Sturgeon weighing 180 pounds caught in 1935
The occasional sighting of a sturgeon along Lake Erie’s western
shoreline signals the continued good health of the lake and the tributaries. The
largest fish in the Great Lakes, sturgeon can grow to 9 feet, 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 sight!
The return of the docile giants to Lake Erie is encouraging,
but their numbers are a mere fraction of those reported by pioneers of northwest
Ohio. Early Fremont newspaper editor Isaac Keeler reported that sturgeon
weighing 70 to100 pounds were common in the 1850s. But then, so were catfish and
muskellunge that weighed in at 20 to 50 pounds. According to an 1851 Fremont
Freeman, 100,000 white bass were caught during a single week in May. Farmers
driving their teams across the shallows of the Sandusky River found the going
difficult during spawning season. White bass often choked the entire width of
Native Americans revered the sturgeon as part of their
traditional 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 river and
killed "like sticking a pig." When the carcasses dried, they were piled up and
set afire, burning like "pitch-pine logs." All along the Great Lakes, sturgeon
were stacked like cordwood for use as fuel for 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 180-pound sturgeon pictured in this image was caught on
April 29, 1935, near Kelley’s 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 Collection, Kelley’s Island Album Number I.