Ask Dr. Fish

Disclaimer: This is an automated transcript, we apologize for any errors. If you notice any problems, please email the show at teachmeaboutthegreatlakes@gmail.com. Thank you.

Stuart Carlton 0:00
Do you all fish have tongs? Why exactly do we celebrate fishes is a sturgeon just a paddle fish with better PR to find out? Let's ask Dr. Fish

that's right it is ask Dr. Fish a twice monthly no pay every other month live stream in which we ask our doctor fish critical science questions fish questions and life questions. My name is Stuart Carlton I'm assistant director with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and the host and producer of teach me about the Great Lakes and I'm here to introduce our panel of doctors fish First up we have Katie O'Reilly tis the reason for the season. Katie O'Reilly is aquatic invasive species specialists with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant she is a doctor fish Katie How are you today?

Katie O'Reilly 0:47
I am doing great Mary fish miss one and all.

Stuart Carlton 0:50
Mary fish miss one and all and we will get to that in just a minute but first there's another Dr. Fish Titus Seidel Heimer fishery specialists in Wisconsin Sea Grant Titus What is your fish Miss wish for the people out there?

Titus Seilheimer 1:03
Oh, I want I want to have fish missing every day throughout the year

Stuart Carlton 1:07
non stop fish with sufficient party at Tituss house all the time. And finally last but certainly not least, we're joined by Carolyn Foley like me not a doctor fish but please send your fishes wishes out to everybody. Yeah, I'm

Carolyn Foley 1:20
all here for the invertebrates So yeah, that's all about the

Stuart Carlton 1:25
Carolyn is Research Coordinator with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and also a senior producer of teach me about the Great Lakes and thank you everybody. So this is our second episode of this latest iteration of Ask Dr. Fish if you are live and you have a question paste it in the chat. I think we're up on Facebook thanks to our wonderful partners that Great Lakes now and we are up at YouTube as well. And you can always use the Twitter hashtag at Star Dr. Fish that's the hashtag symbol which of course I know and we are any if you want not for this time, but you can also call 765496 Is your fish hotline? Nobody has a fish hotline we have a fish hotline let's get started right away though this was sent to ask Dr. fish@gmail.com This is from Mrs. Greenwald's third grade class at the Morris area Elementary in Minnesota. Morris eller area Elementary to all fish have tongues. This is a question. Dr. Fish to all fish have tongues.

Titus Seilheimer 2:19
Yeah, I'll say You know, most fish F tongues. And they're not tongues like ours. So you know, we know what our tongues are like they're you know, very much muscular we've got our taste buds in there we we use it for lots of lots of stuff. Most fish have tongues, but it's it's not it's not the same thing basically. So yeah,

Katie O'Reilly 2:39
but what actually I think is pretty cool. Titus you mentioned tastebuds there are actually some fish like cat fish that have taste buds on their skin. So on the outside of them so basically is their swimming through the water. They're tasting things around them, which helps them find prey. Also feels a little gross. Like you could just taste the air around you

Titus Seilheimer 2:57
but so like, like a great big swimming thumb. That every time we you know, as fish biologists when we're handling you know, Bullheads and catfish tastes that are just taste in our hands. Oh, that's

Stuart Carlton 3:08
yeah. I have a kid one of my two kids, three kids. One of my three kids. Sorry about that. She's in the finger sucking mode, so maybe she's just very fishy, I guess what they should always just trying to think through on it.

Katie O'Reilly 3:22
Well, the other thing you got to watch with fish tongues is sometimes it's not a tongue at all. There's a parasite. It's called an ice a pod. Basically think of those Roly polies you have in your backyard. But this is a Marine One lives in saltwater, and it can actually replace the tongue of the of its fish house. So it's a parasite. And yeah, and it actually will go it enters the fish through its gills where it breathes, you know, essentially breeze and it will cut off the blood supply to the tongue make the tongue fall off. And then it replaces the tongue with itself. No, this doesn't actually yeah, this doesn't kill the fish. But

Titus Seilheimer 4:00
but it looks it looks ridiculous. And just adorable. Like

Katie O'Reilly 4:04
I don't know if adorable is the word I would have used?

Titus Seilheimer 4:06
Well, I you know, I just I just imagine this great like children's book series where they're the best of friends like I live in your mouth. What books do you read your kids?

Carolyn Foley 4:16
See and right so see, and I'm like, invertebrates, man, they got in there. They're doing their thing. And yep, taking over the world taking

Stuart Carlton 4:25
Oh, yeah. So I found a picture. I don't know. This is from Galveston Island State Park. I don't know if Tammy Tammy Winslow's, our pro producer. I don't know if she can put the Look at that thing. So that is a fish. It's not clear what kind of Gelson Island is that sea trout.

Katie O'Reilly 4:39
Generally, generally, they're snappers that have this this particular isotope as a pod.

Titus Seilheimer 4:45
And they like just you know, jump on there. They cut the blood off to the tongue so the tongue dies. And that just gives them a spot and they just kind of, you know, latch in, they eat some blood, it's mucus hanging out and

Stuart Carlton 4:58
that's really gross. Or you can say it's Good, let's go. So it turns out that's a croaker that's an Atlantic croaker okay? That

Katie O'Reilly 5:03
one's a croaker. Okay?

Stuart Carlton 5:04
I think that's this one. Yeah. And it actually it is related to the greatest fish, which are the hot water drums.

Carolyn Foley 5:10
I was going to move on from that lovely, lovely story and go into fish miss because to me that's like the beginning like we have Krampus that comes in visits, right takes your tongue.

Katie O'Reilly 5:21
Exactly. You better watch out.

Carolyn Foley 5:25
One of the best things that happens every December is fish miss and our we have the creator of fish miss with us. I would love to hear a little bit about it. Katie, tell us a little bit about what fish misses.

Katie O'Reilly 5:40
Yeah, absolutely. And that's quite the segue from you know, this invertebrates gonna eat your tongue. You know, you don't you don't stay on the nice list this year. But so 25 days of fish mess is this annual campaign on Twitter. That began back in 2016. When I came across a poster actually from Tituss workplace was constancy grant, that reminded me of an advent calendar, basically one of those, you know, things where you have a treat behind a little door each day in December, as sort of a countdown, only, I thought, instead of opening the door to get a tree, you'd open the door and get facts about Great Lakes, fish species, who wouldn't want that. And so, in the six years since then, we've featured over 100, Great Lakes fish species, and really just each day is a deep dive into not only the biology of the fish, but also you know, what are its connections to humans? And, you know, well, it's, it's cool to say, like, hey, you know, I'm just talking about fish to the greater interweb, you know, out on social media, what's really cool is that people really kind of latched on to this idea, and began to share their stories, their memories, of things that they've seen of different aspects of the Great Lakes, fish, and fisheries over the years. And it's just been really cool to have this sort of community build together every December to share a love of Great Lakes fish,

Carolyn Foley 7:13
that's really cool. And you've started where it's not just Great Lakes fish anymore, right? You've expanded?

Katie O'Reilly 7:19
Well, so there was one year, five of the six years have been about Great Lakes fish species. One year back in 2000 2020, when things were just, you know, a little wild with COVID, we went on a road trip across North America to different regions, since we were kind of stuck at home. So it was nice to get out and explore event.

Carolyn Foley 7:42
Very, very cool. So how, first off, how do you create the list each

Katie O'Reilly 7:47
year. So I have a master list of Great Lakes fish species, and that is both species that live in the Great Lakes themselves, as well as those that live in sort of the tributaries that lead into the great lakes, the rivers and streams, as well as introduced or invasive species. So I've got this master list. And each year, it's kind of a decision about, okay, what species do I want to feature based on, you know, showing the diversity that inhabits the Great Lakes, so trying to have species from different fish families species with different life histories? And then of course, figuring out how to make those species fit into very seasonal ponds or seasonal

Stuart Carlton 8:34
parallels upon Earth, isn't it? It's

Katie O'Reilly 8:38
that that's, that's one of the highlights. Yeah.

Carolyn Foley 8:40
Right. Okay. So I'm gonna go to both of you. I'm going to ask you, which has been your favorite favorite Pong that you have seen related and like try to tie it into the you know, why was it an amazing panel?

Titus Seilheimer 8:55
You know, I I'm gonna I don't have a specific one but I think you know, some of the takes on Christmas carols that involve the fish over the years have been really good really fun. And you know, I am not you know, I am not a you know, one of these people with the puns always coming out you know, I am I'm not Solomon David here not

Stuart Carlton 9:16
wanting to pontificate much.

Katie O'Reilly 9:20
But I will say despite, despite you know, Tituss, you know, lack of upon making abilities, he has been probably, you know, one of the most ardent supporters of fish Miss over the years and I would not be able to do it without his help and assistance. So it's

Stuart Carlton 9:36
a thing and so like, it's not even a competition. Why would you turn them into like a game of one upsmanship or,

Titus Seilheimer 9:42
I mean, Katie one Katie one. She's the winner. Helping out however I can't. So it's really well,

Carolyn Foley 9:49
so great. Do you have do you have your favorite punky?

Katie O'Reilly 9:52
I think one of them. I have to say my favorite pun is using Noel but as No, we'll I'm talking about the American Eagle. Eye. It's a simple, I mean, it's not even really upon if we're being, you know, splitting hairs here, but I just think the American eel is such a unique weird fish. And so it fits so perfectly into just the no eel.

Titus Seilheimer 10:16
And I, you know, I throw mine in for the Burbidge just as it's the scientific name is load alota. So it's, it's a lot, a lot of fun to just use all the time. So load is fun. Yeah, loads of fun. And you'll, you'll notice on our new logo, there's, there's a bourbon on there. So pick that bourbon out, learn more about it,

Stuart Carlton 10:37
make it sing with the so with the fisherman. So it's a couple of things. Like it's been really fun, and you've seen it, take it there's also like these rip off fish misses out there, but I think that's okay. Right?

Katie O'Reilly 10:46
spin offs, they're not rip offs. They're still inspired by

Stuart Carlton 10:49
inspired by Yeah. But like your social media work has actually been a little bit serious. Like you literally studied it. Right. And, and so you've published work based on your social media, right? You want to kind of summarize that, you know, the quick, interesting version rather than the longer version for specialist

Katie O'Reilly 11:09
science version. Yeah. So I did publish a paper this year in the Journal fisheries about fish myths as a tool for communicating science. And this actually gets to a question we had from one of our Facebook users about, you know, what was the most popular fisherman species. And I was trying to actually tease that apart using some of the data collected from fake or from the campaign, and found out that some of our most popular fishing species are not, you know, the typical sport fish species that people think about when they think about, you know, I'm going fishing on the Great Lakes like salmon or trout, it was often things like the silver Lamprey, which is a native lamprey species that only grows, you know, about a foot long, you know, at most, and then it spends most of its life actually hidden in the gravel upstream. So this isn't a very charismatic or commonly seen species, but it was the most popular species across the year. And so I use some modeling techniques to see like, did the use of images influence how many people saw a tweet or engaged with a tweet? And it was kind of a combination of things like, you know, when was the tweet posted? Basically, you know, what kinds of facts were about the fish? So

Stuart Carlton 12:28
here's where a deal to right because I didn't close my social media? Was I started putting pictures in not on myself, because that I you could study that the other way. Right. But, but including pictures in there got people to really engage.

Katie O'Reilly 12:40
Definitely, yeah, the use of images.

Titus Seilheimer 12:41
I think a lot of those a lot of those species that came out to the top I mean, are, you know, people I think their initial reaction is, that's a real thing. Like, is that a real? Like, that's a real fish, you know, not like cartoon someone drew. So, you know, I think that's surprising. This is kind of cool. About those two,

Stuart Carlton 13:01
I assume that's part of why you're so so burbot forward Titus, right is because it's something people don't necessarily know about. And it's, it's really kind of an interesting fish, you should look up about it singing. We can't talk about this on public airwaves. But it sings during certain moments. I mean, so many of us, but maybe not quite like this.

Katie O'Reilly 13:20
Yeah. And so I mean, I think the biggest takeaway I had from both doing fish mess, and then, you know, actually studying the fish Miss campaign was that, you know, freshwater fish are often, you know, kind of overlooked when we're talking about greater biodiversity in the world, you know, people think about coral reefs or rain forests. And so I think we have an opportunity to talk about these freshwater species and some of the challenges they face by tapping into, like Titus said, this sort of what is that novelty of things, and really just kind of cracking open the door and putting some fish facts into people's feeds.

Stuart Carlton 13:58
And that's really great and important work. But the thing is, is that, you know, it's some serious stuff you're doing and having fun to be serious, but sometimes we can just have fun to have fun. And so I've we put out a poll on Twitter, asking people if they want us to do a table read of a script that I have generated, and the poll came back. 5050. So that means some people say yes, some people say no, and the thing is when it's 5050 becomes kind of producer's choice, right? I'm the no you flip a coin. Yeah. Okay, well flip a coin. Sure. I got a coin right here. Oh, yeah. Totally, totally not waited. This is a nickel. That heads means we're going to read the script. Tails. This is tails means we're not going to read it. So I will. Alright, let's see. Alright, so those of you listening on the podcast right now you're getting a visual of me flipping a coin. This was the kind of thrilling visuals that we get. All right, there it is. I've not looked at it yet. What do you know it's heads. So slightly Okay, why don't we all right, just don't do the replay. Alright, so here's the deal. There's this thing that people are using right now. It's called Chat GPT. It's this they call it AI. It's not AI, but it is. It's kind of a machine learning algorithm that this language module, and so you can use it to generate language. And so I did this I said, Well, let's write a script in the style of film noir about hashtag 25 Days of Christmas starring Dr. Catfish from Twitter, and Dr. Fish SG from Twitter. And now we need we need several characters here. We need Dr. Catfish I Katie, I would recommend you play Dr. cat fish. Okay, we need Dr. Fish SG which happens to be Titus his Twitter handle. All right now, Carolyn, I'm gonna give you a choice. There is a narrator who has maybe two lines up the narrator okay, then that means you're gonna be the person who describes the scene. I'm going to describe the scene. You're going to describe the scene Carolyn? I am okay. All right, here we go. I'm gonna start. So I'm the narrator. I did a lot of theater in high school and not since I don't remember how to do it. Okay. It's hashtag 25 Days of Christmas in the bustling city of Acropolis. The streets are alive with the hustle and bustle of holiday shoppers. But not everyone is in the holiday spirit.

Carolyn Foley 16:17
A dark dingy office. Dr. cat fish a private investigator is sitting at her desk, staring out the window at the bustling city below. She looks tired and worn her eyes sunken in dark.

Katie O'Reilly 16:31
Another day. Another case. I've been doing this for far too long. But I can't turn down a paying job. No matter how mundane it may seem.

Stuart Carlton 16:41
For tourists learning the whole thing. Anyway, duck

Carolyn Foley 16:45
your cat fish. She's walking through the crowded streets following a suspect. She blends in with the crowds her sharp eyes scanning the area for any clues.

Katie O'Reilly 16:53
This guy's been stealing holiday decorations from storefronts all over the city. I've been on his tail for weeks, and I'm getting closer to cracking the case.

Carolyn Foley 17:03
Dr. Catfish is sitting in a seedy bar nursing a drink. Dr. Fish's t arrival investigator walks in and takes a seat next to her. You're

Titus Seilheimer 17:13
still working that holiday decoration que se I thought that was beneath you. Catfish

Carolyn Foley 17:19
sipping her drink.

Katie O'Reilly 17:21
It pays the bills SSG. And you know, I never give up on a case.

Carolyn Foley 17:26
smirking?

Titus Seilheimer 17:28
Well, you better watch your back. I've heard rumors about that guy or after I heard these dangerous, shrugging.

Katie O'Reilly 17:36
You know I can handle myself.

Carolyn Foley 17:40
Dr. Cat fishes standing outside a warehouse peering through a window. She sees the suspect inside, rummaging through boxes of decorations. She pulls out her gun and quietly enters the building.

Katie O'Reilly 17:53
This is it. The moment I've been waiting for. I just need to catch him in the act and bring him to justice.

Carolyn Foley 18:01
Suddenly, the suspect turns and sees Dr. cat fish he pulls out a gun and fires but she ducks in rolls dodging the bullet. She takes cover behind a stack of boxes and returns fire because that's this edit. This is absolutely something I could see Katie doing anyway, back to you.

Katie O'Reilly 18:20
It it's never easy, but I always get my man.

Carolyn Foley 18:27
Dr. Catfish is walking down the street a satisfied smile on her face. She pulls out her phone and calls her client letting them know the case has been solved.

Katie O'Reilly 18:36
Another day, another case, but at least now I can enjoy the rest of 25 days of fishness in peace.

Stuart Carlton 18:45
In the world of film noir justice always prevails, especially during the holidays.

Carolyn Foley 18:55
aid to black we had a comment in there that James says happy fish was to all and I think we also say happy fish was to a

Titus Seilheimer 19:03
very few actual fish in that. In that that story.

Katie O'Reilly 19:07
I know there was a terrible lack of fish.

Stuart Carlton 19:11
It's not clear the chat GPT knows a lot about fish.

Carolyn Foley 19:15
Well, let's try to help them with that. So next question for our doctor fishes. Sturgeon versus paddlefish throwdown. What is the difference between a sturgeon and a paddle fish? Are they closely related?

Titus Seilheimer 19:30
Well, you know, they're both kind of odd looking fish. But, you know, on one hand, sturgeon, they're cartilaginous. So you know, sharks, they have cartilaginous skeletons and compare that to paddle fish which they're bony fish. So they're, you know, if we turn back the clock, we've got the, you know, they kind of branched off at different times so,

Stuart Carlton 19:53
but they're old they're both really old right? Well here here let's set this up. Here's how they started right with somebody put out this video. I think we've got the video Yeah, so here's the sturgeon. This is a baby surgeon very cute. Lady nominee, not a lucky winner. And here defeated.

Carolyn Foley 20:07
Oh, cool.

Katie O'Reilly 20:09
There he goes. Look at that. Look at that.

Stuart Carlton 20:12
Sucks all this in and then it echecks it. Right, hold on. Let's do this again. It's like me on a plate of wings. If we can, yeah, if we can run that one one more time. Here we go. And a

Titus Seilheimer 20:21
video here from our good friend Cory Brant in Michigan.

Stuart Carlton 20:25
So there how many how's it gets so many rocks up in one suck?

Katie O'Reilly 20:30
I mean, you know when the hunger strikes Stewart

Stuart Carlton 20:35
I guess so. What so that was cool admin Titus replied. We're not just running through social media. But then he replied with his paddlefish video, and they have this big metal to write to their feeding mechanism. So look at that. What is that they have this huge mouth, it's like a it's like a plunger. Essentially a paddlefish. It's like a plunger stuck onto a fish.

Titus Seilheimer 20:52
Yeah, with that big mouth is like, you know, it's basically a big net. So they're just swimming around, they are filtering the water. They can actually use that paddle. They've got different, like electro sensor, kind of Oregon things in in their paddles, so they can help find that food. And they're just, you know, filter feeding.

Katie O'Reilly 21:11
Yeah, they remind me a bit of like a, you know, you see whales or things like basking sharks out in the ocean, you're just swimming around, scooping up a lot of little plankton with your, your big net. So

Titus Seilheimer 21:24
yeah, if we think about that, sturgeon, we saw, you know, the surgeon with those barbells on the front, you know, kind of like that. It's like a mustache. So you can see it just kind of touching the bottom like feeling along and then just sucking up, you know, whatever food is there. And it you know, it's, it's spitting those rocks out, it doesn't want to eat rocks, it can kind of sort that stuff out. And then you know, goes about it today. So pretty cool for a fish, you know, that can get and like both these fish can get really big. You know, sturgeon can be hundreds of pounds. The largest one recently caught in the last couple years was six feet 10 inches, weighing, you know, 250 plus pounds. So that's a big fish. And but it's just eaten, you know, in vertebrates on the bottom. So Carolyn, there's there's your your invertebrates, again,

Carolyn Foley 22:15
they're the best. Yep.

Titus Seilheimer 22:16
But that's really great food for big fish.

Carolyn Foley 22:19
So do you guys have a sense of what suction feeding like? So we talked a little bit PD, you mentioned about the whales just kind of swimming around and getting a bunch of stuff. So that would be the paddlefish is just trying to get whatever it can, right. Do you know why section feeding evolved? At all?

Katie O'Reilly 22:43
I, you know, at the risk of sounding like a complete, you know, noob but this is basically an area of study that phys fish, physiologists try and say that a couple times fast really focus on is like, how do the fish heads their mouth structures evolved to consume different prey items. And what you know, as we're thinking about that, not only we're thinking about the actual structure of a fish's head, which some people study in really great depth to the point of like printing out 3d models of the head to understand, you know, how they're set up, but it's also thinking about what kind of environments are these fish living in. So the sturgeon that you're looking at is always living on the bottom. It's a benthic species. And so it's evolved to have a mouth that is well adapted for basically vacuuming up the river lake bottom, whereas the paddlefish is more what we call a pelagic species in the upper in the water column, doing this filter feeding technique of just, you know, scooping everything, everything up. And so it's basically how a fish consumes is getting is thinking about what kind of environment it typically inhabits. In part.

Titus Seilheimer 24:03
Yeah, they're both you know, basically doing the same thing like they're taking in a lot of material and then sorting out the food, swallowing the food, getting rid of the other stuff, you know, whether that's just kind of debris for the paddle fish, or, you know, mud and sediment for the for the sturgeon, but yeah, both cool, cool ways to eat food and they're both doing a great job.

Carolyn Foley 24:25
That's really, really awesome. They're also really really awesome fish. Both of them are very, very cool. Another fish that is, I think, kind of awesome that doesn't always get the heyday that it deserves, but it definitely has in 25 days of fish Miss are suckers. So recently, people at the Shedd Aquarium tagged some suckers There we go, can you guys tell me what what do you guys know about suckers? And why are they important in the Great Lakes?

Katie O'Reilly 24:54
Well, you know, I'm gonna let Titus take most of this since he's actually been out there. You know, actually watching some of these suckers in action,

Stuart Carlton 25:02
should I try this for a sucker video collection? He thinks, oh yes, exciting videos of suckers

Katie O'Reilly 25:07
just in his backyard, basically. But I'll just preface that by saying, you know, there's a couple of species of suckers. In the Great Lakes. There's also what are called Red Horse suckers, which are these very strange looking soccer creatures. But basically, they are often found in Great Lakes tributaries, and the suckers, the white soccer and longnose soccer in particular, spawn every spring and come up in to these tributaries in large numbers, they think about like salmon returning to spawn, and they bring nutrients with them into the streams, I'll let Titus take over what it actually means in practice,

Stuart Carlton 25:45
as a point of clarification, Red Horse, Red Horse sucker, the other type of the Red Horse horse, that s is in there just for the rest. And this is the robust Red Horse, by the way, is what I did my master's research on 20 years ago, at this point, the University of Georgia under Cecil Jennings, so I used to know a little bit about Red Horse. Suckers.

Titus Seilheimer 26:06
Yeah, so you know, the, the work that Karen Mirchi and Chet aquarium are doing, you know, it's great. It's really, you know, it's citizen science, I think, at its best, and, you know, volunteers out there on the coast going out all spring, every day, I actually have a stream right next to my office, that I, another volunteer, and I cover and we, you know, basically, April through June, we're out there every day, we spend 10 minutes looking for fish. And, you know, it's about counting, you know, when are the fish here, how many fish, you know, suckers are there, we're mostly seeing white suckers. There's also long those suckers that are, you know, kind of, in the Great Lakes that that some of the volunteers are watching. And you know, it's a great, it's a great opportunity just to be out on the stream bank every day, you know, rain, snow, sunshine, nice days, and you know, lots of lots of great fish. And with the, the tagging, so what what Karen did was, you know, partner with US Fish and Wildlife Service, and with Wisconsin Sea Grant to buy these acoustic tags. So, you know, basically, it's kind of this little, I don't know, it's like a, you know, a pack of lifesavers, basically, it's like that size. So you can imagine that, they actually open the fish up, put that inside, close the fish back up, so it's still alive. And what this, the transmitter does, it shoots out this acoustic, the sound ping, basically, each one is unique. And then out in the Great Lakes. There's all these different receivers that different people have put out there all over the place. And so if a fish swims close to it, they've got that transmitter, the receiver picks it up. And you get this data point in a huge spreadsheet that that this group called the Great Lakes, acoustic telemetry observatory. GLaDOS, they kind of manage all that data toasts,

Stuart Carlton 28:07
the worst Marvel hero, but the best hero of soccer. Yes,

Titus Seilheimer 28:11
yes. So and So this, you know, if a fish swims by a receiver, you have no kind of a time, a date, and a location. And you can start looking at, you know, where did these fish go? So we kind of know, when the suckers come back when they spawn, but where do they go when they hit the lake. And that's, that's what this is going to teach us. There are 6060 White suckers out there with these transmitters, and we're gonna start, start seeing data and it's gonna be really cool to kind of spy on these fish and find out what they do and where they go. And.

Carolyn Foley 28:44
Right. That's awesome. Okay, so three things that I want to say about this one, number one, GLaDOS is like my favorite acronym in all of the acronyms that I've had to learn from my job, because it just makes me think of this, like, I don't know, like, day after day, the Earth Stood Still kind of thing that came down and like, I don't know. And it's also just such a cool project to have all these receivers all over the place, pinging fish that we can understand how they're going. Awesome. Awesome, awesome. So second thing is our those who are helping us out today, Great Lakes. Now they have a story about white suckers, where they, they spoke with Karen Mirchi from the shed who calls them the best supporting fish suckers are the best supporting fish because there's so little known but so important. Showing a link to that right now. And y'all can go take a look at it very much encouraged. We also did talk a little bit about maybe trying to get a couple of people on the show, when the run is happening to do some kind of like sucker madness show. They don't know this yet. Unless they're listening. They may have heard it now. So this would be a really, really cool thing. The last thing I want to say is one time I was at the grocery store and the guy behind the Fish counter found out that I work with people who work on fish and he told me that he actually like cans sucker and uses it like he catches them cans on himself. And he uses them instead of tuna, which is just

Stuart Carlton 30:12
like, hold on. Alright. No, wait,

Carolyn Foley 30:14
no, no, we're moving on.

Stuart Carlton 30:17
So, so he cans what kind of sucker does he can wipe out? Or is it like the whole deal? Like, we don't

Carolyn Foley 30:26
have him as a guest on the show right now, Stuart so I can

Titus Seilheimer 30:29
you can pick him to the roof?

Stuart Carlton 30:31
This is my question. Is it tubular in shape? A lot of like a hot dog for it. So you

Titus Seilheimer 30:35
would chunk it up? I've seen this I've had it before it is uh, along the coast. You know, if you pickle it, it's it's pretty tasty. So I am proposing here, not only in the spring, will I be on this, this program live standing in the stream. But we'll also feature we can feature some pickled stir picker, pickled sucker as well.

Katie O'Reilly 31:06
Perfect. Stay tuned.

Carolyn Foley 31:07
So we have one more question that we did receive from the audience, which is a doozy. From very Adams at Mad newsboy? How come? I don't always catch fish? Dr. Katie?

Katie O'Reilly 31:21
Oh, that is the million dollar question. Where are the fish? And why are they biting? I mean, that is really, I think what unites anglers and scientists more than anything is like where are our fish, and we want to know what the fish are doing where they're at. And they may not be biting for any number of reasons. Some species are more active at different times of the day. So if you're out in the middle of the day, and it's a species that's only active saying that, you know, early morning hours, late dusk hours are kind of out of luck, you know, depends on what kind of bait you're using, is this something that the fish wants to eat? Is this just the weather that day, the weather has a huge impact, is it cloudy, some species prefer, you know, to be out and active in cloudy conditions. So, that's, I think, actually why anglers are one of the best sources of information for us as scientists, because they're out there, they're seeing, you know, making observations about, oh, I'm finding fish in this particular location. And so I think bringing together you know, both the scientific side of what we do in terms of sampling, with some of this knowledge that anglers have is really where we can, you know, make the most, you know, combine the most information to make the best decisions for manage, and

Titus Seilheimer 32:38
if you're in the wrong place of the fish aren't there, you're not going to catch them. And, you know, I think anglers 10, they focus on a species like they're out catching bass, so they want to catch muskie. And you know, there's, there's plenty of fish. And if you really want it to catch fish all the time, you probably could, you could catch the minnows, there's, you know, micro fishing is something people do now where they catch, you know, it's not about catching the biggest bass, it's about catching all the species that are out there. So, you know, I think you just need to broaden your mind and you can catch fish anytime

Stuart Carlton 33:13
change your definition of what catching a fish is, y'all are both too nice. The reason very, is that you're not good at fishing. And but it's okay. Most people aren't I used to when I worked, I worked for whales and marine fisheries biologists for the state of Florida, in St. Pete Tampa, St. Pete, Florida. And we would do what we called hook in line sampling, this was legitimate science work, we'd get a fishing pole with some shrimp, and we'd go out to fish for red drum or red fish. And to try to we would then call them and take their DNA to figure out if the stocking program was being effective or not. But I would go out this guy named Buddy and Buddy as a former fishing guide. And and so this would literally be standardized routines, we'd have the exact same line, the exact same bait be fishing the exact same place, and Buddy would catch 10 times the fish of everybody else in the frickin department. And it was like, What are you doing, buddy? Why are you catching Oh, and buddies from South Carolina? There ha. What was even that, but so Buddy was sitting there catching him. Of course he'll think about buddy who's probably not listening is uh, if you weren't catching fish, you would abandon the sampling protocol. Go find the fish. It's more fun to catch fish than not.

Titus Seilheimer 34:20
Yeah, and I think, you know, Data Wise, it's like, you know, like a very small percentage of anglers catch most of the fish. It's like 10% of the anglers catch 90% of the fish because they just know what they're doing. And, you know, people like me, you know, I don't know what I'm doing and I don't catch fish and that's fine.

Carolyn Foley 34:38
Right. So I have I have one more story that I want to bring up because you guys know I can't I can't miss an opportunity to share something about Canada and you all you're talking about catching fish and things like that. There was a story that came out in that a an angler in Toronto, one of the biggest cities It caught a muskie in downtown and they said it's a unicorn catch. In the city harbor. I also have a nine year old daughter. So I can't add a seven year old son who loves unicorns too. So I can't miss an opportunity to talk about unicorns. Why would catching a muskie in a city harbor be a unicorn

Titus Seilheimer 35:17
catch? Yeah, so, you know, I think it's just the unexpected nature that, you know, this like, urban, large urban area. If you know anything about muskie habitat, it's, you know, kind of shallow and the, you know, for natural reproduction, they need a lot of wetlands. And as someone who, you know, went to school in Hamilton, Ontario, and studied the coastal wetlands of the area, a lot of those wetlands are gone. So, you know, I think it's just especially a fish that size to see there. In you know, this very urban, very developed area is sort of unexpected. So, pretty excited to see that.

Carolyn Foley 35:59
Right. And muskie is something that people would consider. Anybody would consider that a fish, right?

Titus Seilheimer 36:05
They'd be happy with that fish. I think any angler would be like, Oh, this is

Carolyn Foley 36:11
cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. All right. So I'm being pressed to switch to the end. So for those who have joined in the past, when we've had the doctors fishes on we have wrapped things up with a game of 20 questions where one doctor picks up fish, the other doctor tries to guess what the fish is, and whoever winds up winning, get 30 seconds to soapbox about whatever they feel like so far. And it's

Stuart Carlton 36:36
always Titus talking about eating fish. This is the

Carolyn Foley 36:40
always eating fish. So

Stuart Carlton 36:41
it's always too long. We normally have both doctors fish go, and it is it is too long. So this time, Carolyn, we are cutting it down to just one

Titus Seilheimer 36:49
doc by my clock. Right, two more hours. So I'm not sure

Stuart Carlton 36:54
does this actually, if you just step into his office, he's talking into the mic looking at the camera. We just,

Titus Seilheimer 36:59
we just say no one's here.

Carolyn Foley 37:01
Dr. cat fish has the choice. So Dr. officious G.

Katie O'Reilly 37:07
Yes, I have my species in mind.

Carolyn Foley 37:10
So go ahead and ask man

Titus Seilheimer 37:12
barbels yes or no?

Katie O'Reilly 37:15
Yes,

Stuart Carlton 37:17
yes. Okay. Does it does it sing during the act of procreation?

Katie O'Reilly 37:24
Not typically. At least not that you could hear with? Yeah.

Carolyn Foley 37:30
Is it a freshwater species exclusively?

Katie O'Reilly 37:34
I would say yes. Possible. low salt, like very, very fresh brackish water, but mostly freshwater.

Stuart Carlton 37:42
I mean, if you're listening live, go ahead and put a question or a guest in the chat box. And we'll say it so if you're, if you, you can waste our questions, if you want. All right, that's three if I've counted correctly. Titus, fourth question.

Titus Seilheimer 37:54
Scales, yes or no? No.

Stuart Carlton 37:57
Okay, now, this is where we suffer. Because I'm really I'm gonna go with my arm. Here we go. You're ready. Does it live in the benzos?

Katie O'Reilly 38:05
Yes, typically?

Carolyn Foley 38:06
Yeah. Does it live over rocky habitats?

Katie O'Reilly 38:13
It's more I would say more over muddy habitats or silty habitats?

Titus Seilheimer 38:18
Venomous yes or no?

Katie O'Reilly 38:20
Yes. Oh,

Carolyn Foley 38:23
do you know what it is? Because I will totally differ and just let us feel like Titus might know.

Stuart Carlton 38:28
My question. That's No, I will not. I defer to nobody. I've got a question. Why is it venomous enough to kill me? That's kind of my key.

Katie O'Reilly 38:37
No, no, definitely not.

Carolyn Foley 38:40
Yeah. Deferred otitis,

Titus Seilheimer 38:43
adipose fin. Is it a distinct adipose fin? Or is it connected to the caudal fin?

Stuart Carlton 38:48
So what is the adipose fin help us help our listeners?

Katie O'Reilly 38:52
So an adipose fin is basically like, if you think about the back of a fish, there's a dorsal fin, which is like the fin you see in like Jaws, but an adipose fin is behind that dorsal fin on the back, and it's just kind of like a little nub.

Stuart Carlton 39:06
What's it do? I haven't what does it adipose fit for decoration?

Titus Seilheimer 39:09
It you know, yeah, it just doesn't have a there's not a function anymore. But certain groups of some species have it. It's a great, you know, if you're identifying a fish, it's nice to see sometimes.

Stuart Carlton 39:23
So what was the question?

Katie O'Reilly 39:24
Yeah, so the question was, is the adipose spin, kind of distinct or separate or connected to the tail? I would say it's separate.

Stuart Carlton 39:35
Um, is this fish a prey? I've lost? This is 668. Anyways, it's a prey. A common prey item. This fish?

Katie O'Reilly 39:44
I mean, probably when it's smaller. Yes.

Titus Seilheimer 39:47
So the the barbels are they light colored or dark colored?

Katie O'Reilly 39:51
It has both.

Stuart Carlton 39:53
Um, I don't know. 12. I'll be honest, I've lost track. Carolyn.

Carolyn Foley 39:58
Is it a bowhead?

Katie O'Reilly 40:00
No. So it is not a bullhead and I got a question What are barbels? So barbells are basically sensory whiskers that a fish has

Stuart Carlton 40:09
the sensory list of whiskers in all honesty.

Carolyn Foley 40:14
Okay, we have a question to wrap up after the 20 questions.

Stuart Carlton 40:17
Time is ticking away man, you got three guesses. That's how we're gonna wrap this up.

Titus Seilheimer 40:21
Okay. I'm gonna say if it's not a bulkhead and it's venomous Is it a tadpole Mad Tom? No.

Katie O'Reilly 40:33
Maybe I'm wrong on the venomous part I thought they were still Oh no. The data scraping in

Titus Seilheimer 40:44
store do you have any anybody else have any fish?

Stuart Carlton 40:47
I got benthos I got does it sing during procreation? Those are my questions. So

Titus Seilheimer 40:51
channel catfish.

Carolyn Foley 40:53
Yes channel

Katie O'Reilly 40:58
maybe I totally messed that. Oh,

Stuart Carlton 40:59
wait, hold on. Hold on. We got to figure this out. No, no, no, you work on the venomous I don't think they are because I've been stalked by channel catfish a trillion times. Anytime I net one. It jabs me because I'm on coordinated. But the thing is, we just made a mistake. So Titus, you need to roll. Yep, we're working on that hope. Titus you're gonna have to take your guests again. And we'll do the drum roll. And then we have our official sound effects. So I apologize. This was my fault. Quinn estates and as always Alright, Titus. Let's racket baby.

Titus Seilheimer 41:31
Is it the channel catfish?

Katie O'Reilly 41:38
Yes, it is.

Stuart Carlton 41:43
That's the thunderous rule of Katy O'Reilly. Fan web tastic and Tammy for those watching live what you should do every other month at the Facebook page of Great Lakes. Now our production partners. You can see a picture of the channel catfish fan double double tastic that means that Titus

Carolyn Foley 42:02
Katie kind of win this one.

Katie O'Reilly 42:05
No Titus wins this one. I messed up the venomous part.

Carolyn Foley 42:07
So all right. All right. You are so gracious. All right. I

Titus Seilheimer 42:11
want to give I want to give it to Katie then I'm gonna pass it. That's my My thing is to let Casey gracious give her 30 seconds. I would just talk about cooking fish again. So,

Stuart Carlton 42:21
channel catfish. It's a good one to do it.

Katie O'Reilly 42:23
It is a good one to do it. So yeah, let me know. When I got my time.

Stuart Carlton 42:28
You got your time after we answer this question. What is the worst from Ethan on Facebook? What is the worst experience you've had with a fish bites horned by a catfish, maybe a channel catfish broken foot. Who's got a bad fish experience they want to talk about.

Carolyn Foley 42:43
I mean, I can share mine. Like even though I collect I collected fish sometimes. And the reason I said bullhead was teeny tiny baby Bullheads when you're trying to hold them on the board, they're very wiggly. And they got me like, oh, right in my thumb and it hurt for like five days afterward. And that's when you're like venomous and things like that. I was Yeah. You. I was thinking right back to that wetland. Where it? Yeah,

Titus Seilheimer 43:08
if you're not leading, you're not working with Bullheads. I was in my my bad experiences also bullhead related Pickering, Ontario. In the spring. We me and an undergrad student we were out there pulling fyke nets checking the wetland fish species. And it was bullhead spawning season because we had hundreds of adult brown ball heads and I had to like handle every single one. Net was too heavy to lift and I got like spiked so many times in my hands. It was it was quite the quite the day. So

Stuart Carlton 43:48
fantastic. Yes, my bad story. It's not I didn't get hurt. Or when I get hurt. I have very good reflexes. But we when I was Marine Fisheries Biologist, we would set nets and have to count all of the fish for population dynamics reasons. And somebody set a net net that you'd spin around in a circle and set and he caught about 1200 Hardhead catfish, and we had to count each one of those and they unlike the bullhead are the channel cat Excuse me. I'm like the channel cat. They are venomous. And so that was new fun. All right, Katie O'Reilly 32nd soapbox, tell us about fisheries or whatever else was

Carolyn Foley 44:22
wanting to share her her experience first.

Stuart Carlton 44:26
I mean, she could unless you want me to just cut you off. It's your call.

Katie O'Reilly 44:30
Either way. I mean, my experience is kind of similar to Titus. We were sampling a Great Lakes coastal wetland had a net full of adult longnose gar which are an awesome fish, but having mouthful of very sharp teeth and this there was about 70 adult longnose gar in this net that were not happy to be there. And so you know, getting them out was was quite the it's a balancing act between getting them out quickly and getting come out without slicing your hands open. So

Stuart Carlton 45:02
excellent. Carolyn, if you want to transition more smoothly than I did take it away, boss.

Carolyn Foley 45:09
Now, Katie, because you were graciously, I mean, we have a gift. You were gifted in the spirit of fish miss. You were gifted a 32nd soapbox. And so your time can begin. Yeah.

Katie O'Reilly 45:29
So I one of the things I want to talk about is my use of a non fish species this fish miss. So for the first time ever, this year, we had a non fish featured. And it was the red swamp crayfish, which is an invertebrate Karolyn that is introduced to the Great Lakes and causes a lot of damage as an invasive species. It basically builds little burros that can erode the stream bank, it outcompetes, our native crayfish species. And people, you know, may claim that that was jumping the shark but I think you know, we had to explain why a crayfish is called a fish though it's not it's a it's more related to lobsters and crabs. And you know, I'm going to die on that hill that it was appropriate to include. And it's my Fishman so I can do whatever I want. And you know, if there's going to be a crayfish, there's going to be a crayfish and who knows maybe there will be other non fish fish that you know, it's Louisiana crayfish and

Stuart Carlton 46:31
in Louisiana, where I'm from shortly after Christmas or fishes season comes the crayfish season so you're exactly the seasons like Carolyn through the segments of this very show? Absolutely. As Dr. Fish is brought to you by the fine people of Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant Wisconsin Sea Grant and Goby dog media. The show is produced by and hosted by Stuart Carlton Carolyn Foley, Dr. Fish Kineo Riley and Dr. Fish Titus style Heimer. The live broadcast Guru is Tammy Winslow. Thank you, Tammy. And the whole life thing is produced by our pals at Great Lakes now you should check out the work they do news news about the lakes you love. Great Lakes now not warm. The podcast version of this show is edited by the awesome Queen Rose. We encourage you to check out her work at aspiring robot.com the podcasts our work is by Ethan Coalsack really fun black mudpuppy on Twitter, but check out his portfolio at Ethan cosec that's k ochh.com. If you have questions for our doctors fish send an email ask Dr. fish@gmail.com. Use the Twitter hashtag is Dr. Fish while you can or call our hotline. That's right our fish hotline 765496 I SG Hey everybody, thanks for listening. We'll see you live YouTube. No we'll see you live on YouTube at YouTube. You're on websites, either a YouTube and Facebook 11. Eastern on the second Monday of every even month and I screw that up every time but that is February, April, June, August, October and of course December in between now and then if you have fish questions, if you have science questions your life questions, just ask Dr. Fish