Great Lakes Bass Fishing Forum

Reelin Realtor was kind enough to point out this recent article on the mud puppy die off occuring in the Detroit River and Lake Erie. I was witness to a large number of dead mud puppies, more than I have ever seen by far, during a trip to the Detroit River and Lake Erie on July 4th of this year. cameraguy and I came across quite a few floating across the river mouth and south, and also quite a few miles out along the north shore of Erie. By the end of the day it was... well, eerie.

Here's the link to the Detroit Free Press article by outdoor writer Eric Sharp:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006607230644

Here's a couple of the dead mud puppies we saw - most caught in large grass mats, but some just floating along without other debris.

Mud Puppy near the river mouth
(http://www.greatlakesbass.com/images/wdrdeadwd1.jpg)

This large one was seen 3 or 4 miles out along the north shore of Lake Erie
(http://www.greatlakesbass.com/images/wdrdeadwd2.jpg)

It almost seemed like every grass mat had at least one dead mud puppy on it. The possible causes of this latest die off are very troubling. There is also more info in the article on why so many fish around the SE Great Lakes died off. I still need to look into some more remote fish kills/die offs.

I didn't really catch the coincedence, but I did see a lot of dead sheepshead out on Erie.  I just assumed it was frustrated anglers killing them when they were not catching bass.  According to the recent article and several others that I found from the past, the sheepshead are also dieing off from the same conditions that are killing the mudpuppies.  Has there ever been links to dead smallmouth due to the botulism that was suspected in the past?  I never saw any mention of either walleye or bass in the articles I found.

There weren't a lot of dead walleye and the dead bass mostly showed up in shallow canals more than the open water, so the MDNR was thinking that was more related to the extreme weather changes we had. We would have seen a lot more dead fish out in the main lake than we did as far as bass and walleye.

The muskies got all the attention because a big dead musky really sticks out and they already had the one disease that has been hurting the muskies the past couple of seasons.

They think the Great Lakes die off of so many big sheephead and some other fish was caused by a hemorrhagic infection actually, not the botulinum bacteria, but it's pretty obvious the various agencies are still trying to figure all this out.

Dan - that mud puppy looked like you after the trip down the river at the BFL ... :P

Which one - the skinny one or the fat one?? I know I felt belly up after this past weekend...