Rockhounding for Petoskey Stones at Petoskey State Park, Michigan
ALLOWED
No permit required
Key Conditions
- No collecting permit exists or is needed — a Recreation Passport is required only for vehicle entry
- State land rule R 299.922(hh) caps removal at an aggregate 25 pounds per person per year of any rock, mineral specimen or invertebrate fossil — a Petoskey stone is a fossil coral, so it counts toward the same 25 pounds as every other rock you keep
- The 25 pounds is per year and across all state-owned land combined, not per park, per visit or per day; the DNR has said the limit reaches Great Lakes bottomlands too
- Collecting is allowed only for individual or non-commercial hobby use — a commercial operation on state land needs a DNR permit under R 299.922(dd)
- Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, 70 miles southwest, is federal land where removing any fossil or rock is prohibited under 36 CFR 2.1
The 25 pounds is a yearly allowance, not a daily bag
Michigan's rock-collecting limit is one sentence in the DNR's State Land Rules, and almost every word in it does work. R 299.922(hh) makes it unlawful to remove from state-owned land "more than the aggregate total weight of 25 pounds, per individual per year of any rock, mineral specimen (exclusive of any gold bearing material), or invertebrate fossil for individual or non-commercial hobby use."
- Aggregate — every rock type shares one total. Petoskey stones, agates and plain pretty pebbles all count.
- Per individual per year — not per visit, not per park. The clock does not reset when you drive to the next state park.
- Invertebrate fossil — a Petoskey stone is fossilized coral, so it is squarely inside the rule.
- Non-commercial hobby use — collecting to sell is not what this allowance covers.
The penalty sits in MCL 324.504: a state civil infraction with a civil fine of up to $500.
Every Petoskey stone started as a living reef. The six-sided cells are the skeletons of individual coral polyps of Hexagonaria percarinata, which grew in a warm, shallow sea that covered Michigan in the Devonian period. Those reefs hardened into the limestone of the Traverse Group, and the bedrock that carries them lies close to the surface around Little Traverse Bay — which is why the city, the bay and the state park all share the name, and why Michigan made the Petoskey stone its official state stone in 1965.
Glaciers did the rest. Ice sheets tore fragments out of that bedrock and spread them through the gravel of northern Michigan, and Lake Michigan's waves have been rounding and polishing them ever since. State geologists at EGLE record collecting localities as far south as Frankfort on Lake Michigan and Fort Gratiot on Lake Huron, but the density drops the farther you get from the source rock. Petoskey State Park sits almost on top of it.
The practical consequence is that the stones here keep arriving. Each winter's ice and each autumn storm turn over the cobble at the waterline, and a beach that looked stripped by Labor Day can be worth walking again after the first hard blow of October.
Where you can keep a Petoskey stone — and where you can't
| Location | Land manager | Collecting | Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Petoskey State Park | Michigan DNR | Allowed, 25 lb/yr total | R 299.922(hh) |
| Fisherman's Island State Park (Charlevoix) | Michigan DNR | Allowed — same 25 lb/yr shared allowance | R 299.922(hh) |
| Other Michigan state parks and state forest land | Michigan DNR | Allowed — same shared allowance | R 299.922(hh) |
| Great Lakes bottomlands (wading out for a stone) | State of Michigan | Counts toward the 25 lb | DNR enforcement position, 2015 Northport case |
| Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore | National Park Service | Prohibited | 36 CFR 2.1(a)(1)(iii)–(iv) |
| City or township beaches (e.g. in Petoskey) | Local government | Not covered by the state rule | Check the municipality's own park rules |
State rules verified against the DNR State Land Rules and NPS compendium, September 2026. Municipal beach rules were not reviewed for this page.
A 93-pound Petoskey stone, pulled from Lake Michigan near Northport in September 2015 — and confiscated three months later
A collector spotted the boulder in shallow water off Northport on the Leelanau Peninsula, dug it free with a trowel, dragged it ashore and took it home to Copemish, intending to display it on his lawn. In December 2015 DNR officers went to his house and took it, citing Michigan's limit on removing more than 25 pounds of rocks or minerals a year from state-owned lands — and making the point, publicly, that the state's ownership of Great Lakes bottomlands puts the lake floor under the same rule as the beach. A DNR spokesman said the finder cooperated.
The stone was more than three and a half times the annual allowance in a single piece. Size is not the only trap, though — a bucket of small stones collected over a summer can cross 25 pounds just as surely.
Visiting Petoskey State Park
Rates and park details confirmed with Michigan DNR, September 2026.
When the Beach Resets
Spring (Apr–May)
GoodThe first walk after the shore ice goes out is the best of the year: a winter of ice push and wave action has turned the cobble over and nobody has been through it yet. The water is cold and the wind off the bay is sharp, so the waterline work is short and brisk.
Summer (Jun–Aug)
FairPeak crowds, and the beach is searched by thousands of visitors a week — expect small stones rather than big ones. Warm water makes wading the shallows comfortable, which is where the unpicked material is. Watch for plover postings and stay out of the buoyed swim area.
Fall (Sep–Nov)
GoodCrowds thin after Labor Day and the paddleboard concession closes. Autumn gales on Lake Michigan rework the waterline again, and a morning after a strong northwest blow is the time to be here — within posted day-use hours.
Winter (Dec–Mar)
PoorShore ice and snow cover the beach, and shelf ice over open water is dangerous to walk on. The stones are there, but out of reach.
Before You Hunt — Petoskey Checklist
- Recreation Passport on the vehicle, or arrive on the Little Traverse Wheelway
- Tally what you have already taken from Michigan state land this year — the 25 pounds is shared
- Bring a cloth bag or plastic tub; leave glass jars in the car
- Pack a spray bottle so you can see the coral pattern on dry stones
- Check posted day-use hours before a sunrise or evening walk
- Look for piping plover closure signs before walking the shoreline with a dog
- Heading to Sleeping Bear Dunes afterward? Empty your pockets there, not into them
Hunt wet, keep dry
A dry Petoskey stone is a disappointment — gray, chalky, patternless. Wet, the hexagonal cells jump out. The waves do the wetting for you in the first yard or two of the swash zone, which is where to walk, slowly, with the sun behind you. Stones that wash in and out at the edge of the water are also the ones most recently delivered. Carry a spray bottle for anything you pick up higher on the beach, and give yourself a rule before you start about how many you will keep: the 25-pound allowance goes faster than you expect once a few fist-sized stones are in the bag.
Permits & Licenses
| Permit | Required? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Collecting Petoskey stones for personal use | No | There is no rockhounding permit to apply for. R 299.922(hh) allows removal of up to 25 pounds a year for individual or non-commercial hobby use without any paperwork. |
| Recreation Passport (vehicle entry) | Yes | Required for any vehicle entering a Michigan state park. Michigan-registered cars have no daily option. Walking or cycling in on the Little Traverse Wheelway does not need a passport. |
| Commercial use of state land | Yes | R 299.922(dd) prohibits using state-owned land for a commercial operation without a DNR permit. The 25-pound allowance in (hh) is written for individual or non-commercial hobby use only, so collecting stones to sell is outside it. |
| Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore | No | Not available. The 2026 Superintendent's Compendium designates fruits, nuts and edible mushrooms for gathering, but no rocks or fossils, and 36 CFR 2.1(c)(3)(i) prohibits gathering anything undesignated. |
Time & Seasonal Restrictions
- 25 pounds a year, total: R 299.922(hh) counts the aggregate weight of every rock, mineral specimen (gold-bearing material excepted) and invertebrate fossil a person removes from state-owned land in a year. A pocketful of beach pebbles collected at Ludington in June comes off the same allowance as Petoskey stones collected here in August.
- Day-use hours: R 299.927(a) bars entering or remaining in a day-use area between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. unless posted otherwise. Check the posted hours before planning a sunrise hunt on the beach.
- No glass containers on any state-owned area designated as a bathing beach or regularly used for swimming or sunbathing (R 299.922(j)) — which rules out the classic jar of wet stones on the beach at Petoskey
- Dogs are allowed along the shoreline south of the buoyed swim beach only, on a leash no longer than 6 feet, and not where the shoreline is posted closed for nesting piping plovers
- Areas posted closed by the department may not be entered for any purpose (R 299.922(a))
- Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore: removing fossils or mineral resources is prohibited under 36 CFR 2.1(a)(1)(iii)–(iv); Lakeshore staff ask that stones be returned to the lake
Equipment Notes
- Hands and eyes are the whole kit — no tool is needed, and nothing about hand collecting on the beach requires digging
- A small kitchen or luggage scale matters more here than a hammer: the only hard number in the rule is weight
- Use a cloth bag or plastic tub, not a glass jar — R 299.922(j) bans glass on bathing beaches
- A spray bottle of water, because a dry Petoskey stone looks like plain gray limestone and the coral pattern only shows wet
- Water shoes; the productive band is the cobble at the waterline, not the soft sand above it
What People Find Here
- Petoskey stones (Hexagonaria percarinata) — fossilized colonial coral from Michigan's Devonian Traverse Group, identified by the tight six-sided cell pattern, each cell with a darker central eye
- Charlevoix stones — a finer-celled fossil coral often picked up alongside Petoskeys on Little Traverse Bay beaches
- Favosites ('honeycomb') coral and other Devonian reef fossils — crinoid stem segments and brachiopods eroding from the same bedrock
- Glacial erratics carried south from Canada — granite, basalt and banded gneiss mixed through the beach cobble
Penalties for Violations
← Scroll to see all columns
| Violation | Statute | Penalty |
|---|---|---|
| Removing more than 25 pounds of rocks, minerals or invertebrate fossils from state-owned land in a year | Mich. Admin. Code R 299.922(hh); penalty MCL 324.504 | State civil infraction — civil fine up to $500; the DNR can seize material taken over the limit |
| Any State Land Rules violation (glass on a bathing beach, day-use after hours, entering a posted closure) | Mich. Admin. Code R 299.922, R 299.927; Rule 29 | Civil fine up to $500 under MCL 324.504, plus possible eviction from the park for not less than 48 hours |
| Removing a fossil or rock from Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore | 36 CFR 2.1(a)(1)(iii)–(iv); 36 CFR 1.3 | Federal petty offense — fine up to $5,000 and/or up to 6 months imprisonment |
Etiquette & Leave No Trace
- Weigh what you keep and write it down; the limit is per year and nobody else is going to track it for you
- Put back the ordinary ones. A beach this famous is picked over by thousands of visitors every summer, and the stones you leave are the reason there is anything to find next year
- Keep out of the buoyed swim area while it is busy
- Respect piping plover postings even when the birds are not visible — the closure is the point, not the sighting
- Pack the stones in cloth or plastic, never glass, while you are on the beach
- The park sits within the ancestral homelands of the Waganakising Odawa, today the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians; their original name for the park area is Kegomic
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it legal to take Petoskey stones from Petoskey State Park?
Yes. There is no permit, and Michigan's State Land Rules allow up to 25 pounds a year of rocks, minerals and invertebrate fossils for personal hobby use.
Is the 25-pound limit per day, per visit, or per park?
None of those. R 299.922(hh) sets an aggregate of 25 pounds per individual per year across all state-owned land. Two long weekends at Petoskey and Fisherman's Island in the same summer share one allowance.
Does a Petoskey stone count as a rock or a fossil under the rule?
It does not matter — it counts either way. A Petoskey stone is a fossilized colonial coral, which is an invertebrate fossil, and R 299.922(hh) lumps rocks, mineral specimens and invertebrate fossils into one combined 25-pound total.
What happened to the man who took a 93-pound Petoskey stone?
The DNR took it. He pulled the boulder out of shallow Lake Michigan water near Northport in September 2015 and brought it home, and DNR officers collected it from his house in December, citing the 25-pound annual limit on state-owned land — which the DNR said includes Great Lakes bottomlands. The case is the reason wading out for a big stone is not a loophole.
Can I take Petoskey stones at Sleeping Bear Dunes?
No. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is National Park Service land, where 36 CFR 2.1 prohibits removing fossils or mineral resources. The park's 2026 compendium lets visitors gather a gallon of certain fruits, nuts and mushrooms, but no rocks — look at the stones there and put them back in the lake.
Can I hunt the beach at sunrise?
Check the posted hours first. R 299.927(a) closes state park day-use areas from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. unless the park posts different hours, and the Petoskey beach is a day-use area.
Can I sell Petoskey stones I found here?
Not under the personal allowance. R 299.922(hh) covers individual or non-commercial hobby use, and R 299.922(dd) requires a DNR permit for any commercial operation on state land.
Related Guides
New to This? Start Here
Disclaimer
Information is provided for general guidance only. Regulations change frequently. Always verify current rules with the official jurisdiction before relying on this information for legal decisions. Permitted Pursuits is not a substitute for official agency guidance. Report an error.
Sources
- Michigan DNR — State Land Rules for Parks and Recreation Areas (R 299.922, R 299.927, Rule 29; MCL 324.504 penalty)(accessed 2026-09-14)
- Michigan DNR — Petoskey State Park(accessed 2026-09-14)
- Michigan DNR — Recreation Passport(accessed 2026-09-14)
- Michigan EGLE — Rock and mineral identification (state collecting limit on public land)(accessed 2026-09-14)
- National Park Service — Sleeping Bear Dunes Superintendent's Compendium(accessed 2026-09-14)
- 36 CFR § 2.1 — Preservation of natural, cultural and archeological resources(accessed 2026-09-14)
- CBS Detroit / AP — State confiscates huge Petoskey stone man pulled from lake (Dec. 11, 2015)(accessed 2026-09-14)
Last verified: 2026-09-14 · Last updated: 2026-09-14