Grayling in Michigan - Again?

• Posted on 7 September 2021
• By Lauren Kingsley
• 0

Michigan continues its project of reintroducing the once-native Grayling into its home waters. That subspecies is now extinct, so they'll use the Arctic Grayling. Will it work?

If you’re an angler who keeps a life book, the way birders do, you may list the rivers you’ve fished, the states and countries you’ve fished, or the species of fish you’ve caught. I myself have never made such lists, but one thing I have always kept is a desire to land a grayling.

When I was in Alaska, the first week of August every year, the species available in the river were many and varied: Pinks, Chum, and Kings, as well as Dolly Varden, Char, and the magnificently massive trophy Rainbow trout for which the Naknek River is famous. We’d compare notes at the end of each day, with some of us bragging about the the fierce and beautiful Silvers, which were just starting to come into the river.  

But there was one fish that a few of us were quite keen to see in person: the Arctic Grayling. Not big or dramatic, not lusty or thuggish, they were simply a fish we wanted to experience first hand. Known for their stunning and varying colors, and also for their unique enormous dorsal fin, the Grayling, we knew, could not be found or fished in the wild any time soon for any of us. 

Those of us from Michigan seemed to have a spiritual connection with the iconic Grayling; after all, our Up North hub is the city of Grayling, in Crawford County, which was previously named Grayling County. Much lives in the imagination of Michiganders about how marvelously abundant these fish were in our cold streams. That was before logging, and industry, but also the avaricious overfishing that was done back then. Grayling were so prolific that people caught them by the hundreds and just threw them up on the bank to rot. Between these factors and the pressure of predation or competition from introduced species, they were gone by the 1930’s.

Down here at The Painted Trout, we sometimes are asked, “Hey, aren’t they trying to restock Grayling in Michigan rivers?” The answer is yes, but don’t hold your breath. I don’t mean that sarcastically; it’s just that it will be a few more years before we actually see them swimming along any of our banks, a bit longer than most people would be able to hold their breath.  

Reintroducing Grayling into their original habitat was attempted back in the 80s, but it was not successful. Then in 2016 the Michigan Grayling Initiative got organized with management of DNR and the Little River Band of Ottowa Native-Americans; since then about 50 other organizations have joined to collaborate in the project, along with more than a few academic researchers. They need to identify streams for a successful reintroduction, figure out some genetic questions, determine the sequence of benchmarks along the way, and most importantly learn what they don’t know about what they don’t know.  Hence the non-holding of breath. The science is intense and methodical and of course, expensive (another goal: raising funds). 

Once there were two populations of Grayling in the lower United States, one in Montana and one in Michigan. Since ours are now extinct, it cannot be determined how closely related they were.  So one of the big questions is, Will Arctic Grayling be a good candidate for Michigan residency? We’ll find out, but in the meantime there are no other alternatives. Connecting them genetically is difficult. Yes, even the mounts you see over your favorite bar or in your buddy’s den don’t help: so far they have been found to have originated elsewhere and not in Michigan. 

So far they have determined in controlled experimental settings only, that Arctic Grayling get along nicely with Brook Trout but Brown Trout do not play nice.  This could be the one draw back in the minds of many anglers — while no one wants to imagine the feisty brown trout absent from our beloved rivers, the truth is that it’s more likely that the browns will be the ones making that decision. In the wild, this may change, of course. So far, the initiative has been extremely successful as far as vitality is concerned.  And this is what we want: conditions under which these beautiful fish will thrive. While the European Grayling evolved alongside the Brown Trout, Arctic Grayling did not. So this is one of the questions the researchers are tackling. Along side the possibility that there were no Brook Trout in the lower peninsula when  Grayling were evolving there.  (There are not Grayling in the UP; it was owned by the Brook Trout).

So now the whole project rests on the use of wild stock originating in Alaska. The Arctic Grayling eggs are brought to Michigan and the process begins of hatching and feeding and studying etc etc.

It’s a great story, involving history, aquatic biology, genetics, behavior and ecology. You can learn more at the links below.  

In the meantime, if you are keen on meeting a Grayling in person, call the shop and we can tell you about out trips to Alaska.