I stood in the river in borrowed waders, arms cradled under the fish’s enormous, rubbery body, flummoxed by the sheer weight of the imposing creature.
Just lift her, the researcher said. Fat chance. I heaved and grunted and gasped and the fish didn’t move, all 80 pounds of her still massed like a good-natured anvil just beneath the water.
My love affair with lake sturgeon began more than a year earlier, when a 5-inch fingerling with a turned-up snoot squirmed briefly in my palm before flitting away into a northern Michigan river.
I was there to report on the release of hundreds of little fisheroos in the hopes they would grow up to be great, big fisheroos in 30 years or so. The determined creature in my hand, with armored plates instead of scales and a strength too big for its small size, snagged my heart. The ancient species has been around since the dinosaurs, scientists believe, and live crazy-long lives. My little guy might still be alive 100 years from now, a 7-foot, 100-pound monster slowly cruising the depths of Black Lake in Cheboygan County.
The following winter, in a ritual bordering on sacred, hundreds of hunters vied to catch one of only six fish harvested in Michigan’s annual sturgeon hunt. Mittened and coffeed hopefuls crouched in ice shanties, spears in hand, waiting for a dark shadow to pass below. (Spears. Yes. That’s how you catch a sturgeon. Everything about this fish feels timeless.) Pings on the phone of the keyed-up DNR officer I was tailing said one fisherman had scored, and then another. In the end, the entire, frozenly frenetic hunting season lasted 35 minutes.
And then, a spring day, wading after researchers as they tagged the big fish on their annual migration up the river to spawn. Strong guys in wetsuits and snorkels netted their subjects, clipping and prodding and weighing and then, before letting each one go, hefting it in the air for a quick, big-grin photo.
Want to hold one? they asked me.
An assistant held my camera and the researcher instructed me how to slide my forearms under the female fish. Bend your knees, he said, straighten your back, set your feet, and lift.
Yeah, no. Madame Fish wasn’t going anywhere. But I didn’t care. I felt glorious. She was so heavy, and so full of substance, and so real. She might have been 50, 80, 100 years old, maybe never before touched or even seen by a human, prowling in the dark all those years as time flowed by. And here she was, in my weak arms, pausing on her journey to let me intersect with her life, just there, briefly, in the cold of the river.
Later, I looked through the dozen or more photos the assistant kindly snapped as the researcher helped me get one bent leg under the fish, lifting her at least a little out of the water. In the photos, I’m patting the fish’s belly, feeling the menacing ridges down the length of her back, talking to her. Mostly, though, I’m smiling. No, you can’t really call it that. My mouth hangs open in a shout, eyes wide, my face a picture of utter, astonished delight.
This year’s sturgeon hunt starts this Saturday, up on Black Lake, as always. From far away I can feel the pulsing excitement of the fishermen and women, gathering their spears, gassing up their snowmobiles, prepping long johns and filling thermoses and hoping that this will be the year they catch ― or, at least, catch a glimpse of ― the fish they can’t help loving.
They say you get attached to what you touch. Retailers use that to their advantage, enticing you to pick up merchandise, knowing you’re more likely to buy it if you do.
I don’t think I’d be half so enamored with sturgeon if I hadn’t held one in my fingers and felt the weight of another one in my arms. Things that touch our hands snag at our hearts.
Maybe pulling something within arm’s reach is the key to loving it.
I look at some people and see just a fish. A stranger who makes decisions I wouldn’t make, who lives in an environment I don’t want to understand. They’re a them, and I’m a me, and I want to care about them but I don’t, not really.
But then I sit down for coffee with them. Talk to them. Ask them questions in their kitchen, sit beside them on a sidewalk, feed them at my dining room table. I discover they’re not a mere fish; they’re real, with a story and a reason and a warm heart beating beneath their armor.
And suddenly, I care.
Maybe I still don’t understand, not all the way, and maybe I’d still make different decisions than they do. Maybe they’re still a fish. But we are no longer in two different worlds. Because our lives have touched, and touch connects.
And then I remember that I’m just a fish.
A maker of bad decisions, full of failings and uglinesses I hope nobody sees.
And I remember that someOne does see, and doesn’t turn away ― someone who reaches out to touch my life, who brings me close, who sees beneath my armor and chooses to take me home.
And my mouth gapes anew with utter, astonished delight.
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The 2024 sturgeon hunt was cancelled because a mild winter meant thin ice. Sounds like everything is a go for this year, and I can only imagine the excitement in the nearby town of Onaway this week as they welcome a flood of visitors. If you happen to go to the sturgeon hunt on Saturday, please, please send me a picture. I wish I could be there.
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My sturgeon stories were among my favorites that I wrote for The Alpena News over the years. This one, about the 35-minute season a few years ago, makes me ridiculously happy. It also has a killer first line, if I do say so myself. This story brings back the really great day I got to hold that really great fish. (The News uses a paywall -- hey, reporters need paychecks -- but you should be able to read a few stories free, if you’re so inclined.)
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Don’t forget to touch a fish today. And I’m not talking about fishy fish.
