Fewer Fish Caught In 2014

There were fewer fish caught by commercial fishermen in Michigan last year but they put more money in the bank.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources says the state-licensed commercial fishery caught over 3.3 million pounds of fish in 2014 with an estimated wholesale dockside value of more than $5.8 million prior to processing, marketing and retail sales.

While the state’s total harvest was about 200,000 pounds less than in 2013, the fishery’s estimated gross dockside value was up $300,000, more than 5 percent.

The DNR says the increase is almost exclusively attributed to a more-than-15-percent increase in the wholesale price of lake whitefish. The species’ value has gone up more than 50 percent in the past two years.

Lake whitefish accounted for more than 67 percent of the state-licensed harvest by pounds and 84 percent of the gross value during the last decade.