Posted on March 20 2017
Seven years after the worst inland oil spill in the country, a once-damaged river is thriving.
The familiar tug, the comforting bend of the 7-weight, and another Michigan smallmouth—this one, 17 inches. Not a record, but it came to my net in a peculiar spot in an unaccustomed location; along a stretch of the Kalamazoo River west of Marshall, Michigan, where the tree-lined banks now give way to clear-cut fields and wildflowers. The late-spring sun simmers the brain on this part of the river now. It didn't used to.