Fishing The Boyne River

In the northern eastern tip of the lower peninsula of Michigan there is a river known as The Boyne. It makes it's way through the valleys of the hills that blanket the area and ends up feeding Lake Charleviox which eventually feeds Lake Michigan.

Long ago before the age of the lumber barons and the great timber harvests of their day the river was filled with a silvery member of the char family known as the Greyling it was home to massive Brook Trout as well. Its bottom was filled with pea gravel that these fish used as spawning beds. Then the logging began and as the logs were floated down the river the tore up the gravel beds and left behind a more sandy bottom. Then came the stocking of Brown Trout from Germany and Steelhead and Salmon from the Pacific Northwest.

The logging along with the introduction of foreign species as well as massive fishing basically decimated the Greyling and Brook Trout. Oh you may today catch a brookie here or there but gone are the one to two pounders of the days of my grandfather and his father.

No today fishing the Boyne is a different tale. Instead of year round fishing its best to fish the Spring and fall runs of the Steelhead and Salmon, and even then with out the replacement of gravel into river to make good spawning habitat and the cut backs in stocking the fishing is slowly diminishing.

As a kid it was not hard to catch and release 20 to 30 fish a day and take home one or two for the smoker or pan, now one is lucky to catch 5 total and one almost feels bad for keeping any.