Submitted by Nute Chapman
From Onaway Outlook April 13, 2012
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Submitted by Nute Chapman From Onaway Outlook April 13, 2012 |
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CAPTION: Fish biologists Mason Shoulder and manager Harold Miller (background), Pat Chapman(far left) Chuck Chapman (front right) and a group
of Onaway anglers help stock and record brook trout in the Black River. The photo is from 1983.
As I mull through an April 4, 1902 copy of the Onaway Interlake by Bob Wright, I found an article about stocking the
local streams.
Apparently, a person could buy "fry" or "fingerlings" and plant them anywhere.
C. M. Sage had been a former editor of the Outlook and was very active in Onaway's growth. He planted 110,000 brook and
rainbow trout in streams of this vicinity. Of the 110,000 fry, 5,000 were rainbows that were planted in the Bowen Creek
that feeds into the Black River.
The remaining 105,000 were trout planted in the Black River, Chandler Creek (now Stoney), Gregg Creek (now Lyon Creek).
The Greggs were the former owners of the Lyon's Dairy Farm.
They were also planted in McPherson-Welsh Creek and the Milliken(Milligan today).
Postmaster Clark also chipped into the planting. Clark planted 50,000 fry in the Gray Creek and the Rainey River.
Gray Creek is known to my family as Baker's Creek. It crosses M-33 at the Don Baker farm and flows west across the county
line and empties into the Black near the "Twelve Foot Swimming Hole" above the Horse Races.
The streams in this vicinity were the best stocked of any in the state. The fry that were planted prior to 1902 had
grown large enough to afford excellent fishing. Sage and Clark are deserving of much credit for their interest in keeping
our fishing streams stocked.
Along this line at some point in the state set aside many acres along small streams for people to fish. We have some
of the small tracts in our area.
One is at the intersection of 638 Highway and South Porter Road. This 15 acres of state land runs along both sides of
the Little Rainey in section 24 of Allis Township. Another 15 acre tract runs west along both sides of the Stoney where it
crosses M-211.
Another 15 acre tract is at the end of Brady Road in Waverly Township, on the Stoney Creek that flows into the Milligan.
There are many of these small tracts of land in the state of Michigan.
To bad the state can't keep up with their planting like the editor Sage and postmaster Clark started in the late 1800s.
-Onaway Outlook, April 13, 2012, p.3.
Retyped by J. Anderson.