Tennessee Aquarium Warns of Danger Posed By Invasive Carp, Highlights These Delicious Fish in Upcoming Dinner Fundraiser

Chattanooga, Tenn. – Eighty years ago, farmers were encouraged to plant an innocuous ornamental plant from Asia to serve as cheap ground cover and feed for livestock. Decades later, entire hillsides, power lines and forests have been devoured in kudzu’s jungle-thick, creeping conquest of the Southeast.

Despite these potent, twining reminders of the danger posed by invasive species, America is once more attempting to stem a seemingly unstoppable tide of alien invaders. This time, however, it’s not a vine that’s eating the South; it’s a fish that’s swallowing America’s waterways. Read more

Hobie® performance and angler-friendly pricing merge in the all-new Mirage® Passport 12 pedal-driven fishing kayak

OCEANSIDE, Calif. – Building on the wildly successful launch of the Hobie Mirage Passport 10.5 earlier this year, Hobie is proud to introduce the new Mirage Passport 12 for 2020, a longer, larger and more fishing-centric Passport. Powered by the original MirageDrive® Classic with ST Fins, this highly manageable 12-foot pedal kayak takes kayakers where they want to go with ease and world-class Hobie performance.

“The Passport 12 is an expansion of the simplicity, ease, and versatility we created in the original Passport 10.5,” says Jason Kardas, Director of Engineering Product Management for Hobie. “As it was with our introduction of the Passport 10.5, the ultimate goal of the Passport 12 is to be able to bring the premium experience that Hobie’s MirageDrive technology has delivered for more than 20 years to a broader audience than ever before. The Passport 12 does that while offering more room for fun and even more fishing-specific features at an attainable price point.” Read more

METTAWA, Ill. Brunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC) has announced the formation of the Aluminum Boat Group (ABG), a further step in its systematic plan to fully leverage the scale of its boat business to drive operational excellence, create market-leading products and deliver continued operating margin improvement. ABG will be comprised of seven of Brunswick’s leading boat brands – Lund, Harris, Lowe, Crestliner, Princecraft, Cypress Cay and Thunder Jet. ABG Commercial operations will be based in Brunswick’s Mettawa, Ill. headquarters location.

“2019 is a transformative year for Brunswick, as we continue to sharpen our focus and vision solely on the global marine industry. The formation of the ABG is the latest in a series of important structural measures we have taken to improve the efficiency and performance of our overall boat portfolio, while strengthening each of these leading brands,” Brunswick’s Chief Executive Officer David Foulkes explained.

“The ABG will enhance brand performance through focused commercial teams, led by dedicated brand leaders who will be responsible for market facing activities. They will be supported by a group-wide operating organization with industry-leading functional capabilities leveraging our size and scale, and centers of excellence for pontoon and aluminum boat design and technology” Foulkes continued. “This will result in stronger brands, better customer service, enhanced quality, and improved profitability. Of course, all of these brands will also continue to benefit from Mercury’s market-leading propulsion systems and technologies.” Read more

Would you like to touch a living fossil? If the answer is yes, plan on visiting the North Channel Sturgeon Festival in Clay Township (Michigan’s “sturgeon angling capital”) Sept. 20-22. This new event will celebrate lake sturgeon, an amazing, prehistoric fish that abounds in the North Channel of the St. Clair River.

The festival will take place at the Clay Township Park, located at 4710 Point Tremble Road in Algonac, from 6 p.m. to midnight Friday, Sept. 20; noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21; and 8 to 11 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 22. It will include food, drinks, live bands, raffles, cornhole, a trout pond for kids and loads more fun. Saturday, there will be a lake sturgeon viewing tank where you can touch one of these living fossils. Staff from the DNR’s Lake St. Clair Fisheries Research Station will be on hand to answer questions about these creatures.

Proceeds from the festival benefit St. Clair-Detroit River Sturgeon for Tomorrow and the Pearl Beach Lions Club.

River and lake users are reminded to clean, drain and dry boats and gear

The Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy has confirmed the presence of European frogbit, a prohibited invasive aquatic plant, in Michigan’s lower Grand River immediately upstream of Grand Haven in Ottawa County and in Pentwater Lake in Oceana County. European frogbit was first detected in southeast Michigan in 1996 and has since spread along the coastal areas of lakes Erie and Huron up to the eastern Upper Peninsula. In 2016, the plant, which resembles a miniature water lily with leaves about the size of a quarter, was discovered in Reeds and Fisk lakes in East Grand Rapids, the westernmost known point of detection in the U.S. until now.

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Every few years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service treats rivers across Michigan with a chemical aimed at killing the invasive sea lamprey. Two of those rivers – the Big Manistee and the Muskegon – are home to lake sturgeon as well as sea lamprey. While many aquatic species aren’t affected by the treatments, lake sturgeon, especially in these locations, are. In fact, the water chemistry there means lake sturgeon exposed to the chemical have a higher chance of dying.

This month and next, the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians is heading up an effort to protect juvenile lake sturgeon from these sea lamprey treatments. The DNR, the Fish and Wildlife Service and Gun Lake Tribe are on board, too.

“Lake sturgeon are an important species in the Great Lakes ecosystem, and it’s critical to protect and restore these populations because of their historical and cultural significance,” said Emily Martin, a fisheries biologist with the DNR’s Tribal Coordination Unit. “Collaboration like this makes us more effective in protecting a species that’s important to a variety of people and many agencies.” Read more

By Glen Wunderlich

“There’s no fish in here,” was the conclusion of my great grandson, 9 year-old Landon, after casting lines into the Looking Glass River for an hour or so this past spring. The trouble was that I couldn’t convince him otherwise. This time, however, when he was to visit, I was hoping to find a quiet place on a lake where we could participate in more than a worm-drowning exercise.

The lake selected was Woodland Lake – an all-sports, public access lake in Livingston County about 45 miles from our home in Shiawassee County. Quiet it is not during most any summertime weekend. In fact, I thought it might be a bit too large and busy for my tidy little 10-foot jon boat; that’s exactly why the plan was to be on the water by 6:30 am Monday.

Having never fished the lake, I was happy to learn from the lake’s only marina owner/operator, Mike, that Monday mornings are about as peaceful as it gets on this body of water. I didn’t have the time or inclination to dig our own worms, figuring they’d have tunneled half way to China during the heat we’ve experienced recently. Fortunately for us, worms and night crawlers are about as readily available at many gas stations as the fuel they offer.

The day before the fishing trip, Landon practiced casting a small weight with an open-face reel of mine and picked up the technique quickly. The boat and gear were then loaded into the truck on Sunday and by 5:30 am the following morning we were on the road. The sun had turned the scant clouds red, as it made its glorious entrance on the horizon.

The calm and inviting water made for the perfect setting. No other boats were present; we had the lake to ourselves.

The bobber was set about 4 feet above the small sinker and hook – deep enough to make it difficult to cast for a novice, so I took on the task for the youngster. Although pike were among the species regularly caught in the lake, I didn’t want to fish with steel leaders; if one took our bait, it would just have to snap the 4-pound test line. I figured the young man would be happy fighting some bluegills – and, he was.

We pulled them in one after the other. We weren’t getting anything large enough to keep for a fish fry, but the action was so fast that it was all I could do to keep bait on Landon’s line. In the meantime, I’d cast some top-water lures and some small spinners but it produced nothing more than lake weeds. But, weeds are good, as Landon learned.

One after the other, the boy who had never fished in a lake from a boat was occupied with non-stop action. But, then it happened. I couldn’t help but notice the severely bent rod and Landon’s struggle to turn the handle on the ultra-light reel. It was all he could do to hang on, as I reached for the landing net in anticipation of something big. I saw the fish’s reflection under water and recognized it as a large mouth bass and a good one at that!

Once in the boat, I took some pictures and set the fat fish free in short order. The kid had landed the biggest fish of his life and took it in stride. I didn’t measure it but it was certainly over the minimum 14 inch length – a good catch for anyone.

A few more bluegills and a lake perch and things were back to normal. And, then it happened again. Another big bass had struck Landon’s night crawler and it was instant replay time. A lunker bass, some photos, and the prize was releaed into the water. Ho hum.

I don’t know how many fish were landed that morning but there was one more giant hooked. This one, however, had the fortune to give us the slip in the weeds. By now, the sun was heating up the air and after about 4 hours of non-stop action, we agreed that we had had enough fun.

We never got more than 100 yards or so from shore making for a simple adventure. Although city life was all around us, we had found the serenity within – a mundane Monday morning for many but not for us.

It’s been more than 20 years in the making, but this month a fish spawning habitat restoration dream becomes a reality for Saginaw Bay. The DNR and Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy have built a coalition to restore a 2-acre rock reef at the Coreyon Reef site, about 11 miles northeast of the mouth of the Saginaw River.

The restoration project focuses on the trailing edge of a historic rock reef complex that existed naturally in the bay until it was heavily degraded by sand and sedimentation from long-standing erosion in the watershed.

Restoration efforts began this month and should be completed by early fall. Once done, the restored reef will be roughly 2 acres and reach a peak of about 5 feet off the bottom in 18 feet of water. The rock, placed by Great Lakes Dock and Materials, LLC from Muskegon, is crushed limestone and glacial cobble. In all, approximately 22,500 tons of rock will be used to build the reef, carefully placed in precise positions and dimensions by barges and cranes. Read more