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Commercial fishing

The state-licensed commercial fishery looks very different than it did 50 years ago. There was a time when Great Lakes commercial fishing was a huge industry with thousands of licenses employing tens of thousands of people. The modern commercial fishery has been consolidated and streamlined. Currently there are around 50 state issued commercial fishing licenses in Michigan spread out over all four of the Great Lakes and only a portion of them harvest fish each year. The others simply maintain their licenses out of a sense that the license alone may have value due to the limited-entry system. 

History of state-licensed Great Lakes commercial fishing

Tribal Coordination Unit

The Tribal Coordination Unit leads the coordination of activities between the State of Michigan and tribal entities with regards to fishery resources and the Treaties of 1836 and 1842.

Tribal Coordination Unit