Great Lakes trivia thread

[turnkey4099]

I think you might be confusing the Caspian Sea with the Aral Sea.

I suspect you are right!!

Harry K

 

[cqaigy2]

Thanks to my parents taking us camping/tenting each summer, I learned their names by fourth grade by swimming in most of them .... I also learned what 'turning blue' means one hot sweaty summer day, following my older brother, diving into Lake Superior off a huge rock....

Oh man, i know what you mean, that lake is Frigid! :laughing:

 

[turnkey4099]

Oh man, i know what you mean, that lake is Frigid! :laughing:

Try the Bering sea in July! 4 of us stationed on St. Lawrence Isle were walking the beach one warm (for there) sunny day in July when someone got the bright idea to go swimming. We all stripped down, got about 30 ft back from the edge and took a run. I, the smart one, stopped. the other three dove in. Yes, per their example, Jesus did walk on water. At least those three made a great attempt at it getting back to the beach.

Harry K

 

[cqaigy2]

Try the Bering sea in July! 4 of us stationed on St. Lawrence Isle were walking the beach one warm (for there) sunny day in July when someone got the bright idea to go swimming. We all stripped down, got about 30 ft back from the edge and took a run. I, the smart one, stopped. the other three dove in. Yes, per their example, Jesus did walk on water. At least those three made a great attempt at it getting back to the beach.

Harry K

As a matter of fact, i have been in the Bering sea on the 4th of July. I think it was the one nice day of the year!:laughing: That water was absolutely freezing!

 

[MossRoad]

Anyone remember the ailwives die offs in the 60's and 70's.

PEW!

Miles and miles of beach littered with dead fish. EW!!!

 

[jimmyj]

Anyone remember the ailwives die offs in the 60's and 70's.

PEW!

Miles and miles of beach littered with dead fish. EW!!!

I never personally saw that but I'm kinda glad about it! Sounds yucky!

Here is what my book says about Alewives (paraprhased). It kind of starts of with general fish info.

In the late 1800's there were all sorts of fish in the lakes. 1 million pounds of lake trout was taken from L Ontario in 1879. In 1900 33 millions pounds of fish was taken from Erie, mostly lake trout, sturgeon and whitefish. Same circa L Huron yielded 7.4 million pounds of lake trout alone. Superior had even more.

By comparison, 50 million hatchery lake trout were released into Michigan between 1965 and 1990 to no avail due to over fishing, lampreys and silted up spawning beds.

The absence of lake trout and other large predators lead to an explosion of small fish populations, particularly the alewife. Alewives were introduced to the lakes in the 19th century from the Atlantic either via the Erie Canal or by accident when American Shad fry were put into L Ontario in 1870.

By the 1950's it had made it to Huron and Michigan. In the 1960's over 90% of the fish in Michigan by weight were alewives.

Alewives feed on zooplankton and insect larvae. They have not fully adapted to fresh water and their kidneys are too small for a freshwater fish by their size. Thus they are sensitive to temperature changes and sudden upwellings of cold water can cause die offs. This is why spring die offs occur with alewives.

 

[MikeA57]

What about the Japanese Carp? Have they made it into the lake yet? I know they were knocking at the door last year. If/Once they get in there, things are gonna change quick!

 

[JerryK]

They have not found any, and keep saying that they have not made it into the big lakes yet. But they keep finding DNA from them in the lakes... so I think that they are there but not established in great enough numbers yet. We will see......

 

[jimmyj]

What about the Japanese Carp? Have they made it into the lake yet? I know they were knocking at the door last year. If/Once they get in there, things are gonna change quick!

I looked them up and this is the best I can find. They're almost there.

Asian carp are a significant threat to the Great Lakes because of their size, fecundity, and ability to consume large amounts of food. Asian carp can grow to 100 pounds and up to four feet. They are well-suited to the cold water climate of the Great Lakes region, which is similar to their native Eastern Hemisphere habitats. It is expected that they would compete for food with the valuable sport and commercial fish. If they entered the system, they would likely become a dominant species in the Great Lakes.

Two species of Asian carp-the silver and the bighead carps-escaped into the Mississippi River from southern aquaculture facilities in the early 1990s when the facilities were flooded. Steadily, the carp have made their way northward, becoming the most abundant species in some areas of the Mississippi, out-competing native fish, and causing severe hardship to the people who fish the river. The Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal connects the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes. Currently, the carp are in the canal and have been sighted approximately 40 miles from Lake Michigan.

 

[MossRoad]

What about the Japanese Carp? Have they made it into the lake yet? I know they were knocking at the door last year. If/Once they get in there, things are gonna change quick!

They are not Japanese carp. They are asian carp. They were brought into the south a long time ago, escaped fish farms when flooded and are making their way up the Mississippi river system. They are currently in the Illinois river. Look them up on Youtube and see videos of hundreds of 30 pound projectiles leaping at moving boaters. Anyway, there is something called the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects lake Michigan with the Illinios river through a series of locks. There is an electic barrier in the water outside of Chicago that is supposed to shock anything and keep the asian carp from moving through to Lake Michigan. If it goes down, bye-bye ecosystem as we know it.

A lesser known path from the Mississippi to the great lakes occurs in northeast Indiana, southwest of Fort Wayne. There is a 600 acre farm field with about a 4' change in elevation that is the only barrier between the Mississippi/Illinois/Wabash river watershed and rivers that lead directly to Lake Erie. That field floods on a regular basis and is the more likely path for asian carp to decimate the great lakes if the electrical barrier in Chicago holds up.

 

[Tig]

I don't think Champlain was the first European to see all of the great lakes, just the eastern part.

We had a plaque in the village commemorating his visit here. I always wonder is he set foot in my yard or if he paddled by, heading upstream.

Anyone remember the alewives die offs in the 60's and 70's.
PEW!
Miles and miles of beach littered with dead fish. EW!!!

And once the stink was gone, piles of the very sharp bones remained on the beaches.

Anyone remember the blue pike (walleye)? It became extinct around the same time we were stuffing the lakes with splake, coho and whatever else we wanted. I never liked the fishtank approach to stocking the lakes. We have some fine native species.

I've always wondered what the true native species are for the Great Lakes.

 

[MossRoad]

And once the stink was gone, piles of the very sharp bones remained on the beaches.

Oh yeah. OUCH! I remember trying to build sand castles as a kid and digging into piles and piles of bones. No fun!

 

[Brad_Blazer]

Guess....Lake Michigan?

Correct! The seaweed was on Green Bay, 4th of July. It was hot and the cottage didn't have A/C so we swam and had a big seaweed fight. Had to wear shoes because the bottom was rocks with zebra mussels. Lots of seaweed but the water was clear. You could see the gobies swimming on the bottom. There's a growing whitefish fishery there as the whitefish feed on gobies.

 

[Deerherd]

Anyone remember the ailwives die offs in the 60's and 70's.

PEW!

Miles and miles of beach littered with dead fish. EW!!!

The NYS DEC made a great decision to stock Pacific coast salmon to combat this problem in the 70's and has turned Lake Ontario into the greatest fishery for salmon, Lake trout rainbow and browns in the US. Plus it cleared up the beaches of the mess!

 

[jimmyj]

Anyone remember the blue pike (walleye)? It became extinct around the same time we were stuffing the lakes with splake, coho and whatever else we wanted. I never liked the fishtank approach to stocking the lakes. We have some fine native species.

I've always wondered what the true native species are for the Great Lakes.

My book has a bunch of info on the Blue Pike. I'll dig it out and post today.

 

[jmc]

So now there's a huge imbalance of native species VS non-native species, directly caused by the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

My now dead fishing buddy used to be famous for his malapropisms. He always called it The St. Lawrence Freeway. Guess he was right!

(Malapropism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

 

[nybirdman]

I live on the St. Lawrence river,the Seaway hasn't been all bad.Non native Gobies,Zebra mussels have;cleared up the water on the river and provided a great food source for the game fish.The size of both the walleyes and small mounth bass has increased.Just this week(DEC.2012) three friends of mine caught 20 walleyes,one nite fishing,that ranged from 7-13 lbs.
It used to be very rare to catch a five pound small mouth bass and now it is common place.Legal Muskies are now 44 inches and about 35lbs.Few people keep these large fish but they sure are fun to catch and fish for.

 

[MossRoad]

You ever see the zebra mussel infestations at power plant intakes? Yikes!

 

[Tig]

The zebra mussels seem to have reached a balance here. They are about 40% of peak (my observation). Water has returned to the previous clarity (or lack there of) and the previously dominant and then all but wiped out weed species are making a come back. They are only 1% of what they were, but for ten years they were gone. Time will tell if the weeds and the fish return to their previous locations. As it stands now we adapted to fishing pickerel 2 to 4 feet deeper. Partially out of convenience of avoiding the new deeper growing weed species.
The seaway is an awesome fishery. Around Morrisburg, smallmouth schools hovering at 25 to 30 feet in 50' of water makes for great day of fishing with 4lb test line.
Down river in Bainsville and St Anicette the perch fishing is equally incredible.
We fished a lot of Musky in Ottawa and used to fish Summerstown on the St Lawrence looking for that big one. My buddy did get a fat 48" one fall day.
I've visited the 40 acre shoal in the islands during family vacation, but I've never fished that are seriously. Just fun to float around legendary waters.
I now live on a bay off of lake Ontario, Pickerel fishing is great and a couple times a year I break out the musky gear and go play. Patterns are very different here I've not been able to locate one close to home. Maybe if I figure out the baitfish spawns I may be able to find one visiting the bay from the open lake.
I wonder about the salmon that come to spawn here. Are conditions right for them to actually reproduce or is this just a stocked, put and take species?

 

[MossRoad]

I live in South Bend, IN. The St. Joseph River flows south out of Michigan into Indiana, then turns 180 and flows north again back into Michigan and empties into Lake Michigan. We have a pretty good salmon and steelhead fishery here. The fish do reproduce naturally, but most don't survive. The Indiana DNR captures fish in the ladders and raises the fry for stocking. They also trade to other states for walleye to stock here. The St. Joe is a great walley and small mouth fishery as well. Plus lots of cats and good bluegill and crappie in the channels/slack waters. The river used to be a polluted ****-hole but has really cleaned up over the years. There are 5 dams with fish ladders that the salmon and steelhead traverse before hitting a big dam in Mishawaka that stops them. Overall, its a great place to fish from both boat and shore.