Mudpuppies dieing??

[smbassman]

I was down fishing the lower Detroit River yesterday and in one eddy area among giant floating weed mats were dozens of dead, floating mudpuppies.  I thought I remembered reading an article about poisons used to kill Lamprey in Lake Michigan were also killing mudpuppies???  But I can't find anything about it know.

On a related topic, a friend of mine was fishing on St. Clair last weekend and caught a smallmouth with a Lamprey stuck to it.  I have never seen that.  Anyone else??

[djkimmel]

I've caught smallies with freshwater lamprey eel on them a few times. St. Clair has a ton of silver lamprey I believe. I caught a smallie on the Grand River in downtown Lansing during a tournament that had a chestnut lamprey on it. Darn thing waited until it went in the weigh basket to drop off.

I saw a bunch of dead waterdogs in the lower Detroit and out quite a ways into Lake Erie a few weekends ago too. Not sure why so many are floating around. I figured I need to make a few calls, but haven't done that yet.

[McCarter]

Someone was telling me this past weekend that mudpuppies are like canaries in a coal mine, when they start dieing you know something is up and it is a sign of bad things ahead.  I dont know if he meant for the fishery or for all of mankind.  I dont remember any prophecies about dead mudpuppies signaling the apocalypse, but then again it has been a while since i have been to church.  Is there any truth to this?  has there been problems with the mudpuppies dieing before?

I have not been fishing the great lakes for very long.  This is my 4th season fishing st clair and erie.  Up til 03, i had never been on the big water.  But since i have added these lakes to the lineup, i have heard about the fish kills every year.  One year it was the muskie, then it was a ton of dead fish in the canals, now its mudpuppies.

PB himself

[cameraguy]

Dan, I remember reading something shortly after our trip to the River a couple of weeks ago.  I meant to mention it to you and forgot about it.  I can't remember where I read it, but it might have been the Free Press (Eric Sharp).  Anyway, if you type "dead mud puppies on Lake Erie" into your search engine you will come up with a plethora of info on this subject.

[djkimmel]

Dave Reault sent me a link to the article. I still have the pictures I took the day we were out and am that far behind I haven't posted them yet (wasn't that the 4th of July?). I'll read the article and post my pictures soon.