Courtesy Photo A fisherman displays a catch during a past sturgeon season on Black Lake in Presque Isle County.
ONAWAY — Next weekend, several hundred people will gather around bathtub-sized holes in the ice on Presque Isle County’s Black Lake, hoping a prehistoric creature will swim by.
Sturgeon season, a brief but glorious frenzy of fish enthusiasts and spears, is a much-anticipated tradition in northern Michigan and a pathway to preserving an admired but threatened species.
The hunting season, which opens at 8 a.m. Feb. 6, is often over within hours as the 400 to 500 sportsmen and sportswomen who register for the hunt each year vie for the honor of spearing one of the six sturgeon allowed to be harvested.
That allotment, explained Tim Cwalinski, fisheries biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, is based on a formula meant to honor the tradition of sturgeon fishing on Black Lake while protecting the species that dates back to the dinosaurs.
Lake sturgeon are listed as endangered or threatened in 19 states. The species dates back 135 million years, scientists believe, and can grow up to 8 feet and live up to 150 years, according to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
Pointy-nosed and covered with bony plates instead of scales, sturgeon are slow-growing and not in a rush to reproduce. Twenty years may pass before a sturgeon fry — that’s what their young are called — is sexually mature, and even then, females may go five years between spawnings, Cwalinski said.
The fish’s slow reproduction rate is matched by a laid-back demeanor that makes them vulnerable to over-hunting. The fish gather in rapids and move ponderously.
“You can walk up to them and clunk them on the head,” Cwalinski said.
The DNR was approached some years ago by sturgeon hunters concerned about the species, Cwalinski said. The agency was asked to regulate sturgeon fishing and help rebuild the species losing its habitat to dam development and too many kills and too slow a reproduction rate.
The annual sturgeon hunt on Black Lake is part of the solution, Cwalinski said.
While hunting for a threatened species seems counterintuitive, the hunt draws attention to the fish while maintaining a sustainable population, Cwalinski said.
Of the adult sturgeon estimated to populate Black Lake — about 1,200 this year, according to Cwalinski — 1.2% may be harvested each year. Half of those are allotted to the state, and the other half are shared by local American Indian tribes.
The state’s allotment this year is seven fish, but the hunt will stop one shy of that number because of the number of people all fishing at once, Cwalinski said.
Most years, the hunt is a party. The nearby town of Onaway, dubbed the sturgeon capital of Michigan, comes alive during the brief fishing season, and a two-day shindig vibrates with music and life as hundreds of people gather to catch a glimpse of the mammoth fish as they are drawn from the water.
This year, the music won’t play and bystanders won’t be welcome as the DNR adheres to precautions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Still, fish enthusiasts from around the state and elsewhere are expected to converge on the lake, and the excitement and attention stirred up by the short season will ignite curiosity about the species and a desire to preserve it, Cwalinski hopes.
Other efforts by the DNR and other conservation groups are in place year-round to protect the fish.
A Head Start program run by the DNR gives sturgeon fry a leg up in life, protecting them in a hatchery in the Black River to help maintain the fish’s population.
Slow-moving adult sturgeon are captured by hand and tagged during spawning runs so the DNR can study their habits, Cwalinski said.
Next weekend, hunters will peer into the depths of Black Lake, hand-carved decoys dangling, hoping for a glimpse of a fish that may have been swimming in those waters for 100 years.
Even sans-hoopla, Cwalinski said, the local love of the hunt makes the event a “little glowing light” in the effort to save a special species that’s part of northern Michigan’s heritage.
Online registration for the Black Lake sturgeon season is open to anyone with a Michigan fishing license. Interested parties can register at Michgan.gov/fishing.
Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.
The Link LonkJanuary 30, 2021 at 01:03PM
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