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June 30, 2025
The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, along with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Bay Mills Indian Community and Michigan State University, will be conducting a lake sturgeon survey next month on Burt Lake in Cheboygan County. The goal of the survey is to determine the lake sturgeon population status and the success of stocking efforts. Lake sturgeon is a culturally and ecologically significant species in Michigan, and tribal governments and the State of Michigan cooperatively manage and assess sturgeon populations.
The survey will occur from July 7 to July 25, with nets set Monday through Thursday of each week. Survey gill nets will be used to capture lake sturgeon, and staff will check the nets regularly (every one to two hours) during the day. Nets will be set each day and marked with staff buoys (see image, right), then removed at the end of the day and will not be left in the lake overnight.
Once captured, lake sturgeon will be measured and tagged with a passive integrated transponder, or PIT, tag (if the fish has not already been tagged). The PIT tags allow staff to uniquely identify individual fish when they are recaptured and provide data needed to calculate a population estimate. Some lake sturgeon smaller than 40 inches will have a small portion of a fin removed for aging. This will allow staff to evaluate growth of both stocked and naturally produced lake sturgeon in Burt Lake. Surveys following the same protocol were recently conducted on Black Lake (2023) and Mullett Lake (2024) to evaluate stocking efforts.
Please be on the lookout for survey buoys and avoid them while boating on Burt Lake this July. If you have questions about the survey, please contact Dylan Jones (djones@ltbbodawa-nsn.gov), Neal Godby (GodbyN@Michigan.gov), Emily Martin (MartinE13@Michigan.gov), or Frank Zomer (fzomer@baymills.org).
For more information about lake sturgeon assessments, visit Michigan.gov/DNR/Managing-Resources/Fisheries/Tribal/Inland/Sturgeon. You can also learn more about lake sturgeon at Michigan.gov/Sturgeon.
The accompanying images are available below for download. Caption information follows. Credit: Michigan Department of Natural Resources, unless otherwise noted.
