Lake Sturgeon - Those Really Big Fish Make a Comeback!

Courtesy of Dept. of Natural Resources

Having grown up fishing on Ohio's Portage River, my heart was warmed when I learned of the restocking of sturgeon hatchlings in the Sandusky River. Eric Weimer, Ohio DNR fishery biologist, who manages the restocking, says there are no plans to restock the Portage because of its proximity to the Sandusky. However, it was one of Ohio's four rivers to once host a breeding population of lake sturgeon. He hopes, as do I, that some hatchlings make it to the Portage on their own. 

During mid-October the Ohio DNR continued its successful restocking efforts in the Cuyahoga, Maumee, and Sandusky Rivers.  Students from Clyde, Liberty Benton, and Whitmer High Schools helped release 750 baby sturgeon  into the Sandusky River. Restocking will continue for the next 25 years when the sturgeon population of Lake Erie will hopefully be reestablished.  
 

Courtesy of Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources

The largest fish in the Great  Lakes, sturgeon can grow to  9 feet and weigh more than 300 pounds, and live for 150 years. Contemporaries of the dinosaurs, sturgeon, with their shark-like tails, rows of  armored plates, and protruding mouths are an impressive site.

The return of these docile giants to Lake Erie is encouraging, but their numbers are a mere fraction of those reported by pioneers of Northwest Ohio.  Early Fremont, Ohio newspaper editor Isaac Keeler reported that sturgeon weighing 70 - 100 pounds were common in the 1850s.  It is reported  that anywhere from 330,000 to 1.1 million were believed to have lived in the waters of Lake Erie in the  early 17th century.

Native Americans revered the lake sturgeon as part of their traditional spiritual culture. But early commercial fishermen slaughtered them by the thousands.  Sturgeon were considered a nuisance because they frequently destroyed fishing nets.   Keeler reported that sturgeon were hauled from the waters, and killed like "sticking a pig." When the carcasses dried, they were piled up and set afire like "pitch-pine logs." All along the Great Lakes sturgeon were stacked like cordwood and used for fuel for the early steamships. 

Still plentiful in the 1870s, sturgeon began to find a place in the commercial market. Port Clinton, Ohio, fishermen Nassler and Detlefson opened a "fish house" and wharf there in 1874. They processed caviar, fish oil, and smoked sturgeon. According to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Great Lakes catch peaked a decade later at 8.6 million pounds. Over-fishing, pollution, and the construction of dams sent sturgeon numbers plummeting. The Ballville Dam in the Sandusky River was removed in 2018, allowing them to reach further up the tributary during spawning.

A portion of  this post (written by me)appears on Paper Trail on the Hayes Presidential Library and Museums' web site. Pictured there is an image of a 180-pound sturgeon caught on April 29, 1935, near Kelleys Island by Alfred McKillips, Albert Kugler, and Sylvester Dwelle. Fishermen claimed it was one of the largest fish ever pulled from the waters of Lake Erie. The photograph is part of the Captain Frank Hamilton Album 1.  

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John C. Smith's Boat House, Sandusky River, Fremont, Ohio

 

This photograph, a part of the Sandusky County (Ohio) Photograph Collection at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museums, features a view of John C. Smith's Boat House on the Sandusky River. It is believed to have been taken about 1890. The boat house lay near North Front Street.  Visible is the back of the old Kessler Hotel and the Western and Lake Erie Depot where John Smith had offices on the upper floor. Note the canoes along the bank of the river.

In the upper left hand corner of the photograph is John Pero's coal company. The gas plant existed in the same area in 1887.  By 1904,  Pero's coal company was known as Riverside Coal. The sign on the large building in the center of the photograph reads "Soapine." This appears to have been an advertisement for this well-known cleaning product. 

Booktown, Sandusky County, Ohio

 Lying at the junction of Muskellunge Creek and the Sandusky River, about four miles below Fremont, Ohio in Sandusky Township on State Route 53, is Booktown. It began as a shipping port where lumber and barrel staves were shipped to cities and towns along the Lake Erie shoreline and across Lake Erie to New York ports.  Legend has it that the name derived from the German name Buck (pronounced "Book" in German) who were among the  earliest settlers in the area.  They established a store and a post office.  A thriving sawmill also existed.  Several ships, including the Tindall were built at Booktown. 

As the region's supply  of lumber began to die out, shipping down the Muskellunge to the Sandusky River declined. In 1896, a tornado destroyed property in the area, including the store of Adam Engler.  By the 1930s, Herman Buck, the Englers, and the Logsdon, Huffman, and Fishers were the only remaining families in  the Booktown area.   Businesses consisted of a single garage, a convenience store and gas station owned by Bob and Orlena Fisher. The Disappearance of Booktown, Ohio: An Historical, Personal, and Environmental Perspective by Harold "Corky" Logsdon provides an excellent in-depth study of this once thriving village along the Sandusky River.

Samuel Brady and his Journey to the Sandusky River

Vintage Postcard of Brady's Island to the right with Truss Bridges on the Sandusky River in the Background

In 1780, General George Washington dispatched scout Samuel Brady from Fort Pitt to the Sandusky River to learn of the area’s geography and the strength of the American Indians encamped there. Brady with a few trusted soldiers and Chickasaw guides force marched through the wilderness. He entered the Wyandot country along the Sandusky River under the cover of darkness. Fording the river, he hid on an island just below the falls of the Sandusky River. The following morning a war party had returned from Kentucky with fine horses. Concealed on the island, Brady watched as the Wyandots raced the horses they’d captured again and again. Brady escaped that night.

But on a second scouting trip to the Sandusky region, Brady was captured. He was taken to Upper Sandusky where his captors prepared to torture him. Brady made a daring escape. According to early histories, Brady was pursued for nearly 100 miles when he escaped by leaping the Cuyahoga River at Kent, Ohio, ever since known as Brady’s Leap.  

Walleye - Ohio's Most Prized Game Fish

Lake Erie Walleye

(Courtesy Ohio Fish and Wildlife)

On May 22nd, Port Clinton, Ohio will once again lay claim to its rightful title as the official WALLEYE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD during its annual Walleye Festival at Water Works Park. Other cities as far away as Garrison, North Dakota vie for rights to the title. But it is Port Clinton, lying on the western basin of Lake Erie, that has been home to the walleye since prehistoric times.

Sometimes called pike-perch, walleyed pike, or jack salmon, the walleye have few distinguishing marks other than their sharp teeth and whitish eyes. In Ohio’s early history, walleye often reached 20 years of age and weights of more than 20 pounds. Millions spawned from mid-April to early May in the clear waters of the Maumee, Sandusky, St. Mary’s, Scioto, Auglaize, and Muskingum rivers.

By the 1840s commercial fishing on Lake Erie began to grow at a rapid pace in an effort to meet the ever-growing demand of the fish market. During the 1880s, the heydey of Great Lakes commercial fishing, walleye could be found in abundance in Lake Erie. But by the turn of the century fishermen began to realize that the supply was not limitless.

Unloading a catch for fertilizer during the heydey of
Lake Erie's commercial fishing
(Charles E. Frohman Collection)

Pollution and heavy harvesting sent walleye into a dramatic downward spiral. Catches at Lake Erie ports that once ranged from one to fifteen million pounds annually were reduced to a mere 163.000 pounds by 1966. Four years later, commercial fishing for walleye was banned in Ohio waters. Despite restocking and establishing catch limits, the walleye, the most prized fish of Lake Erie, remains in a precarious state. Their movements, spawning, and diet remain under close and constant scrutiny by conservationists and biologists.

Historically, the Sandusky River has always made a significant contribution to Lake Erie’s walleye harvest. Famous for its spring run, the river produces some of the largest of its species. Yet the walleye population has been declining for the past 30 years. For this reason, the river has become the focus of a 3-year study to learn more about walleye spawning behavior.

Biologists believe that the Ballville Dam, built on the Sandusky River in 1911, may limit spawning, confining walleye in an area downstream that contains one-tenth the suitable spawning habitat. Tracking walleye equipped with radio transmitters will provide a better understanding of spawning habits on the Sandusky River and out into the Sandusky Bay - and ultimately improve the population of Ohio's most prized game fish.

To learn more about Port Clinton's Walleye Festival go to http://www.walleyefestival.com/