This is What's the Deal. Grosse Ile, the podcast that explores the people places history and events that make grow seal unique. I'm your host, Ben fote. Boy, do I have a whopper for you today. You may remember that in April of this year 2021. A really large fish was caught in the water around Garcia. When analyzed, it was determined to be over 100 years old. It's a lake sturgeon, one of the most interesting fish of the Great Lakes. A couple of the folks we've heard from already, namely John Hurtig. And Todd Weston, told me that the folks who are involved in that catch could tell us about it and the work they do for the Fish and Wildlife Service. And this is that episode.
The Fish and Wildlife Service region we're in has offices in Alpena, Michigan, but we're also lucky to have the refuge gateway and the fish laboratory just on the other side of the channel in Trenton anthropology. One of the best parts is that all of those folks love to talk about their work and why it's important. So let's get to that.
Justin Chiotti is a team leader with the Fish and Wildlife Services Detroit River fish laboratory, and that's in Gibraltar. And he's joined by Jason Paige and Jennifer from the office there. Thanks. Thanks to all of you for joining me today on What's the Deal. Grosse Ile
Thank you glad to be here.
So what does the US Fish and Wildlife Service conservation office in the fish laboratory do?
Yeah, so the Detroit River substation near Gibraltar located in Gibraltar, we're just we're part of a larger office, we operate out of the subpoena Fish and Wildlife Conservation office. So we're like a satellite office from from Alpena out of our office, we work really closely with the Detroit River international wildlife refuge. We're co located on property of the refuge. But we focus on native species restoration work with threatened and endangered aquatic species. And that is what Jason, Jenny and Paige all do in our program. But out of our office, we also have an early detection and monitoring program looking for aquatic invasive species, and then a grass carp program, trying to look at and eradicate grass carp within Lake Erie and Lake Huron as well.
Wow. And so that's a huge area. How do you manage such a such a big area? Do you have a lot of people that you work with?
It is a huge area, basically the Alpena office covers from the St. Marys River in northern Lake Huron, all the way into into Lake Erie and near the Ohio and Pennsylvania border? That's a really good question. And the the only way that we could do all the work that we do is through partnerships. Even in the Fish and Wildlife Services mission. It specifically states we work with our partners to conserve and restore aquatic resources in our waters. So we work with partners, our state partners, Michigan DNR, State of Ohio, a lot of state partners, and then also partners and Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, we work really closely with them too many partners to name
I guess, it definitely the Detroit River international wildlife refuge would be a big piece of that then. So at least for your office, yes, for your division. The big reason that you guys came up on the radar is that in April this year, I think some of you were at least in the boat, and caught a sturgeon in a fish survey. And it made the national news it was even so big that it was on the kid news podcast. It's only like a three to five minute news podcast that distributes worldwide, and it made the news in this little update for middle school kids. So it was really amazing. Tell me about this fish.
Yeah, Paige, Jen and I were on the boat. This is Jason, by the way. Yeah, so we were just playing as part of our routine tree survey, targeting lake sturgeon. So we have a survey that we do every year to help us get an idea of how many fish lake sturgeon are actually, in the Detroit River in the St. Clair rivers and typically we catch fish, probably the three to four foot range for the previous 60 pounds. Yeah, there's still big fish but any standard, the one we caught that particular day
was towards the end of April this year was a 240 pound, six foot 11 official quite a bit bigger than anything we had ever seen. And it was actually one of my first days on the boat doing the surveys so it was wasn't as immediate to me how big the fish was until we actually got it on the boat Jenny and Paige doing this for a lot longer so they've had a better idea of what we're getting into before we got it up on the boat but I was maybe a little bit more the time.
How big was the boat?
by six foot aluminum but yeah Paige and I have been doingthe survey for like five years at least. And up until this point, the largest fish they both of us had seen was like just over six foot and like 120 pounds. So like when we it first surface, like at least I thought, Okay, that's a big fish. It's at least as big as the one we had caught before maybe like 150 pounds. It wasn't until like it was actually in the boat that I think I realized just how big this fish actually was.
Wow. And I would imagine a fish that big could really fight? Did it? Did it fight? Or how does that work did it was a pretty easy to pull in for purposes.
That was the weird part, it kind of just appeared on the line.
A lot of times they lay on our set lines that we have in the water. But this one, we start with more to just get it in the net. And I remember all three of us kind of thinking like, we just really hope we can land this fish and get her in the boat. Because if we don't no one's going to believe us
would not have believed them, by the way, because they're and they would have would have been the biggest fish ever. And I would have said
yeah, what in fishing you you talk about test. So what test line is on this is? What are the chances that it would break a line?
They break our hooks more than the line? I would say so are you familiar with a trotline? At all? Personally, no, but I'm sure the listeners will be a little bit. Okay. So we essentially have a line that runs between two anchors, with the anchors have buoy lines would do is attach that run onto the surface. And on this line that runs between the two anchors that sit on the river bottom, we have 50 hooks, so use 25 Nine at hooks and 25 one at hooks. Those are attached to the main mother line with a snoo just like a little metal clip. And then off that little clip. There's what would you how big would you say that line is guys, that's just like regular twine line is about 250 pound tests twine. That's not your normal fishing operation. What happens more than that when a surgeon gets off is they might not last the line per se but the wait, they just get they get off the hook more than buttering we have seen them Buster the snooze like Paige mentioned before. Surgeon anatomy is kind of unique to like they have their mouth parts. So they have like lips that are hard cartilage. And then behind the lip is just soft tissue. So usually when they're sucking up these hooks off the river bottom, it's getting caught initially on that lip, but then goes through that soft tissue behind it. And when they're on the line for a while, you know they're fighting trying to get off and that hole kind of opens up a tiny bit. So usually when we get into the
Yeah, well not tear through. But that releases enough pressure where sometimes we're able to just kind of move the right way and then I get off. So
yeah, that would not be a good day for that fish.
No, and they don't swap the hooks to so it's pretty healthy for the fish. Was it easy and easy on us?
Well, let's talk about what would sturgeon look like? I think the only time I've seen I've seen a sturgeon is there's a model in the in Great Lakes Metro Park in their nature center. That's that's what I've seen. I think of them as looking sort of like a rhinoceros.
That's a new one. I don't think we've heard that one before.
We've heard shark. And we've heard I've heard cat fish. But not
I think I think that might be my new favorite.
But So describe their belief describe what they look like any.
So I would say they're like if a shark and a dinosaur met their terms. They're usually fairly log, they have their dorsal fin is like closer to their tail and then their tail. What makes them look more like sharks is their tail and that the two lobes of the tail are different lengths. The the top lobe is longer than the bottom. And then like their skin is what I kind of think is more dinosaur like or primitive. It's not like the typical scales of a fish. Their actual skin kind of feels sandpapery. But then they have the five rows of what are called scoots. And these are like almost like armor plates for them they use especially when they're little for protection.
That's what makes it look like a rhinoceros to me. Okay. So you can spend a lot of time working with lake sturgeon. What what makes them so important to monitor so closely?
So lake sturgeon are threatened or endangered species in the Great Lakes and many of the states throughout their their native range. And I guess we're pretty lucky working in the St. Claire Detroit River system. It says, you know, the, one of the largest populations of lake sturgeon in the Great Lakes. So we estimate that there's around 30,000 fish and the St. Clair in Detroit rivers. So the work we're trying to do is restore populations throughout Lake Huron and Lake Erie, kind of the bodies of water that we're primarily focused on, we can do that through a number of different ways. We're working with partners to stock fish, we're working with partners to evaluate the habitat in certain tributaries or areas where we think they could be reintroduced. And we also do that through monitoring and just learning about habitat use survival rates and other other metrics for the population.
Do the sturgeon have we talked before the interview started about treating negotiations with with Native people to do the sturgeon have any significance to to the tribes that are around around Michigan?
Yes, they do. I'm not as familiar with their relationship with maybe some of the local tribes near near grow seal. But I did used to work for the Little River Band of out of Indians in Manistee, Michigan, and a lot of the tribal members were very closely tied to lake sturgeon. And they had a lot of cultural significance for the tribe and Manistee and other tribes in Michigan as well.
We do we host import here on area two yearly, there's a Bluewater surgeon festival. And we usually try to have an adult and a juvenile surgeon on display so that the public can come by and see them and just kind of get a little education about what lakes region are up to in the Great Lakes. And a tribe in their area always comes out and does kind of a ceremony over the release of the fish to and we put it back in the river. So the public are able to kind of get a little glimpse into what this fish means to Native Americans too. So it's pretty interesting to see.
Yeah, that's got to be quite a tank. It's like a cattle trough a little bigger. Yeah, pretty amazing. Because Because sturgeon are are protected. Obviously you shouldn't be catching them. How likely is it that somebody fishing around Rosio would catch one on accident,
it would be very likely that they could catch a fish, especially in the spring during the walleye season. When a lot of boaters and recreational fishermen are out there, we routinely see fishermen with Lake Sturgeon on their line. And a lot of that, to me is kind of kind of funny, because many times you'll see like two other people in the boat either trying to continue to fish or not fishing in almost like looking mad at the person with the sturgeon because it can take like two or three hours to get the fish in. Right. And so some people will just say, Yeah, we have one and it broke our line. But over the years, I mean, it's very common in the spring during the wall, I run to see fishermen catch sturgeon or have them on their their line and there is a fishery for sturgeon in Lake St. Clair and in the St. Clair River, the state of Michigan allows fishing in that area. And it's a really big recreational opportunity for those folks and it's growing every year. Do they
have a cap on how many can be caught? Or is it a season,
they do have a season I am not maybe somebody else in the line knows the exact dates, but you can look into Michigan DNR regulations as well. And there's also a slot limit where they only allow harvest of one fish a year, you have to get a special permit from the Michigan DNR. In order to do that, I want to say you can only harvest the fish between 42 to 50 inches, but maybe somebody else could correct me if I Yeah, it's a
it's a really small slot limit. But when you go and buy your yearly fishing license to the state your ask the question Do you want your Muskellunge tag and do you want your lake sturgeon tag so you have the option to get printed with your normal state of Michigan fishing license as well too and then you're supposed to report that catch to the state and usually up sometimes if it's a tagged fish, we'll get contact official my level good contact the Michigan DNR Oh, good contact and you can get pretty cool letter in the mail stating the history of that fish and we originally caught it and tagged it and a patch as well. And then those anglers usually go on to kind of be one of our biggest like conservationists and speakers about some of the species too. They get really hyped up and excited. And it's cool when we're out on the river to like people will tell us hey, we got a sturgeon over here. You might want to fish over there or there's a couple commercial fishermen that are making business out of there on the St. Clair River to and Jenny and I actually had the opportunity to go out and fish with one of them and they're super gentle with all the fish like it's pretty interesting to see other people get really passionate about the species like we are to charter sorry.
Charters. Yeah. So were there other surveys for other fish? Do you survey the walleye and the bass?
Yeah, we have a annual fee on that survey as well that target it's primarily walleye and some of the soccer species. So White soccer and Red Horse species that takes place earlier in the spring when water temperatures are colder and the fissure and they're spawning. And so the the main point of those surveys is to try to track trends in the abundance of those species through time. So you can kind of see how well the those different populations are doing within the Detroit River and also in the St. Clair River.
So they're, you know, indicators of health of the system. So by monitoring the fish community as a whole, we're able to get a better picture than if we were just solely focused on lake sturgeon. And Jason is right on one of our other gears is gillnets. So that we use
the walleye in particular, the, the walleye season for down river is a tremendous, really a boon to the economy, right? The people come in from all over the country to fish this small area. And, you know, obviously, you guys, you guys know, the boat traffic that happens on at Elizabeth Park and otherwise, and I'm sure Gibraltar is packed full of boats going into, and charters and all that sort of stuff. So that's a commercial aspect of what you guys are doing and how that supports the economy besides the the conservation of the of the place. Are there other commercial aspects? Are there any commercial fishing? Is there commercial fishing in Lake Erie? Or like Iran?
There are still commercial fishing programs and like you're on and Lake Erie? You know, one of the programs I guess, Jenny, I'll let you speak with speak about this for the US working with the Ohio commercial fishermen on a project.
Yeah, we are. We currently are working with Ohio DNR and a handful of different commercial fishermen in Ohio, they tend to go out and set their gear and are mostly mainly targeting like perch and walleye and a few other species. But when they're your are catching those species, they have a chance of potentially also catching sturgeon. So we are working with them and have given them tag readers. So all sturgeon that are handled within the Great Lakes, like every agency tends to put what is called a pet tag in them. And it's basically the same thing that dogs get, like the microchip that dogs get. So we're giving these fisherman readers and asking them to scan the fish that they catch, to hopefully determine like where these fish came from. In particular we're interested in if they're coming from the mommy River, because for the last few years, we have been working with the Toledo Zoo, and a few other partners to stalk young sturgeon about like six to eight inches into the mommy river. And we have through this program and other tagging and tracking programs, we have found out that these small fish are traveling out into Lake Erie and we've had maybe a handful of them caught by commercial fishermen so far, and they seem to be doing really well. The fish in just like two to three years have like doubled or tripled in size, and seem to be very healthy. It's kind of a neat program because the commercial fishermen scan these fish and then send us an image of the fish, like with a board and like the date it was caught and like the tag number and everything so we can like actually see how these fish are doing. I don't know I have fun working with them doing it.
That's pretty neat. The you know, we think of we think of like so African animals, they might tag them and they'll they'll have GPS they can they can radio, can you do that sort of thing. I mean, it's obviously too big to you know, put a collar around a fish or something but but is there technology to be able to actually track like live tracking of fish underwater?
Yeah. So these live microchips, you actually have to have the scanner to like detect them but there's other tags that we can put in fish. It's usually like a small surgery like with an incision in the abdomen and then like a tag put into their abdomen and sutured up With these tags that you can either actively track them, like with equipment on your boat, or there is a series of receivers throughout Lake Erie and all the great lakes, that every time these fish with these transmitters, like passes these receivers, it logs it, and whoever do their like us, or USGS or DNR, from whatever state or even Canada will go and like, basically download all this information of all these fish that have passed through this area. And then, you know, everyone gets information about their fish. It's really kind of a nice collaborative process. Yeah, it
sounds great. It also sounds sort of like a, like a home confinement system. Like, like, they're, they're not allowed to leave. Well,
they can leave, they can go well, we know.
So what, what would cause that sounds like a big investment. Right? So what kind of fish would get that sort of tag like, this 100 year old sturgeon, I would imagine, would be a possibility, but it's probably too old. You probably wouldn't want to do surgery on a fish like that.
Yeah, it kind of depends on the objective of the survey and what species we want to learn more about, you know, that big infrastructure and all these acoustic receivers and a lot of this work is led by the Great Lakes acoustic telemetry observation system called plateaus. So it is a big partnership, like Jenny mentioned, where many folks are inputting data into that system in cooperation with galactose. But as far as sturgeon goes, there's hundreds near in the Detroit River, St. Clair, Detroit River system that have been tagged, okay, these acoustic receivers in them. So, project led by the US Geological Survey and Dr. Darrell Hahndorf. Out of the Great Lakes Science Center in Ann Arbor from 2011 to 2015. We take 300 adult sturgeon with these acoustic transmitters, they last about 10 years and time. And so we're still gaining information about the movement of those fish. But we're also doing other projects looking at juvenile sturgeon down near grow seal, the fish that we stack in the Miami River to we can get tags that we can implant in those small. Jenny mentioned the six to eight inches. Wow.
Now going back to going back to the tags for fishing, just recently, I heard a lot of big project that talked about why animal tags for hunting and fishing, increase the value of, of the animals to the people that live near them. This example was was African hunting permits for things like a rhinoceros that that has been condemned, that's that's causing problems. And so they they want to tag it, and then somebody pays, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars to be able to shoot it. But you know, as far as as far as hunting licenses specially for sturgeon say on on the St. Clair River. The idea is that giving that fish a monetary value that somebody has paid to fish this fish and then they go and spend their tourism money their ecotourism money in the community creates a community that that prizes that environment better. Have you thought about that at all?
That's a that's a really good point you bring up and I guess that I guess we have a pretty good example of that right in the system that we work on right in the St. Clair River, the city of Allegan. ACC is deemed the sturgeon angling capital of Michigan, I believe it's called because of the opportunity that people have there to capture capture sturgeon,
and it seems like downriver would be the walleye capital of Michigan, just from from the number of boats I've seen maybe, maybe there are other areas that have more but but it seems like maybe the rest of Metro Detroit doesn't realize the value of the the fishing that we do have in the area. Is there an estimate of how much value and fishing happens in this in this region on the rivers from St. Clair down.
There is an estimate and I would probably not get the number right off the top of my head but a recent graduate student out of Central Michigan University Dana Castle, is currently working on a report summarizing the monetary value of fishing in the St. Claire Detroit River system through through Creole estimates, right. So the state of Michigan has employees that go out and monitor the harvest and as well as the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources so I might be able to get you that number here in a few minutes. All right.
I also want to like mention In that, with the sturgeon harvests on the St. Clair River, we work closely with the sturgeon biologists from the Michigan DNR that do work up there of all the people that go out and angle and catch sturgeon. I think they usually only have like maybe one or two dozen sturgeon that are actually kept a year out of however hundreds that are caught. It's like I think most people go out and want to have the experience of catching them, but they just actually don't want to harvest.
Yeah, are they? Are they known as good eating fish? Or
I personally have never had it, but I've heard of people that smoke it and eat it. But yeah.
People smoke eels, too. I never did never realize that was a thing until there was a TV show about it actual Well, what are some ways that we as as downriver residents as Gruesel Islanders? What are ways we can make a difference for the health of the river and the creatures that live there?
Very, very good question. I did want to mention that many of the residents of grow seal probably see our gear and our orange buoys that we set out along the river every year. So I did want to mention just to keep an eye out a very gear, I'm very glad we're able to participate in this podcast and folks will know, you know, there's probably a set line or our gear deployed there. So if you see us while we're there, come and say hi to us. And we'll give you a little, maybe a show of what we have on on our vessel. But one of the things that I guess I would advocate for is to folks become, you know, more involved with the Detroit River international wildlife refuge. There's a lot of good work going on there. And then also, just, I see more and more like river cleanups, you know, and things like that around I think that would be kind of good to get involved with. But maybe Paige has some more thoughts on that put her on the spot.
There's a ton of volunteer opportunities. I mean, if if anyone were able to walk into the refuge or get in contact with someone at the refuge, Dodi Tamir Steve duchaine To begin with, we're always looking for volunteers. Anything from river cleanups to cleaning out versus be plant species, we actually have a bunch of educational programs that will be happening within schools in the area. Really, the the sky is your limit, I would say, for how to be involved. But to touch on that too, just kind of being aware of your surroundings, I mean, being conscious of your different resource usage. You know, if you're going fishing, don't dump your bait in the water, take it home with you. Be conscious of single use plastics, don't leave your trash Leave No Trace concepts, things like that.
I mean, just being a good steward of the environment is a really great place to start. I will second the Leave No Trace and take your trash with you. Because throughout our surveys and pulling our gear in, we have pulled up the craziest things and so much plastic and so much like things that you think should not be in the river. But we have found them like the one thing that comes to mind is like a pot like a cooking pot. We pulled up on a Why
have you have you seen the the photo of the guns they found in doing the bridge repair. There's this photo of this giant pile of guns that were found just when they were you know, cleaning up the bottom right around the bridge piers. So pretty amazing. I think some of them go back some you know, some of them go back to prohibition. So part of that part of that whole thing. And I'd imagine every once in a while you might find a car
here or there down there. We haven't I haven't found any, but did want to mention. But I do want to mention, Justin and Paige talked about some of the partnerships, another big versus the internet National Wildlife Refuge. But there's also a French group for the Detroit River, friends of the Detroit River and they do a lot of great work as well. And they have some fundraising dinners and things along those lines. So that's another avenue for people to get involved if they want to. And a lot of people are involved and think are locals. So a great way to kind of get in touch with other like headed environmentally oriented folks.
Well, at the end of every conversation I have for the podcast, I like to ask for a wish. And we talked about this earlier, but if you could grant a wish for gross eel or the river communities or the whole region, say, you know, the whole region that our peanut covers, what would that be? And each of you can answer separately. Don't need to fight over.
Um, I would say we've all been able to experience the great lakes and recently becoming a mom. It's something I would like to hand off in either the same condition, if not hopefully much better to future generation. So if we could all just kind of be conscious of what we're doing to the environment around us and make a positive effort to make it better. That would be my wish, we have this great opportunity, we live in an awesome state, just keep it that way.
I guess I'll go next. I wish and hope that, like the residents of the Detroit metro area, get out and enjoy the river. And the natural environment that's pretty close to them. You know, when I first moved here, I didn't really have a good appreciation for the river and the opportunity it provides. So that's my wish.
And thinking along the same lines, just in my wishes, for the river, the Detroit River and St. Clair River as well to kind of start to receive even more that positive recognition that it's it's been gaining in the years, which is mostly I think, been through the waterfall and Angular community, but it is a great resource. And it would be great if that was continues to be recognized and kind of put some of those old stereotypes that have kind of been lingering from the industrial area behind us and start start to recognize what a great, great set of resources we have.
Now, I feel like I have to come up with a great one. But um, yeah, I think the other three will tell you there's no secret that I love sturgeon. And I may be the craziest sturgeon person out of all of us. So I have to say like, I just, you can make a wish for the sturgeon. i Yeah, wish for the sturgeon. And I hope that they do well, and that in the future, there's going to be more of those giant fish. And there'll be more opportunities for like the public to experience like this fish. So hopefully, the Detroit River can have a fishing season or Yeah.
Well, I'll tell you that the the sturgeon that's at the Lake Erie, Metropark. That's in that case, when my son might, he's now 13. So he must have been like eight or nine when he first saw it. And it scared him so bad, we had to leave immediately and couldn't go back to the Metro Park. Because just knowing it was there just it made it so horrible. But anyway, not that scary, especially if you're
out there. They may look scary, because they're big, and they have basically look like they have armor. But I have to tell you, they do not have teeth, so they cannot bite. I think the worst they could do is probably smack you with their tail.
Or you could be one of the people that has to lift it into the boat. That's probably the worst thing it could do. Well, I want to thank you guys so much for the work that you're doing. You know, it's it, it actually sounds like your work is very exciting. It's a It's thrilling in so many ways, not only when you're catching a 100 year old sturgeon and and measuring it. And it sounds like you really love your job. And I'm so glad that I get to meet you guys and get to share your story about all this. So I appreciate you guys and I and the folks all the rest of the folks that the Fish and Wildlife Service. And you and the partnerships in the Great Lakes are preserving one of our continents greatest resources. We hear about this with climate change that The Great Lakes are the you know, the greatest source of freshwater and all that and you're very important part of preserving really the continents greatest resources. And we happen to just live in the middle of it. And I thank you guys so much. Thank you for
letting us be a part of us today.
Appreciate the opportunity to talk about some of the work we do that Nike
wasn't that great. It's certainly no fish story to say that recreational fishing is a major part of the local economy. The Detroit River coalition says that recreational fishing and the Detroit River Lake St. Clair system generates over $10 million. The health of all of our native fish species are critical to that. We all owe a lot of things to Justin Paige Jenny and Jason for their dedication to the lakes and rivers and even the fish what's the deal bro? CL is production of food Media Productions LLC and is edited by me Ben fote Like Comment, subscribe, share rate and review with links in the Episode Notes. Each of those does help. Thank you for listening to What's the Deal Grosse Ile
