I used stablediffusionweb.com to make these, using prompts like: “Lake Superior fish,” sometimes including “angler” and phrases like “catch of the day” or “look what I caught.” Then I switched to “a meal of Lake Superior fish,” “Lake Superior fish on a plate,” and so on. You will see some “breaded fried Lake Superior lampreys.” Bon appétit!
Explore Minnesota’s love affair with smelt, the shimmering silver fish that’s easy to catch and fun to eat. Now that Lake Superior’s smelt population is in decline, an annual parade in downtown Duluth keeps that love alive.
Minnesota Historia is a PBS North web series dedicated to Minnesota’s quirky past. It is hosted by Hailey Eidenschink and produced/edited/written by Mike Scholtz.
From the Museum of the Weird in Austin, Texas.
Fur Bearing Trout
Very Rare
Caught while trolling in Lake Superior off Gros Cap, near Sault Ste. Marie, District of Algoma.
It is believed that the great depth and the extreme penetrating coldness of the weather in which these fish live have caused them to grow their dense coat of (usually) white fur.
Mounted by Ross C. Jobe, Taxidermist of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Seth Trobec gets taken for a ride in this ice-fishing video gone wrong. Trobec’s buddy, Cody Mjolsness, leaves the fish house and takes off on his snowmobile to pick up a friend … but the fish house is still attached to the snowmobile, with Trobec inside.
The video was shot Jan. 14 at Canisteo Pit Mine Lake, about 60 miles northwest of Duluth.
A friend of mine from Seattle was eating at Jimmy Mac’s Roadhouse in Renton, just south of “the Emerald City,” and sent the above photo to me. At first it seemed like a manufactured novelty sign because searches only returned other copies of the same sign. But then I found a Minnesota Historical Society listing for a paper crate label from the same company from around the 1950s, so it appears to have been a real business.
The discovery that wolves in Voyageurs National Park hunt freshwater fish came in 2017 and was reported in the Duluth News Tribune, New York Times, USA Today, National Public Radio and other outlets in 2018, when the first videos emerged.
Fish of increasing size frozen at various depths in 8 inches of ice or so. Pic #1: 3-inch fish. Pic #2: 6-inch fish. Pic # 3: 12-inch fish.
Marius Anderson of London Road Films shot this aerial footage in Duluth on Tuesday after an ice sheet broke from the shore and took a group of nearly 30 ice anglers out into Lake Superior. The Duluth Fire Department rescued all of the anglers; most of the equipment was lost.
I have some comments and observations about the ice angler rescue on Tuesday, Feb. 9.
First off, I watch ice closely because I am nutty for skating the biggest lake in the world. No, not Lake Baikal, that piece of shit lake. I mean Lake Superior, the queen of the unsalted seas. Ice cover has been minimal this year so I have been sad, and nearly desperate in this COVID season for recreation and release.
But as my house has a decent lake view, I watched with some interest as ice plugged the outer harbor. It seemed too much to ask for that it should become safe enough to skate on — keeping in mind that ice is never safe. But whatever.
The sign I watch for is the appearance of ice houses. Once they appear, I grab my skates. My logic is this: those guys know what they’re doing. I figure the ice angler community is right on top of the Department of Natural Resources, and is tracking ice thickness so I don’t have to. If they feel safe, I feel safe.
Clinton Dexter-Nienhaus, head naturalist for the Friends of Sax-Zim Bog, presents the fascinating world of creek chubs, which build ridge-pit nests out of small stones they move in their mouths.
Video by Kristina Dexter-Nienhaus, with editing by Sparky Stensaas.
For this report we turn to our junior news team at Raleigh Edison Charter School.
In my years of recording every moment in the lake (and the rivers and streams), I have encountered many fish. Here are some highlights.
Sure, it’s a cute little piece of art, but the verse on the backside of this undated postcard puts it over the top.
Caught by Steven Gotchie and Jordan Korzenowski on Lake Superior, about five miles out from the Aerial Lift Bridge.
The text on the back of this undated postcard from Gallagher’s Studio of Photography reads simply: “A nice catch of trout from northern Minnesota.”
The 2019 lake and stream trout seasons open on May 11.
