Saint Patrick's Day in Chicago : The Green Chicago River

For those of you not able to get a glimpse of the Chicago River this weekend I bring you some photographs from a unique vantage point. My work brought me up onto the 28th floor of a downtown high-rise on the river where we photographed for the day. I snapped some images of the river and the spot that the river meets the channel, making for an interesting break line where the green water met the discolored North Shore Channel-Chicago River water.

A view of the Merchandise Mart and the green River.

A view of the spot the stain hits fresh water.

Looking back at 333 East Wacker with the Chicago River in the foreground, shot from in front of the Holiday Inn.

In Steelhead news, fish have pushed into Wisconsin tributaries and persistent anglers are buttoning fish. Look for warm ups this week to really get things going.

Enjoy the photographs and happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Great Lakes on the Ground : A new Blog from Andy Buchsbaum

This afternoon I found myself diving deeper into paragraph after paragraph of text focused mainly on the invasion of Asian Carp in the Chicago River and Calumet/Saganashkee Channel.

This blog is only a week old and is only six posts deep but if the writing continues on the vector it currently holds it should produce good reading for weeks to come.

Please give this new blog a read here, you'll be happy you did!

Andy Buchsbaum is Regional Executive Director of the National Wildlife Federation, he has taken the side of the Great Lakes on a number of Great Lakes issues in front of a congressional committee and is certainly considered a friend of Great Lakes Anglers everywhere.

Asian Carp Fish Kill : Game Fish Saved

As I reported here a couple of weeks back they shocked the water pre-poison and removed as many game fish as possible. I only now have run across a tally of what was saved and in what numbers. Thanks to Dale Bowman at the Chicago Sun Times I'm able to bring those numbers to you today.

They are as follows:

Species saved and number:

largemouth bass : 63
smallmouth bass : 1
bluegill : 83
channel catfish : 10
grass pickerel : 2
black crappie : 1
walleye : 1
goldfish : 1
sunfish : 90

A Concerned Reader on Asian Carp

A reader here at Great Lakes Angler had this to say regarding one of my prior posts on Asian Carp.

"For the past 10 years the Chicago Park District has stock the Lagoons with Catfish that came from fish farms that used Asian Big head Carp in there tanks. One can only speculate how many Asian Bighead Carp were accidentally stocked in our lagoons in the last ten years.

Now the greatest concern is two lagoons (Lincoln park zoo south Pond & Jackson Park that had direct access to Lake Michigan. Lincoln Park Lagoon had a Fish Kill, I believe that Jackson Park lagoon maybe next.

Now I previously tried to bring all of this on several online Fishing communities in Chicago, but unfortunately my actions were perceived as just spamming & many just plain ignored my postings. One website deleted my posting stating that "this was there house". I know for a fact one of the online-monitors of that site works for CPD.

I've even contacted bob "The Fishin' guy" from CPD & he gave me a well rehearsed statement that "the Asian Bighead carp in the Lagoons don't pose a great threat in the lagoon because the fact that they need fast current to spawn/reproduce". Which I feel is absolutely BS! Even though the Lincoln Park south pond was not connected to the lake like Jackson park is, it still had a drain pipe that went directly to the Lincoln park lagoon next to LSD."

Due to reading Dale Bowman's recent articles in the Chicago Sun Times detailing catches of Bighead Carp in these very lagoons I'd say that this "concerned citizen" is on the right track.

Thanks for the input my friend, I value all constructive feedback I get and do my best to read any comments or emails that I receive. I found this particularly detailed and well written comment to be important to bring to the attention of all the readers.

Thanks again.

-Great Lakes Angler

A Quick Note on the Asian Carp Fish Kill

A single bighead carp has been found, and it looks as though this huge endeavor may not have been as necessary as previously thought. The sky might not be falling out yet, there is still hope.

The Army Corps of Engineers is doing a study to decide weather closing the locks in Chicago is a necessity.

Take a quick read through this article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has sent a letter to the bosses at the Army Corps asking (demanding actually) them to take a quick hard look at the costs and benefits to closing the locks.

Today's Chicago Sun Times : Asian Carp on the Front Page

I suggest picking up a copy, or at the very least read through some of the article online here. The article speaks of the "boondoggle" that is the barrier, and of the poisoning of the channel tomorrow (Wendesday). Just under 7 miles of the river is going to be poisoned to prevent the advancement of Carp, although Dale Bowman does bring up some good points in his column, citing half a dozen or so cases of carp being found or caught in Lake Michigan already.

Photo from John Patsch/Sun Times

"The economic costs of these fish to the ecosystem would be tremendous - unquantifiable and irreversible."

Asian Carp : "Monumental Government Screwup"

From Freep.com, this article details the Asian Carp invasion even further. Delving into what it might do to our Great Lakes fishery and ecosystem, terms like "a potential desaster for many of our sport fisheries".

The carp have become the dominant species in the water systems they have intruded upon and show no signs of slowing down at the great lakes.

"I'd plan for the worst"

Read the article here, a part of the article follows:

Anglers in the Great Lakes watershed better fish as much as possible in the next decade. Chances are that yet-another monumental government screwup has let Asian carp into the world’s biggest freshwater reservoir, auguring a potential disaster for many of our sport fisheries.

The carp were 8 miles below Lake Michigan with only one upstream lock between them and the big lake, but the lock opens regularly. So there’s no reason to believe the fish detected above the barrier are the first to reach that spot, especially since they were discovered the first time that area was tested, or that others didn’t pass through months or even years earlier.

Truthfully, no one knows what will happen once Asian carp reach the Great Lakes. But looking at the Illinois River, where they’ve become the dominant fish species in a mere 10 years, I’d plan for the worst.

More Asian Carp News

This time it's from the Wisconsin State Journal, in Madison. Read the full article here.

I would agree in full that too much is at stake here for shrugging.

Read on:

"Too much is at stake for Wisconsin and the world's largest freshwater system to shrug off this threat as just another in a long line of invasive species.

The Army Corps of Engineers confirmed last week that Asian carp - which can grow longer than 4 feet and heavier than 100 pounds - were detected within 10 miles of Lake Michigan. They somehow spread beyond an electric barrier that was supposed to stop them.

The Corps now plans to poison a Chicago canal. Two navigational locks near the Lake Michigan shoreline also need to close or operate with much tighter restrictions because they may be the last barriers to the open lake.

Wisconsin officials should encourage a strong response to protect Lake Michigan and its delicate ecosystem from this latest and particularly worrisome foreign invader.

It's not that the Asian carp are inherently bad. But set loose on the Great Lakes, the monster fish could decimate native fish species and wreak havoc up and down the food chain.

The Asian carp eat huge volumes of plankton each day, leaving smaller and less aggressive competitors to starve.

The largest of the two Asian fish close to reaching Lake Michigan are known as bigheads. Yet the smaller silver carp pose their own unique threat.

Sliver carp jump out of the water when startled by motor boats. Some boaters in the Mississippi River basin where the leaping fish are abundant wear helmets to avoid being violently hit, according to the Associated Press."

A call to close the gates of the Chicago River.

One of the only remaining options to save the great lakes from an onslaught of Asian Carp may be to temporarily close the locks that link the Chicago River to the Chicago Harbor at Navy Pier.

An article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel goes into more detail.

An excerpt from the article.

"The Asian carp appears to be not only on the doorstep of the Great Lakes, it's managed to push the door ajar and is trying to wriggle through. But before we get used to adding a carp menu to Friday fish fries, there are still some things authorities can do to prevent a full-scale invasion.

One key step would be to temporarily close the gateways and locks in Illinois that lead from Lake Michigan to the waterways that have already been invaded by the carp, as a coalition of environmental groups urged last week. Then monitor the waterways to determine just how far the large jumping fish has come, and poison those stretches where necessary to eradicate the fish"

It's going to be a long fight boys and girls, we had better hunker down and put on the boxing gloves for this one.

-Great Lakes Angler