Porch Notes
The Brook Trout
Outdoors
Michigan’s state fish is a small, jewel-colored native of cold, clean water — and a stand-in for the state’s whole trout-fishing soul.
The brook trout (technically a char, not a true trout) wears dark wormlike markings on its back and bright red spots ringed in blue along its sides. It belongs to the cold, clear streams of the north, and it is fussy: it needs clean, well-oxygenated water, which makes its presence a kind of report card on a stream’s health. Michigan first named “the trout” its state fish in 1965, then narrowed the honor specifically to the brook trout in 1988.
The choice nods to a deep heritage. Michigan’s blue-ribbon rivers — above all the Au Sable near Grayling, whose famous flat-water stretch anglers call the “Holy Waters” — helped make the state a cradle of American fly fishing. It was on the banks of the Au Sable, in 1959, that a group of worried anglers founded Trout Unlimited, the conservation group now active across the country. The state fish, in other words, comes with a conservation conscience attached.
Where to see it
The Au Sable River around Grayling is the classic destination; cold streams across the northern Lower Peninsula and the UP hold native brook trout.