Winterkill strikes Grand Lake

[Lee Borgersen]

                           Thousands of fish dead after winterkill strikes Grand Lake

Posted: May 16, 2014

 
Dan Wilfond/Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Dead fish of several species are washed up along the shore of Grand Lake on Monday, May 12, 2014. Thousands of fish in the lake north of Duluth were lost to winterkill, a condition in which dissolved oxygen levels are too low for fish to survive.


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DULUTH - The fish began piling up along the western shore of Grand Lake near Duluth on Monday, not long after the ice had gone out. Pushed by a strong east wind, thousands of dead fish washed up in reed beds and the front yards of lakeshore residents.

Perhaps as many as 35,000 fish died, said Dan Wilfond, fisheries specialist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources at French River, although he cautioned that that was a rough estimate.

The fish, victims of winterkill — low oxygen levels — included sunfish, crappies, walleyes, northern pike and largemouth bass, Wilfond said.

Grand Lake, a 1,600-acre lake between Saginaw and Twig, is popular with anglers.

Winterkill occurs when dissolved oxygen levels get too low during winter for fish to survive, Wilfond said. It typically takes place on shallow lakes with lots of aquatic vegetation or high nutrient levels, said Tim Goeman, DNR regional fisheries supervisor at Grand Rapids.

Grand Lake is 24 feet at its deepest, but just 1 percent of the lake is deeper than 15 feet, Wilfond said. The last severe winterkill on Grand Lake was in 1955-56.


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[Bobby Bass]

Very shallow weedy lake just out side of Hermantown and Duluth, not fished much after mid summer because of weed growth. One of those cases that a die off might actually help it.