While the pandemic attempted to steal all of the headlines in 2021, it was not successful in that evil endeavor.
Life went on, especially in the outdoors realm where the “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2,” as it is officially known, often has been rendered nearly impotent.
One of the most unique events of the year came early – the sturgeon ice fishing season on the 10,000-acre Black Lake in the extreme northeastern corner of Michigan's Lower Peninsula — and it retained its reputation as a quirky anomaly.
There were more than 500 anglers registered to participate in the event, which offers one of the few opportunities to take sturgeon through the ice with a spear, a technique that has a significant history and legacy in the region. The season lasted about two hours, with a season limit of seven sturgeon caught, ranging from 25 to 61 pounds.
In February, tragedy played out on the ice at southwestern Ohio's Rocky Fork State Park where wildlife officer Jason Lagore of the Ohio Division of State Parks & Watercraft responded to a 911 call about two teens who had fallen through while walking on the ice in a channel where a creek feeds into the main lake.
A neighbor had heard the 13-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister crying out for help. First on the scene, Officer Lagore attempted to rescue the pair but at some point suffered an apparent heart attack and fell into the icy water. Other first-responders at the scene pulled Lagore from the lake and attempted life-saving measures, but he was pronounced dead at an area hospital.
During the chaotic moments on the ice, the young boy managed to get out of the water and was treated for hypothermia. Sadly, his sister became submerged under the ice and she was not recovered by divers until about four hours later. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Big fish stayed front and center as spring inched closer, with the return of the Rossford Walleye Roundup highlighting Lake Erie's wealth of the resource, and the many area businesses that serve the sportfishing industry and fishing-related tourism. Michigan anglers Ron Royal and Josh Everett employed a game plan that called for sticking to their home waters and they used that strategy to win the 2021 event with a two-day, 10-fish limit that checked in at 70.82 pounds.
The pair received an over-sized check for $10,000 as the winners, and the fishing fans on hand at Bass Pro got to feast their eyes on the 12.93-pound beast of a walleye Everett and Royal had in their five-fish official catch on the opening day of the event, and on a 13.74-pound behemoth that the team of Larry Kammerer and Isaac Hanna checked in.
The Biggest Week in American Birding, an area festival that celebrates our winged friends while also offering unprecedented educational opportunities for birders of all ages and skill levels, went virtual in 2021.
The pandemic presented too many hurdles for the thousands who travel here from all across the globe for this feathered phenomenon that coincides with the spring migration of warblers. The event went on and covered some of the most pressing environmental topics, including the major threats birds are facing today and how conservation-minded individuals can help out.
After the 2020 Invitational Mills Trophy Race had been scrubbed due to the pandemic, the fleet set sail in the 97th running of the race on Lake Erie as spring merged into summer in 2021, and more than 100 sailboats crossed the starting line near the Toledo Harbor Light on a Friday evening in June.
The sailing crews were seduced, teased, and tormented throughout the night as conditions on the lake morphed with an almost sinister pattern, but the racing fleet eventually checked in at the finish at Put-in-Bay the following morning. Flat Stanley, a Melges 32 owned by the Cleveland area duo of Terry McSweeney and Trey Sheehan and a winner of multiple previous Mills races, won this year's Mills Trophy, while the Hobie 33 of Ottawa Lake resident Steve Attard named Viva Las Vegas was second, about 18 minutes behind the winners.
There was excitement bordering on euphoria in the early summer when it was discovered that a pair of endangered piping plovers had nested on the beach at Maumee Bay State Park, marking the first time in at least 80 years that Ohio had hosted a nesting pair.
The nest soon held four eggs, and all four chicks hatched and enjoyed their first weeks on the planet under the watchful eyes of a volunteer group from Black Swamp Bird Observatory. They moved about inside a protected area of about 2.75 acres set up to keep people and predators away from the chicks. One of the chicks was ultimately lost to a predator, but area birders remain hopeful that the other three survived their migratory adventure and will return again to the shores of Lake Erie.
In the fall, the record-setting bass fishing program at Adrian College pushed the bar even higher with the school bringing home the Bassmaster College Series National Championship, the top award in the highly-competitive landscape of collegiate bass fishing, which now includes more than 700 schools across the U.S.
The Adrian duo of Griffin Fernandes and Hayden Scott won the grueling three-day event on the St. Lawrence River with a 15-fish tournament total of 63 pounds, 10 ounces of bass, closing the deal with a five-bass limit of 20 pounds, 6 ounces on the final day.
When the archery season for white-tailed deer opened in late September, it quickly became evident that along with the increasing number of bow hunters in Ohio there has also been a noticeable spike in the overall skill level, and in the commitment to harvest the state's largest game animal using this 10,000-year-old style of hunting.
Central Ohio hunter Chez Martin took a perfectly symmetrical 10-point buck with a 19-inch inside spread and 22-inch-long main beams one fall morning after arriving at his hunting site six hours earlier at 3 a.m. in order to minimize any disruption in the woods.
Late in the year we also saw a push from some of the residents living near the defunct Tamaron Country Club in Toledo to have the 55 acres of the former golf course that sit on the Ohio side of the state line converted into a park or natural area. The place had slipped into disarray after hosting its last round of golf in 2017, but area residents soon noticed that wildlife had moved in, and they would like to see the deer, eagles, egrets, blue herons, ducks, beavers, fox, and geese make it a permanent home.
The fall also saw the return of the mega Lake Erie walleye fishing tournament the Fall Brawl, and the introduction of a second major event, the Walleye Slam. With about 18,000 entries in the two events and close to $800,000 in cash and prizes on the line, the fishing was intense for about six weeks from mid-October through late November.
Besides an almost incomprehensible number of huge walleye, one of the tournaments also produced plenty of controversy with a couple of inexplicable eleventh-hour disqualifications in the Brawl. Expect to see the fishermen and their fish in a Cleveland area courtroom sometime in 2022 before this bird's nest of chaos and confusion is unraveled.
Looking ahead to 2022, the walleye fishing on Lake Erie should continue to be outstanding as the recent strong hatch classes keep the waterway rich with catchable-size fish. If the pandemic subsides, the Biggest Week festival should be bigger than ever, and the fun events of the summer months will regain their charm. The priority, however, still will be introducing our younger generation to the outdoors and showing them the pathway to being the conservationists and stewards of the future.
First Published December 25, 2021, 1:00 p.m.
