Demise and fall

Netting smelt on Chicago Lakefront has taken a huge tumble, plus some nuggets on passenger steamships, American white pelicans and trumpeter swans

Tracking history is like uncoiling a garden hose. Take smelt. Please do, if you find any. History has been equally coiled for American white pelicans, trumpeter swans and passenger steamships.

Smelt

Monday, April 1, 2024, might go down as the death knell for netting smelt on the Chicago lakefront.

No one was setting up nets opening night. Granted, it was a Monday and perfectly miserable, cold and wet.

Low clouds split the Loop skyline when I stopped by a favored spot east of the Shedd Aquarium. No one was out.

Let’s start with facts. Rainbow smelt have become a freak occurrence largely because of the crash of the lower end of the food chain on Lake Michigan since the arrival of invasive zebra and quagga mussels.

The last notable netting of smelt might be mid-April 2019, when Jef Walczak and his group netted 73.

Walczak, one of the last regular netters, pulled those at Montrose Harbor. To be plain, he wasn’t talking a five-gallon bucket of smelt but 73 total.

“All between [11 p.m. to 1 a.m.], bottom of nets tight to the wall at Montrose,” he messaged in 2019.

This year, he was not out opening night. But he posted on Facebook that their outing will be tonight at Montrose. He will have a bonfire, grill and some food.

That’s what smelt season has become in Chicago: traditional April night lakefront gathering for camaraderie, smoked meats, side dishes, accoutrements and drinks.

Just minus smelt.

Passenger steamships

For 30 years, I’ve spent the long first weekend of the NCAA’s March Madness in Berrien County, Michigan.

This year, I finally visited Michigan Maritime Museum in South Haven. On a Saturday morning, I drove north through snow thickening beautifully on roadside trees and brush. Occasionally, I stopped at overlooks to stare at Lake Michigan but mainly glimpsed the lake from Red Arrow Highway, Michigan 63 North, Blue Star Highway and finally business I-196. The MMM campus is on a harbor by the Black River.

The golden age of passenger steamboats on the Great Lakes was the main exhibit. I sometimes wish I lived then. Imagine the glamor and romance of such a trip. But reality in our time is different than time then.

While there, I watched a rigging class at Padnos Boat Shed. Outside, the replica 1810 sloop, Friends Good Will, and nearby docks creaked that comforting sound of harbor towns. She is the museum’s flagship and sails from South Haven daily in the height of summer.

The smell of diesel and sound of sea shanties in the interactive video on the restoration of a fishing tug, the 50-foot Evelyn S., caught me. Of historical accuracy, the tubs of fish reproductions were of whitefish, chubs and lake trout.

MMM is a good and kid-friendly stop if near South Haven, plus it’s a good walking town. Details are at michiganmaritimemuseum.org.

American white pelicans

On Sunday, Bill Peak emailed, “The annual migration stopover of white pelicans at Red Wing Lake in Lowell [Indiana] has occurred. Several days ago, about 125 pelicans landed

here and should be here for several weeks. I always look forward to their arrival, greatlooking birds.”

One marvel of doing the outdoors for the Sun-Times is the drift east of pelican migrations. The first time I saw them flying was about 20 years ago at the MWC tournament on the Illinois River at Spring Valley. Since then, migrations drifted east far enough to become regular visitors to such places as Braidwood Lake, the Kankakee River and, apparently, Red Wing Lake.

If you wondered, the National Park Service Facebook page listed these names for a group of pelicans: brief, pod, pouch, scoop and squadron. I favor scoop.

Trumpeter swans

Last week, Dave Derk emailed photos of two trumpeter swans at Joe’s Pond in the Palos area.

“Very cool every time I see them!” he said. There’s a lot of truth packed in that short sentence.

The online guide for the National Audubon Society notes, “Largest of the native waterfowl in North America, and one of our heaviest flying birds, the trumpeter swan was almost driven to extinction early in the 20th century. Its healthy comeback is considered a success story for conservationists. Ordinarily the trumpeter is quite sensitive to human disturbance; in protected areas, such as some parks and refuges, it may become accustomed to humans and allow close approach.”

I noticed that change last summer when I kayaked up a pair of trumpeters at Hennepin-Hopper lakes.

We and the natural world adjust. Sometimes for the better. ✶

DALE BOWMAN/SUN-TIMES Granted, it was a dank evening on the Chicago lakefront on opening night of smelt netting Monday, but virtually no one was set up for netting the tasty delights, not even by the Shedd Aquarium, where fog split the Loop skyline.

PROVIDED One of the last decent hauls of smelt on the Chicago lakefront came in 2019 by Jef Walczak.

DALE BOWMAN/SUN-TIMES Friends Good Will (above), a replica of a top sail merchant sloop that plied the Great Lakes in the early 19th century, is the Michigan Maritime Museum’s flagship and sails from South Haven daily in the height of summer. A hands-on rigging class (above, right) was going on inside Padnos Boat Shed on the Michigan Maritime Museum campus on March 23.

BILL PEAK, DAVE DERK American white pelicans on their annual stopover on Red Wing Lake in Lowell, Ind. Trumpeter swans on Joe’s Pond in the Palos area last week.