I’ve just returned from an exploration of sturgeon ice fishing in the northern reaches of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. We were chronicling one of the shortest fishing or hunting seasons in the United States: the 2026 Black Lake Sturgeon Shivaree, a sturgeon season measured in minutes, not months. The limit is six fish, and this year the entire season lasted less than an hour.
The weather was a crisp, bracing 1°F, with winds topping 30 miles per hour. I had not experienced winter weather like that since a summer I spent in Antarctica in 2017. It was fun.
