Trout Unlimited Restores National Forest Streams in Michigan

The doe stepped nervously around the bend of a narrow river in the Ottawa National Forest, but I had already claimed the hole. She darted into the thick vegetation, and I heard her splash upon re-entering the river a little farther upstream. After catching and releasing three beautiful native brook trout - one each on a nymph, a streamer, and a dry fly - I hiked back downstream and got back on the road.

The hole was just upstream from a Trout Unlimited project site where, working with U.S. National Forest staff, they’d removed old dam pilings blocking passage for trout. When aquatic organism passage barriers like dams and undersized culverts block trout and other aquatic organisms, it limits their ability to escape warm summer temperatures or other stressful environmental factors. When those barriers are removed, trout and other aquatic organisms can thrive, while reducing the risk of flooding when old dams fail or culverts clog up.

These projects restore watersheds to their natural function of moving and storing water by removing or replacing the artificial structures which impede them. In 2022, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Trout Unlimited (TU) agreed to a 5-year, $40 million initiative to restore watersheds flowing through National Forests across the country. It was funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and builds upon years of successful partnership between TU and the USFS, such as the dam pilings removal project.

The nationwide initiative is already having an impact in Michigan.

In the Ontonagon River watershed, TU completed two projects replacing undersized and perched
culverts that reconnected almost 10 miles of trout habitat. On Calderwood Road over Trout Creek, two undersized, perched culverts blocked trout from passage to 7.5 miles of high-quality upstream habitat. The culverts increased the velocity of water moving through them, creating a plunge pool that increased erosion and flooded the natural stream banks. Both the velocity and the height of the perch – the distance from the downstream surface up to the bottom of the culvert – prevented smaller trout from getting upstream through the culvert. Electro-shocking before the project found more brook trout downstream than upstream of the road crossing.

Sarah Topp, TU’s Upper Peninsula Stream Restoration Manager, worked with Ottawa National Forest staff, the Ontonagon County Road Commission, and Snow Country Contracting of Bessemer to replace the culverts. They created a diversion channel, removed the old culverts, and replaced them with a 16-foot wide, 9-foot-tall culvert that restored natural stream function, eliminated the plunge pool, restabilized the downstream banks, and opened 7.5 miles of upstream habitat for brook trout.

A similar aquatic organism passage (AOP) project TU conducted this summer where Spargo Creek
crosses a forest road – also within the Ontonagon watershed – opened 1.5 miles of quality upstream trout habitat in Houghton County.

Below the bridge, Jeremy Geist, TU’s Great Lakes Stream Restoration Manager, worked with Huron-Manistee National Forest staff and the Newago County Road Commission to replace perched and undersized culverts on Woody Creek, a tributary to the Pere Marquette River. In the Manistee River watershed, he led projects restoring road-stream crossings on Peterson Creek and Hinton Creek in Wexford County.

The Hinton Creek project is significant because it removed the ninth and final upstream barrier in the Hinton Creek watershed, completing a multi-year effort opening at total of 15 miles of habitat. Hinton Creek is a coldwater refuge supporting a naturally reproducing population of native brook trout identified as a priority watershed through a joint USFS and Wexford County Road Commission survey of road-stream crossings in the Huron-Manistee National Forest.
Michigan is blessed with abundant National Forest public land containing more miles of trout stream than any angler can hope to possibly explore in a single lifetime. Significantly, Michigan’s spring-fed coldwater streams and river systems provide a stronghold for temperature-sensitive native brook trout and wild brown and rainbow trout as climate change warms and dries rivers in other parts of the country.

These road-stream crossing projects in our National Forests restore the ability of these watersheds to provide a home for trout for generations to come, while leveraging federal investments into on-the-ground results employing local contractors and relieving the budgets of local county road commissions.

It’s something to appreciate when we’re standing mid-stream, appreciating the blue halos around the spots of a wild, native brook trout in the net whether caught on a nymph, a streamer, or a dry fly.

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