By Louie Stout

In all likelihood, Michigan bass anglers will be given the opportunity to fish for bass year-round next year, but the harvest season will remain pretty much the same.

The trouble is, we won’t know until early next April when the Natural Resources Commission casts the deciding vote.

The Future of Michigan bass regs have been up in the air all year.

Currently, the state offers a catch-and-release only season that opens the last Saturday in April and runs until its harvest season opens Memorial Day weekend in late May.

Anglers have pushed hard for a more liberal season so the DNR decided to open it up for discussion last summer. It canvassed anglers to determine what kind of changes they’d like to see. It listed four options and asked anglers which ones they could support.

One called for year-round catch and release but maintain the current harvest season; it attracted 70 percent support.

Another 63 percent supported no changes to current regulations while 54 percent favored opening the harvest season along with pike and walleye (last Saturday in April) and maintain catch and release year-round. Another 46 percent responded they wanted to maintain current harvest seasons statewide but change the opening day for St. Clair and adjoining rivers to the Saturday before Memorial Day with catch and release at all other times of the year.

In addition to the public survey, DNR Chief of Fisheries Jim Dexter polled his fish biologists and that created an equal grab bag of responses.

“It was a fascinating exercise, but there wasn’t any clear-cut choice,” said Dexter. “So, I had to take everything in consideration when I made my recommendation to the Director and the Commission.”

That’s why Dexter’s current, “informal” proposal is to leave the dates as they are but allow year-round catch and release plus move the St. Clair, Detroit River and St. Clair Open to the first Saturday in June rather than the third Saturday in June.

It’s informal because the door remains cracked for anglers to go before the Natural Resource Commission before next March and plead their case for one of the other options. If no one makes a solid case, he’ll push for his “informal” recommendation.

The DNR has to wait until then because of August’s legislative change that transferred season-changing powers to the NRC. Under the law, the DNR and NRC have to wait until spring to make the decision final.

Not surprisingly, Dexter’s proposal has met resistance from die-hard bass anglers who prefer to see the harvest season aligned with the opening of pike and walleye.

“We know there is a headwind to change the harvest season to the last Saturday in April,” added Dexter. “We’re telling people to show up at any Commission meeting before March (when the final recommendation will be made) and convince the NRC why another option is better.”

Because of these unusual delays, any bass season changes won’t be posted in the 2015 Fishing Guide, which gets printed in December. However, Dexter believes some kind of change will be announced in April after the March NRC meeting.

Michigan, one of only four states with closed bass seasons, has been ultra-conservative with the bass season issue.

Some Michigan biologists and anglers argue that the state’s premier smallmouth bass fishery is at risk if the season is opened up and the fish are removed from the nest.

They say bedding smallmouth are overly aggressive and will strike just about anything that enters their protective zone. When those fish are removed - even temporarily such as during a tournament – the nests get raided by aquatic creatures that feed on the eggs. And, some believe, that bass held in livewells for any length of time will not return to the nest.

Largemouth bass, on the other hand, are more prolific and difficult to catch when bedding.

But here’s the thing: When the traditional season opens Memorial Day weekend, a large percentage of bass are spawning. Opening the season on the first long weekend - a weekend when a lot of people are fishing - exposes those fish to considerable angling pressure anyway.

That begs the question as to whether the existing law has attributed to the state’s bass fishery, as traditionalists claim, or simply deprives anglers of more fishing opportunities earlier in the year.

Dexter says that his recommendation doesn’t close the door to future changes, but gives his biologists time to study the issue further.

“Each change we’ve made in our bass regs over the years has made fishing better,” he said, pointing to the increase in the size limit and the catch-and-release season instituted a few years ago.

“We’re not ready to sprint to the finish line,” he adds, “but we’re willing to put this in gear and drive in a more methodical way to make sure we don’t endanger our bass resources.”

If you want a voice in all of this, you can write the NRC or better yet, as Dexter says, schedule time to appear before it. The NRC meets next on Dec. 11 at the Lansing Center in Lansing. For contact information, visit www.michigan.gov/dnr or email nrc@michigan.gov.