What we do now will impact future Great Lakes anglers
My friends and some relatives constantly tell me I have little to zero tolerance regarding our beloved elected officials, who like to put up smoke screens by holding committee meetings.
For me, one main issue related to Lake Michigan has become a festering sore as some governmental agencies cover their backsides.
How many more years must we endure before the Great Lakes are choked by the red tape and nonsensical paper work coming from agencies trying to justify their existence?
The doom and gloomers have tried to make their case for years that the "sky is falling" on the Great Lakes.
Can we expect to see the Lake Michigan salmon and trout fishery crash to the very bottom of a lake, a body of water that has seen its ups and downs over a period of years?
I've seen and heard enough from the bureaucrats and studies. I've lived through the morass of contradictory baloney laid out on a table.
Illinois Department of Natural Resources biologists warned us that the perch fishing we once enjoyed will be a mere shadow of its former self. That was only partially true. We were warned the alewife population was about to disappear with the result seeing perch left competing with each other for morsels of food.
And the latest stab in the heart once again brings us the bad news that the "patient" (Lake Michigan) is under attack again from the likes of Asian carp.
In what was labeled a "confidential memo" from the Illinois DNR, silver carp had been spotted nine miles from Lake Michigan.
As far as I'm concerned, the memo cannot be substantiated because my contacts have apparently disappeared for the time being.
But another quasi-governmental group came out with its own piece of troubling news.
Here's what was said.
"Asian carp are like cockroaches, when you see one, you know it's accompanied by many more you don't see. This is a nightmare scenario for anyone concerned about the health of the Great Lakes and its economy."
"We have had fifteen years to deal with this slow motion tragedy. Perhaps this finding, along with the discovery of another species of Asian carp in the Illinois River, will convey the urgency of threat to the Great Lakes.
"The Trump Administration cannot delay for one minute more the release of a taxpayer funded study detailing how to deter the carp invasion. Illinois and Indiana, which have been blamed for obstructing action to address the issue, must join Great Lakes states to push for faster, stronger and more aggressive action. Giant jumping fish at Oak Street Beach will not help Illinois' tourism economy."
"Just this past week, members of Congress introduced legislation to force the Trump administration to release a plan outlining technologies to be employed at a key choke point in the Asian carps' path toward Lake Michigan and the entire Great Lakes ecosystem. That plan would likely take decades to deploy, while Great Lakes conservation groups have called for faster solutions that would address movement of invasive species from both the Great Lakes and Mississippi River system through Chicago's waterways."
That commentary came from Henry Henderson, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Midwest Program.
So where are we now?
I haven't a clue.
Has anyone forced the Army Corps of Engineers to admit their boondoggle of an electric fence on the Calumet River to halt the spread the ever-increasing number of Asian carp?
That, dear readers, will never happen in my lifetime. But who knows? Maybe the IDNR will get smart and charge Illinois residents an extra $25 fee to find and catch the Asian carp.
All I have to say now is OUCH.
• Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, catch his radio show 7-9 a.m. Sundays on WGCO 1590-AM (live-streamed at www.1590WCGO.com) and get more content at www.mikejacksonoutdoors.com.