Every year, heavy snow fall on Michigan's Upper Peninsula can make it difficult for anglers to continue to fish. The state is trying to solve this problem, by making the U.P. more accessible for ice fishing.
In a pilot program, the state decided to partner with local businesses, road commissions, and municipalities in order to plow snow off access points that are required for fishing.
Stacy Haughey is the Upper Peninsula’s Field Deputy for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. As an angler herself, she said that she was passionate about keeping ice access sites open for fellow anglers. The problem, she said, was that the DNR can't use the funding for the access sites because that funding comes from boating dollars— which can't be used in the winter.
She said, "we spent some time trying to figure out how to keep them open so that people could get out and enjoy ice fishing and enjoy other activities on the ice...So we tried a few different ways to accomplish that, and we weren't really finding much luck. So we connected with actually Minnesota, Wisconsin to try to see how they did it. And at the end, what we did is we're working with multiple layers of partners."
She said that after speaking with Minnesota and Wisconsin, two other high snowfall states, she was shocked that they didn't have a good solution to this problem either. Haughey said, "people try to work creatively to keep people enjoying these winter activities."
The snow plow program is in its third year, and it is being continued because of the success it has seen. This year, there are 25 locations, and it spans over ten out of 15 counties in the U.P.
Haughey said that although there are no current plans to put money in the state budget for the program, she hopes that it will continue in the future.
