Here’s the report from the Pere Marquette River, courtesy of our friend Juri Geidans:

“20 degrees this morning (Sunday), ice forming on my rod guides, water temp 46. Had to keep dunking my rod to melt it off. Went 2-for-5 on Saturday and 2-for-7 this morning. Hard to get good photos by yourself and not beat up the fish. First shot (left) shows hen spilling eggs. Second shot (right) shows red buck with my egg cluster fly in his mouth. Black stone fly took a lot of the hits, but when it works you keep tying the same thing on.”

Thanks, Juri!

I just read that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has declared this Saturday a meat-free day. I have three words for that: Ha. Ha. Ha.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s hard for anyone to argue she has done a superb job as Michigan’s executive officer, but I’m not in the army of Jenny-haters. In my view, one brand of politician isn’t noticably more reprehensible than the other.

But this is like vegetarianism in general: Dumb. My teen-aged children have known since they were small that our species developed opposable thumbs a few million years ago for the express purpose of grasping tools to stab animals that are made of meat. If we were meant to eat plants, we would have longer necks and extra stomachs. Instead we have larger brain cases, bipedal gait, eyes in the front and yes, opposable thumbs. In other words, we’re not here to graze.

So when this idiotic meat-out comes on Saturday, at least one bipedal hunter will open the freezer and grasp a piece of elk or deer meat, stand over it while it’s seasoned and grilled, tuck into it with tools and enjoy every savory bite.

Because he can.

So far, so good. Fisheries biologists from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources are several weeks into electrofishing surveys in the Chicago Area Waterways System, and according to department spokesman Chris McCloud they have not found any Asian carp.

That’s good news, but they aren’t finished. This week they surveyed the Calumet River, one of the areas of concern for folks who are worried that the ecosystem-devastating carp will eventually establish breeding populations in Lake Michigan and ultimately all the Great Lakes.

In an electrofishing survey, biologists and fish techies zap the water with a DC current that stuns all the fish below. The fish bob to the surface, where they’re counted, and within a few minutes most of them swim away unharmed. The technique is favored by biologists because if it’s in there, it’s coming up.

McCloud told me on Wednesday that the teams had found plenty of common carp but no bigheads or silvers. This week they surveyed two areas near the mouth of the Calumet River and a section of Lake Calumet.

The first Calumet River site, right near the mouth, produced a handful of panfish and several hundred juvenile yellow perch. At the second site, a but further upstream, they found banded killifish, yellow perch and one spottail shiner. The third site, in Lake Calumet, yielded 47 common carp, 18 bigmouth buffalo, a few panfish and some minnow types.

But no Asian carp.

OK, so you’re technically not giving a frog a hand, per se. It’s more about letting those folks who keep tabs on our wilder places what’s happening with the amphibians. They can’t be everywhere, so they need the help.

I’m talking about the Michigan Frog and Toad Survey. It’s a Department of Natural Resources and Environment program in which regular people help biologists figure out how the frogs and toads are doing. That’s important because those critters tell us how clean the air and water are by their very existence.

It’s pretty easy. You establish a route of 10 ponds or wetlands, and then three times during the spring you visit each of your spots and listen.

In early April you hear wood frogs and spring peepers. In May it’s tree-frog city. By June the green frogs rule. There are others of course, leopard frogs, chorus frogs, bull frogs and American toads. You keep track of how many your hear and return the survey to the DNRE. Participants receive a CD with the calls of all Michigan’s frog and toads so they know what they’re hearing.

Depending on your distances, each run takes around an hour, give or take. It’s an excellent reason to get outside, and it’s often remarkable just how loud those ponds get after dark. Kids love it, and it’s a great way to connect them to their world, the lack of which is a persistent problem in my opinion.

At the moment there are about 200 routes statewide, and they’re always looking for more. If you’re interested, call or e-mail Lori Sargent at (517) 373-9418 or SargentL@Michigan.gov.

OK, here’s a quick quiz. Which of the following would you consider the bigger slob?

a) Someone who shoots a deer just so it can be used as bait to attract eagles for viewing?

b) Someone who shoots a deer out of season for any reason?

c) Someone who uses more than 100 gallons of bait — that’s 50 times the legal amount in the Upper Peninsula — to attract deer?

d) Someone who shoots a deer, strips its backstraps out and leaves the rest.

It’s a tough call. Each of the above behaviors is reprehensible, disgusting and gives legitimate, law-abiding deer hunters a bad name. Well, here’s the good news: YOU DON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE! The very same morons did all those things!

OK, so no one has been convicted yet. But conservation officers from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment are pursuing charges. They say they received a citizen complaint about a large bait pile in a remote area of Delta County. When they checked out the offending deer camp, they found the massive bait pile, a blood trail and a freshly killed deer on the ice of a nearby lake.

When the owner and his pack of imbeciles returned from snowmobiling, they admitted the whole thing. And they still had the backstraps.

Genius.

Here’s some good news for pheasant and quail hunters: U.S. Ag secretary Tom Vilsack announced over the weekend that a new CRP signup will open up later this year, and there also will be more acreage allotted for specific habitats. He made the announcements at Pheasants Forever’s National Pheasant Fest in Des Moines, Iowa.

CRP, of course, is the practice of paying farmers and landowners for keeping their land in a natural state to provide wildlife habitat. There are 4.4 million acres of CRP land expiring this year, which means it could revert to crop production. In the next three years another 14.2 million acres of CRP are scheduled to expire. The new signup will hopefuly offset those losses.

Vilsack has said he aims to keep CRP levels at or near the 32 million acres it’s authorized for. He also announced acreages changes for the following conservation practices:

– 100,000 additional acres for upland bird habitat buffers in the south and midwest.

– 50,000 additional acres for duck nesting habitat, monstly in the Dakotas.

– An additional 150,000 acres in the State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement Program, which is designed to protect environmentally sensitive land that provides habitat for pheasants, quail, grouse and a plethora of non-game species.

Vilsack also signed a memorandum of understanding with Pheasants Forever that will help PF work with states to teach landowners how to improve conservation.