Thirty-Six Minutes of Fishing on Black Lake

Fishing season wrapped up in 36 minutes for sturgeon fishers on Black Lake. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources reports, it was a quick morning outing for fishers in Cheboygan and Presque Isle counties, ending at 8:36 AM on February 5th. The season, which included spearing and hook and line fishing was scheduled to either run until February 9th, or until the harvest limit of six lake sturgeon had been reached.

There were 565 registered anglers for the large fish, including a good number of supervised youth. Five of the harvested sturgeon were male and one was female, ranging from 46 to 62 inches long and 23 to 67 pounds in weight.

• The first fish was a 59.5-inch female that weighed 48 pounds.
• Fish number two, the largest fish, was a 62-inch male that weighed 67 pounds.
• Fish three was a 47-inch male that checked in at 25 pounds.
• Fish four was a 57-inch male that weighed 45 pounds.
• The fifth fish was a 46-inch male that weighed 23 pounds.
• The sixth fish was a 56-inch male that weighed 35 pounds.

The captured fish were no strangers to fishing themselves. All six harvested fish had been previously captured by Michigan State University and the DNR during spring spawning runs in the Black River or from past surveys of Blake Lake. The harvested 62-inch male originally was captured in every other year in the spawning run from 2002 through 2020. The 57-inch male had been captured and tagged during the 2002, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2019 and 2021 spawning runs in the Black River.