a wild, beautiful river enjoyed by thousands every summer. Allowing it to be overgrown with weeds, thanks to wastewater discharges from fish hatchery, would be killing a golden goose. We have visited Grayling many times over the years, staying in local motels or B&Bs, renting canoes, eating in local restaurants. It all starts with the river's health!

The Au Sable is without a doubt one of the gems of the midwest. I totally agree with Mr. Greenberg, the cost-benefit of a barely profitable fish farm vs. the potential risk of that fish farm to the Au Sable (which is a treasure) do not add up.

So Mr. Vogler is willing to pollute a river for his personal profit. If you built a home alongside the river, you couldn't pipe your sewage into the river, why can Mr. Vogler dump his trout's waste into the river? It's much more than any family would ever produce daily.
How did this come about? Because Michigan's politics is dominated by Republicans and for them, it's all about business and profits, never mind the environment. Where's Teddy Roosevelt when you need him ?

This piece made my day. Better than politics any day.

Both sides dont see that there are ways to clean up the fishery. Permaculure, making fertilizer or putting the waste through a filter system of grasses.
There are solutions that are affordable.

Businesses should reevaluate how your get rid of your waste and check into
other solutions.

The Au Sable's brown and rainbow trout are not strictly wild, as the article asserts. The Au Sable watershed is anthropogenic. It was stocked with exotic trout 100 years ago, to replace the decimated population of native grayling. The hatchery is problematic, but so are the cheek-by-jowl houses that line the banks of its Holy Waters. They detract from the supposed wildness of this esteemed landscape. Some of these homes are owned by the hatchery's most vocal opponents. It's a thrill to catch and release the big trout that lurk in these pressured waters. Mostly that's a nighttime activity, again because of pressure on the resource.

The fish hatchery needs to find a way to make this right if it wants to stay in business. You don't set up a three-man hatchery operation on legendary trout waters if there is even a chance your operations could jeopardize the health of those waters. It is shameful that a discharge permit was even considered for the hatchery.

I think the best the local community can do at this point, if there is no legal recourse, is to boycott the purchase of hatchery fish. The sad reality is that we can't count on our governments to protect our natural resources anymore.

There are comments about Brown trout being part of the 'wild ones' of the river. Brown trout, sometimes referred to as German Browns, were introduced to American waters from Europe and are not native fish. The comment that the trout hasn't been caught since he was ten inches long is silly as well. Where's the sport in tormenting fish?

What a lovely river. I won't canoe or kayak anywhere else. See for yourself what is here for us to protect.

If God is a member of the Anglers of the Au Sable, Mr. Vogler probably isn't going to get the permit he is hoping for.

I believe that groups like Trout Unlimited agree that the wild trout/fish are preferable to stocked fish. I believe the wild ones are more suitable, as they have adapted to the specific environment, unlike the invasive (stocked) fish.

Ah- the Au Sable River and Grayling.
Happy Memories of canoes and fish and clean water.
My Michigan - Water, Winter, Wonderland - The Great Lake State
Please don't spoil it!

I used to go to the Grayling hatchery when I was kid all the time. It was fascinating. Protect the Au Sable, and the Manistee.

The au sable is an allegory for the difference between conservation and capitalism. Conservation encompasses being conservative of clean water and clean air for the current and all future generations. Capitalism encompasses the use of natural resources to make money. Making that money creates waste by products that degrades water and air. The proposed roll back of regulations by the incoming administration as well as Republicans in Congress will put us back to that time 40 years ago when capitalism was king and pollution was rampant. Their apparent plans are not just to stop the waters of the US ruling and the clean power plan, they want to go much farther back and gut protections that have served us well for the past 40 years. They say they will protect the environment but the historical record shows this to be a lie. The question for the public is not proposed regulations, but how much protection they are willing to give up. Does the public really want to roll back regulations so the air and water looks like a third world country? That is what Pruitt and Republicans are proposing.

Around 1964, I fished here and camped nearby as a teenager with my algebra teacher who took me under his wing since my father was fighting lung cancer at the time. Precious memories. I hope the South Branch is preserved for the enjoyment of future generations.

Nice piece. Great river. Why is our state willing to let a fish factory use the Au Sable as its sewer, when it operates a state-of-the-art fish farm that scrubs its water clean on the Platte River? Mr. Vogler is going to create 2 minimum wage jobs...and endanger millions of dollars of home investment and sports activities on the river.

I am a fly fisher from Texas. After this article, I'm going to make a way to fish the Au Sable. There is a way to clean up after the fishery, it just needs to be found. But just about every river in North America has too much phosphorous. It ruins the river in many ways. About the only rivers still with pure water are above 7500 feet in elevation, and not even all of those.

Is it true that they have just frozen EPA research grants?

In the summer of 1966 I canoed on the Au Sable for a week. What an awesome experience it was...awakened me to the natural beauty of my wonderful state of Michigan. In all the years since, many friends and relatives have sought solace and trout about the waters of the Au Sable. Hopefully, a balance will be found between the economic wants of Mr. Vogler, and the need for the river ecosystem to remain healthy. The health of the river's ecosystem should be the priority.