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A pair of fishermen were stripped of their $5,000 tournament win after judges in Ohio discovered that they had put lead weights inside their catch also faced the wrath of a furious crowd on Friday, according to a video of the scene. Chase Cominsky from Pennsylvania and Jake Runyon from Ohio initially won the Lake Erie Walleye Trail Championship in Cleveland, Ohio’s Gordon Park on Sept. 30. They were awarded a $5,000 prize for their big win. The duo’s catch weighed in at 33 pounds, nearly double what their nearest competitor had caught, according to the Daily Mail. But the...

The walleye that swim in the cold, murky depths of Lake Erie are the waters’ apex predator, sleek torpedoes of teeth that dine on shad, minnow and any other fish smaller than themselves. They do not, as far as marine science has determined, dine on lead pellets the size of golf balls or precisely-trimmed fillets of other walleye. So when Jason Fischer, director of the Lake Erie Walleye Trail tournament series, pulled handfuls of lead sinkers and fillets from the bellies of some prize-winning fish, he knew he had a hell of a problem in his hands. There’s nibble-around-the-edges, cut-the-corners...

My mother always said to give people “the benefit of the doubt.” She felt that “judge not, lest ye be judged” from the Sermon on the Mount was a valuable core principle that she lived by. Assume the best in people, until you learn otherwise. Well, in today's world, it gets tougher and tougher to follow that pledge. You trust, and sometimes you get burned. Late Friday, the walleye fishing world was sent reeling after a cheating scandal was exposed in front of God, country, and a mob of justifiably furious walleye fishermen. Two guys – we can no longer...

The USGS has confirmed there was an earthquake in Monroe County today. It registered as a 2.4 W of Luna Pier, Michigan, at 12:49 pm.

The Earth is trembling underneath Lake Erie. Nine weak, shallow earthquakes have already struck central Lake Erie in the first weeks of 2022, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which, alongside the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), tracks seismic activity in the region. The quake epicenters are clustered about two miles offshore of Lake County east of Cleveland. They range from 1.3 to 3.0 in magnitude and some are being felt locally on shore. Quake depths range from 2.1 to 7.4 kilometers under the surface. The most recent quake was a 2.4 magnitude on Feb. 4. Ohio DNR seismologist...

A sheet of floating ice broke away while the individuals were snowmobiling, according to the Coast Guard. Authorities used a Coast Guard Station Marblehead airboat and an Air Station Detroit helicopter to rescue the stranded group, the Coast Guard said earlier in a tweet. A "good Samaritan" with an airboat also assisted with the operation. The National Weather Service Cleveland had warned earlier on Twitter that increased wind could cause ice to break away from the lake's shore. "You are urged to stay off the ice on Lake Erie as there is the possibility that the ice will drift away...

Down, down, down. In three minutes, the skip drops nearly 1,700 feet below Cleveland. Then the giant metal door swings open, and you’re deposited in an other-world, with walls, ceiling and floor made of salt. Dirty brown salt at the Cargill mine’s entrance, where the rock has absorbed diesel fumes and dust for more than 60 years. Pristine white, with glimmering flecks, at the mine’s far reaches, 3 miles north, under Lake Erie. “I look out at the water, and it’s like, man, we’re under that!” said Cargill employee Cachet Hilton, 45. Every day, the 5-mile wide mine gets a...

232 waterspouts/funnels have been confirmed over the Great Lakes from September 28 to October 4, 2020, in the second world record waterspout outbreak of the year, according to the International Center for Waterspout Research (ICWR). From August 16 to 19, 2020, a short-lived waterspout outbreak produced 88 funnels, setting a new world record waterspout outbreak -- the first of the year. Both outbreaks were a result of Canadian cold air sweeping over the region, which made surface air prone to rise. "There were an average of 33 per day," said ICWR director Wade Szilagyi, also a meteorologist at Environment Canada....

Federal geologists say an earthquake rattled the area just northeast of Cleveland, Ohio, Monday morning. The United States Geological Survey confirmed a 4.0 magnitude earthquake centered in Lake Erie, approximately 2.5 miles north of Eastlake, at about 10:50 a.m. WOIO reports there was no serious damage in the immediate area, according to Ohio law enforcement, but multiple agencies said they received an overwhelming number of 911 calls from residents asking what the shaking was. A screen shot from the United States Geological Survey shows the area of northeast Ohio where the earthquake was felt.CBS affiliate WOIO

...The government, they felt, wasn’t doing enough to protect the lake. And so they wondered: What if the lake could protect itself? The idea they hatched that night ultimately resulted in a special election, which had the citizens of Toledo voting Tuesday on a very unusual question: Should Lake Erie be granted the legal rights normally reserved for a person? The measure passed easily, which means citizens will be able to sue on behalf of the lake whenever its right to flourish is being contravened — that is, whenever it’s in danger of major environmental harm...If the stakes felt almost...

(CNN) — The US Coast Guard was searching Lake Erie Friday for a small plane carrying six people who had attended a Cleveland Cavaliers basketball game before flying out of the city late Thursday. Three adults and three children were on board the aircraft, CNN affiliate WEWS reported. Their identities were not immediately known.

“Great Lakes ice is now running ahead of last year and ice will increase with more brutal cold coming,” says meteorologist Joe d’Aleo. “We are likely to have the most ice since records began.” “By the end of February the entire country east of the Rockies will have averaged below normal,” says d’Aleo. “Boston will have either the coldest or second coldest month in their history. It is nearly 13F below normal in Cleveland and all points east for February. Boston has the second most snow for the season and is very likely to be the snowiest ever by the...

According to NOAA's Great Lakes Surface Environment Analysis (GLSEA) the record for total Great Lakes ice coverage was set in 1979 with 94.7% coverage. Last year's winter almost broke that record with 92.2% and is currently sitting in second place. Just a few days ago the ice coverage sat at 60%. Today that number has jumped to 76.6% based on yesterday's analysis due the recent cold the area has been receiving. Their forecast for the next 24 hours is for that coverage to jump to 82.3%. This is within 10% of second place. Some long range weather forecasts I have...

More than 4,700 square miles of ice formed over the Great Lakes in just one night on Tuesday. The Arctic blast that swept the Midwest and Northeast saw a near-record amount of Lake Ontario was iced over, with just 20 per cent of open water left. Overall 82 percent of the five water bodies sealed up. Temperatures are expected to drop again on Thursday night, leading forecasters to predict that figure to climb significantly by Friday morning.

The Siberian Express that’s imported northern Russia’s weather into North America is leading to a second year of fast-growing ice cover on the Great Lakes, setting up the Chicago area for the possibility of another cool spring. By Wednesday, the Great Lakes were 85.4 percent ice-covered, just above the 85.2 percent on Feb. 18 last year, according to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. With below-average temperatures predicted for at least the next week, the lakes could approach last year’s levels of 92.5 percent ice cover, the second-highest level since records began in the early 1970s.

Explanation: From a camp on the northern shores of the Great Lake Erie, three short bright meteor streaks were captured in this composited night skyscape. Recorded over the early morning hours of May 24, the meteors are elusive Camelopardalids. Their trails point back to the meteor shower's radiant near Polaris, in the large but faint constellation Camelopardalis the camel leopard, or in modern terms the Giraffe. While a few meteors did appear, the shower was not an active one as the Earth crossed through the predicted debris trail of periodic comet 209P/LINEAR. Of course, the long bright streak in the...

This is well outside California, but it may well have ramifications in the Golden State: A lawsuit threatened by a pair of bird conservation groups has halted a wind power development the federal government had planned along the Lake Erie shore in Ohio. **SNIP** "We are absolutely elated that the Air National Guard has halted this project, at least temporarily and possibly for good," said BSBO Executive Director Kimberly Kaufman, adding that BSBO would continue to gather petition signatures despite the ANG's decision. "We want to document the full extent of the opposition to this -- and similar projects in...

Forces march to take their positions Saturday during the annual re-enactment on the 201st anniversary of the Battles of the River Raisin on the battlefield adjacent to the Monroe Multi-Sports Complex. Read more at: http://www.monroenews.com/news/2014/jan/19/gallery-remember-raisin/

Ever since Asian carp were accidentally introduced into U.S. rivers in the 1970s, the invasive fish have been hungrily making their way to the Great Lakes, causing residents of the watershed to dread the arrival of carp in delicate Lake ecosystems, and their potential impacts on the 7 billion dollar fishing industry that represents a major economic driver for the region. Now, a new study suggests that Asian carp have breached southern Lake Michigan, although they have not yet arrived in numbers great enough to devastate native ecosystems. Scientists at Notre Dame University, Southern Michigan University, and The Nature Conservancy...

TOLEDO — Wildlife researchers in northern Ohio want to know what’s killing thousands of walleye in Lake Erie. Many of the dead fish have been washing up on beaches between Toledo and Port Clinton in recent weeks. Ohio Department of Natural Resources biologist Roger Knight says it looks like the worst might be over. The walleye is Lake Erie’s most popular sport fish and draws anglers from across the Midwest and beyond.