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I've heard different on the border lakes. You need a license to fish, you can fish into the Mi. water with an In. license but you must follow Mi. rules and regs. But don't quote me on this.
Snitch, evidently you don't own a business, i.e. Bait shop; Gas Station; Motel etc. Your comment about Indiana and Ohio sportsman staying home, might be the end of alot of the economy and service jobs up in Michigan. They depend on the out of state funds to survive in many areas! Hex
I live in Indiana. I only live about 3 miles from Michigan border and fish Michigan lakes 98% of the time. My boat is registered in Michigan and I have permanent Michigan trailer plates. Been this way for the last 50 years. About 5 years ago I was told by the Indiana DNR that if they see that your vehicle has Indiana plates and your boat trailer has Michigan plates that you will be ticketed if they see you at the access. There is a lot of Indiana lakes I would like to fish but won't because don't want to be ticketed. I started seeing these recreational park pass signs on several lake accesses last fall that I fish for the first time. Not happy about Michigan doubling the non-resident licensees fees and now this. It is either re-registering my boat and putting Indiana plates on my trailer or getting the pass so I can fish Michigan lakes legally. At my age(78) it is a no brainer for me. I will be getting the recreational pass. And by the way, some of the lake accesses I fish are nothing but dumps. They are not kept up at all and can just barely get a boat in and back out. The lakes are good but the accesses suck. So all that extra money they are collecting are not going into keeping the accesses kept up.
If your willing to put in the work to find quality fishing Indiana is very good when you compare what it costs to fish. Instead of going to MI or any other state say for two or three days put the same amount of effort into lakes with out the expense and other issues. Just getting away is sometimes reason enough to cross state lines but I've always enjoyed the challenge finding the good ones. I'm still looking for that good Walleye and Perch lake. I've got good river eyes. I'm think I'm getting closer on the lakes.
You only need the passport on lake's that have access on state park land. I have a place up by traverse city on the lake and it's access is on state park land and I have to pay the $30 to launch my boat!. It sucks. I pay around $6000 a year for property taxes, and fishing.