Annual quest for ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ fish lasts 35 minutes

Annual quest for ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ fish lasts 35 minutes

Source: thealpenanews

2/7/2022

Annual quest for ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ fish lasts 35 minutes

Hope springs eternal on Black Lake in February.

In single-digit temperatures on Saturday morning, about 600 fishermen and -women on Black Lake in Presque Isle and Cheboygan counties peered into watery rectangles, hoping to be among the lucky few to take home one of the state’s annual allotment of lake sturgeon.

Just 35 minutes after the season opened, a fisherman pulled the last of the season’s harvest out of the water.

“You should have been in the shanty,” said Jerry Perrin, of Au Gres, of the celebration after he speared the season’s third sturgeon at 8:14 a.m. “Things got pretty crazy.”

Just after sunrise, colorful fishing shanties spread across Black Lake as a text message to participants announced the start of the shortest fishing season of the year.