Great Lakes trivia thread
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cqaigy2
Super Member
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
Elite Member
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
Super Member
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
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Anyone remember the ailwives die offs in the 60's and 70's.
PEW!
Miles and miles of beach littered with dead fish. EW!!!
PEW!
Miles and miles of beach littered with dead fish. EW!!!
OP
jimmyj
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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
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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
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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......
OP
jimmyj
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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
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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.
