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A monthly podcast in which Stuart Carlton (a native New Orleanian) asks smart people to teach him about the Great Lakes. Co-hosted by the awesome staff at Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant.
Stuart Carlton 0:00
It's Fishman season. What are you doing to celebrate? Let's it's Fishman season. What are you doing to celebrate? What other fish are celebrating that special holiday feeling, and what is the exchange rate between money Max and food Max? Again? To find out, let's ask Dr fish music.
That's right. It is ask Dr fish our every other month live stream, where we ask our doctors Fish, fish questions, science questions and life questions. If you're watching us live, I'm gonna figure out how to feed this audio. If you're watching us live, feel free to paste a question into the chat on YouTube or Facebook, wherever you happen to be seeing us live, we're joined today. We are lucky, lucky, lucky to be joined today by at least one and maybe two. Ass Dr fish, depending on technical difficulties. First one is Katie, the originator of 25 days of fish. Miss, O'Reilly Katie is, of course, a DR fish. She's the aquatic invasive species specialist at Illinois, Indiana Sea Grant, and you can follow her on Twitter or x at Dr catfish, catfish with a K Katie, happy fish. Miss, Merry fish. Miss, to you,
Katie O'Reilly 1:18
Mary fish. Miss, to you. You know cod. Bless us everyone.
Stuart Carlton 1:24
I am very blessed by multiple cod. And I have no idea if our other Dr fish is here or not. We're having some back end problems. Do we have another Dr fish right now? If not, Katie, you're gonna have to do double duty. But the thing is, you can do it. I
Katie O'Reilly 1:38
was gonna. I mean, it might our other Dr fish might be making a fishmith Surprise later in the show, if he
Stuart Carlton 1:45
you know, there's always room for a fishmith Surprise. We're also joined today by Carolyn shines like fairy lights Foley. Fairy Lights. Foley is what they used to call her, in fact, not a DR fish, but she is a research coordinator with Illinois, Indiana Sea Grant. Hello, Carolyn. Mary fish missed to you too, and
Carolyn Foley 2:01
Mary fish missed to you as well. Dr Carlson, thank
Stuart Carlton 2:05
you, and my name is Stuart Carolyn wrote these. My name is Stuart evil holiday podcast mastermind Carlton and not a DR fish, I'm assistant director with Illinois, Indiana Sea Grant. We got a big show today. We need a little tease for what to stick around for we got our usual top three stories, and then we're going to celebrate fish miss. We had the Ask Dr fish challenge, and so stick around for that. But first topic, number one, and it's the topic at hand, tis the season, fish miss, all right, so, Katie O'Reilly, the best thing you've ever done is fish miss, maybe, I don't know a top five, top eight, thing you've done is Fisher's. How do Fisher tell us about Fisher's. What is it? How did it go? Going? Yeah.
Katie O'Reilly 2:47
So what the heck is 25 days of fish? Miss. 25 days of fish. Miss, was a silly idea I created back in 2016 when I was a grad student. And you know, typical grad student fashion, it's it's getting to be the end of the semester. I'd been doing a lot of research, which was mostly focused on Great Lakes and the fish communities that live in them. And I happened to stumble across a poster that Wisconsin Sea Grant made that was basically showcasing a lot of different fish species that live in the Great Lakes. And this poster, essentially, like, you know, is vertical. It has a bunch of little icons of fish. And, you know, something in my brain, you know, kind of clicked and said, you know, this reminds me a lot of an advent calendar. For those who aren't familiar, sort of the advent calendars are that these little uh, calendars, duh, that you where you open a little door each day in December and get a treat. Only, normally it's like candy, right? Exactly. Normally it's like chocolates, you know, whatever. But in this case, you would get facts about fish and so I can be for your brain Exactly. Well, it's grad student brain. And so I decided, you know, why don't I just feature a different Great Lakes fish species each day in December? And seven years later, I am still featuring a different Great Lakes fish species each day in December. So it's been a wild ride. And I think you know, what's cool about it, from my perspective, is just seeing people get really engaged and interested in fish that they might not always or may never have heard of before.
Stuart Carlton 4:38
Yeah, sure what I think, and for those watching live or listening down the line. But one thing I'll say that Katie's really good at is taking these fun things and making them genuinely educational, right? And so that's one thing that's cool about fish miss. I mean, you come for the fish ponds. No, you leave because of the fish ponds, I think. But there's also, before you leave, though, you're gonna learn a lot. While doing it. So how many different Do you know, have you done a census on how many different fishies you featured? That
Katie O'Reilly 5:06
is a really good question, because, you know, you would think it would just be 25 times seven or, you know, for the seven years I've done it, but seven years, seven years, yeah, but I've done a couple of repeats, you know, because not everybody who was following me, you know, is following me right at the beginning. So I've done some species, and it's also been, you know, sometimes we know more like more research has come out since I last featured a species, and then 2020 which was obviously a weird year we did, or I did a, it was a road trip around America to feature different fish species outside of the Great Lakes, kind of, because nobody could travel that year. It was, it was a travel extravaganza, yeah, sure,
Stuart Carlton 5:53
that makes sense. And so this year, year seven, that's 140 most, 75 days of fish miss by the end of this year, anything. How's it going this year? Well, first of all, I mean, like, so you do it primarily on Twitter or x or whatever, right? And so you're finding engagement? Or is it harder, because of all the interesting things going on over there?
Katie O'Reilly 6:13
It's definitely different engagement. It's lower than it has been in past years, because, you know, there's this whole fragmenting social media landscape, such a nice way to put it, but I still think, you know, for my purposes, it's the best platform, because I like to do kind of threaded tweets, so you can sort of follow along the storyline about a single fish, and I haven't found that as much on other social media platforms. So we'll see. Maybe next year will be the year I finally switch platforms. Depending on the future of
Stuart Carlton 6:45
who knows the platform, a lot can change in a year.
Katie O'Reilly 6:49
A lot can change in a year. And
Carolyn Foley 6:51
maybe, can you talk a little bit about how, how other people have taken this and made it their own because you started it, but like, I'm trying to show a couple of the, you know, latest tweets, and I'm just going to scroll through some of them here. But can you talk a little bit about how it's taken on a life of its own to some degree?
Katie O'Reilly 7:09
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, one of, like I said, one of the ways that fish Miss has, you know, impacted me the most is seeing other people take this concept and make it their own. And so in past years, there's been a lot more 25 days of fishness, where basically different people take, you know, a study system they're familiar with, or a place they live in, and feature fish, you know, in a similar style, like the model of one fish a day. I'm thinking past years, there was one that was like fishes of Utah. There was coral reef fishes. And even beyond that, there's been things that have spun off of it, such as crust miss. For crustaceans, there was a squid, miss, one year, squid, miss, squid. Miss. Was great. But beyond just kind of, you know, taking the 25 days of fish model, there's also been, you know, I've partnered with Sunday fish sketch, which is this kind of established, established challenge on Twitter, where each week, people sketch pictures of fish, hence the name. And what we've done there is actually like, do mystery clues, so people have to guess the 25 days of fish Miss beforehand, given some clues that I provide, and that's been a really cool way to tie art into this whole science endeavor. Excellent.
Stuart Carlton 8:42
And we have a question here, actually, from the audience member, which you can type into the chat button if you want, or in the little chat box type in your questions. Has there been a favorite fish that you featured on Fishman? Is there one that you keep coming back to?
Katie O'Reilly 8:57
Oh, I have to say probably one of my favorites is the American eel, and that's mostly because of all the puns you can do with like No l slash no eel. Really terrible, honestly, but I just, and I think beyond the really terrible, it's really terrible, exactly, I feel, feel ill, beyond just the No, beyond just the ability to do terrible puns with it. The American eel is just such a strange fish that most people in the Great Lakes have never encountered, mostly because it's relatively restricted to like Lake Ontario, the St Lawrence River. But it's, it's just really cool to talk about because of their strange life history.
Stuart Carlton 9:46
Is that the one, it's one of my origin stories, yeah, is for, like, why I got interested stuff was I had some book of, like, mysteries and cool fish or ocean things or whatever. And I seem to remember, at the eel they didn't know way back in the 80s, where I. Know where, where it spawned, like which breeding grounds were. Is that still a mystery? Do you know? So
Katie O'Reilly 10:06
we have a better sense, but you're, you're totally correct. So we, for a long time, scientists, did not know where's where eels reproduce. There's even a famous anecdote about the ancient Greeks thought that eels just sort of came out of the ground like out of mud, because they didn't know where they were reproducing and so but in recent years, due to advances in like tracking and tagging, we do know that the eels all spawn in the Sargasso Sea, which is in the Atlantic Ocean. So they spawn in the ocean, but then they return to fresh water to live their adult lives. They're basically reverse salmon.
Stuart Carlton 10:46
Reverse salmon. There we go. Excellent. I'm going to pause here because I think we have a fish. Miss miracle. It's a fish. Miss
Katie O'Reilly 10:56
miracle.
Titus Seilheimer 10:57
It is good morning. Hey everybody.
Stuart Carlton 10:59
Hello. Titus, no. Titus, you just got it. I have to, Carolyn, give us all titles in our little documents. I have to give yours. It's Titus. Played Santa on a fishing boat once sileheimer, a doctor, fish, fishery specialist Wisconsin Sea Grant, also on Twitter, slash x as dr, fish, SG, Titus, how's it going?
Titus Seilheimer 11:17
Well, you know, other than our tech issues here. Everything's great. And I like to give you guys different shirts. So this time,
Stuart Carlton 11:29
we can't quite read it, but if you give it to us something Wisconsin. So
Titus Seilheimer 11:34
it says, when you when you see Wisconsin, you've seen it all. And it is for you listeners out there. It is a muscular lunge with the color pattern of a Holstein cow.
Stuart Carlton 11:52
Thank you for that, Titus.
Carolyn Foley 11:53
That's an excellent all it needs is a cheese hat and it'll be perfect. And
Titus Seilheimer 11:58
if you look, if you look at the date on it. It is 1988 Yes, it's an old shirt my grant, my late grandmother's shirt when, when we were cleaning her house out, I don't know, 20 some years ago, this was there, and I've had it ever since. So it is fantastic. Think a festive kind of red shirt. It
Stuart Carlton 12:23
is a classic shirt. Yeah, it's a nice for those who are not able to join us live, which you should do on Facebook, YouTube, or, I think we might even be streaming on Twitter, but I don't get how that works. It's like this really nice orangey red. It's like a reddish orange. It's very safe to wear, like in the field, people will see you, unlikely to be mistaken, despite the bovine camouflage, unlikely to be mistaken for something that people are trying to hunt. Well, Stuart
Titus Seilheimer 12:50
Stewart, you were, you were talking origin stories. And I assume you were, your origin story was you were bitten by a radioactive eel, and that gives you the superpowers that you now have. Is that true? Every
Stuart Carlton 13:02
single superpower I have I owe to the radioactive eel that bit me. No, it's all good. So Titus, now they're here. The one thing we love to talk with you about is fish spawning, because we know that's a passion of yours, the origin story of many millions of fish, I suppose. So my understanding is based on what Carolyn wrote down, that this is Cisco spawning season. First of all, what's a Cisco again? Because I just think of the food service, and then, and then, are they spawning now? And how's it going? Yeah, Cisco.
Titus Seilheimer 13:27
So Cisco spelled differently than the food service, C, I, S, C, O, I think that's right. But yeah, Cisco. So in in the kind of the world of Great Lakes fish. The Cisco is actually a single fish species. You might know it as lake herring, but Cisco is kind of technically the the scientific name we're using right now. And well, the common name, except common name, and it is the corriganus genus, so things like whitefish and bloater Chubs Cisco, they're all kind of cousins to each other. So and one of the things with a lot of the corrigonids, they like to spawn kind of late, late fall, early winter. Some of them, actually bloater Chubs will spawn right in middle of February. So right now is spawning season, and for us in Wisconsin, Cisco spawning means in up in the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior, we have a lot of our harvest happening for Cisco, and that is part of a row market. So they actually there's this big export market for eggs that go over to Scandinavia. So, yeah, kind of a neat, neat life history for fish. They're just kind of, you know, spawning in the winter.
Carolyn Foley 14:52
And so there were a couple of stories about how there were kind of record Cisco or lake herring population. Happening in Lake Superior, can you and Katie tell us a little bit about that?
Titus Seilheimer 15:06
Sure, yeah, so, you know, so Cisco are known to have this kind of episodic success. I mean, that's the thing like we we've had, like, years almost, you know, decades of kind of low recruitment years, but you get one big year in that. That's what we've got right now. You get one big, huge year that can then support those the whole fishery for Lake Superior, say, for decades, because they're also pretty long lived fish. So yeah, it's a pretty neat and we've got right now just tons of these little kind of one to two year old Cisco swimming around out in Lake Michigan or Lake Superior right now. So pretty exciting.
Katie O'Reilly 15:50
Yeah. And just to build off what Titus is saying, you know, some of you know, sometimes we don't always know, like, what leads to booms and busts in fish populations, but in some cases, it's due to, like, you know, climate conditions, you know, was it a particularly wet, dry year, warm year, cold year? So that's one of the things that scientists were always trying to tease apart to try and help us understand, you know, why are some years better than others?
Stuart Carlton 16:15
Is that something that's always naturally happened, or is it, do we think there's anthropogenic cause, right? Is it something we're doing that's making it boom and bust, or is it just that's how it's been?
Katie O'Reilly 16:26
I mean, I think it varies depending on the species. Some species just naturally have boom and bust cycle cycles, whereas, you know, some species, the booms and busts might be more extreme now because of, you know, human actions, yeah.
Titus Seilheimer 16:40
And one of the things with Cisco that we've seen is, you know, it seems like winter is really important to their success. And, you know, things like ice cover. So, like, you need to have these kind of right conditions happen at the right time for these huge year classes. And, yeah, like, as Katie said, you know, we're scientists, so we like to try to figure out what's causing these things, but you're talking this huge lake with lots of different things happening. So definitely a concern with things like climate change and decreasing ice covers is something we're seeing, and Lake Superior, especially one of the fastest warming large lakes in the world, so that, you know, can also start affecting things like spawning timing. And you know, if you you have kind of changes in the thermal regime, you know, what is that going to mean for these fish too?
Katie O'Reilly 17:33
Right? Because, just, you know, when we talk about the importance of ice cover for these guys, what it really is is because they're laying their eggs in the winter, having that ice cover sort of actually helps protect the eggs from getting beat up by winter storms, you know, from all these different variables, like, you know, Lake Superior in the winter is not a super hospitable, hospitable place to be. So by having this ice cover, it gives some protection to those developing eggs so that when they hatch, you know, we have our big bustling baby boom of Cisco. Oh,
Stuart Carlton 18:09
the big bustling baby boom of burbit. That's what you need. Burbit Anyway,
Titus Seilheimer 18:13
yeah, I think, you know, I bet burbot would like to eat these guys. So we have a lot of burbot up in Lake Superior too. So, you know, right now, if you're a lake trout, you got a whole lot of these little Cisco that you can eat. And I think that's good news for them, and for for the Burba too. I just
Stuart Carlton 18:34
found out I can accidentally post stuff. I was trying to post stuff in the private chat. We have a private chat, and it turns about, turns out, I just posted it to the Facebook page. So that's cool. This is why they don't let me have a Facebook account. I was suddenly asking Carolyn if she wanted to transition into the next thing, but
Carolyn Foley 18:52
actually not yet, because I would like to ask a little bit. There's a story about Titus mentioned row, the Cisco row, and so that is like caviar, right? So we're also entering the festive season of, like rich party delights and stuff like that. Um, so there's a story about Great Lakes row and Sweden. Can you tell us about that a bit, please. Titus,
Titus Seilheimer 19:22
yeah. So this is a, this is actually, you know, highlighting my colleague, Sharon Moen. She is our food fish outreach coordinator. She works out of our superior office, and she was contacted because the World Wildlife Federation Europe or Sweden were, they were kind of going to list. They were going to Red List. So do not, you know, avoid Great Lakes, bro. And it was really, you know, because they're over in Europe, they don't really see or hear or know what our you know, how our management works. And because, you know, in the Great. Lakes. We've got, you know, multiple states. We've got two company countries. We've got, you know, the province of Ontario. We've got lots of tribes as well, First Nation. So, you know, the the, really, it's not that the, you know, the management's good. It's, you know, they're using science based management for Cisco. But from, from afar, if you're in Sweden, and I guess you know doing stuff based on Google searches, it can be hard to kind of tease apart how our management system works. So Sharon was actually contacted by one of our there's Sharon, if you're watching live, there's a picture of her, and she was contacted by one of our distributors who processes a lot of row in Wisconsin, and then exports it. So, you know, a really big kind of economic piece that connects the Great Lakes fishery to overseas. You know, we talk a lot about, you know, our importing a lot of seafood, but this is actually, you know, seafood that, or a seafood product that we are exporting. So, you know, really a success story. It was, you know, really kind of just telling the story, basically, of how the Great Lakes fisheries management works to these folks over in Europe, and kind of reassuring them that, you know, we do have sustainable management. It's science based management. And, you know, I think that, you know, it's just a, kind of a great story about what, what we at Sea Grant, do we, you know, take the science, we translate it to the people who need it, and then they can make good decisions. So I think it's a, it's a good story. And, yeah, you know, I don't know what parties you're going to. I don't see a lot of caviar at my parties, but I guess that's just, you know, Northeast Wisconsin, here maybe sturgeon caviar, if, if I knew someone who's spirit sturgeon. But no,
Stuart Carlton 21:49
at least, at least one party. Our director has a open house most years. I think they're doing it again this year. And he is from Sweden, actually. And so every time I go to Ikea, he makes me buy him one of those toothpaste tubes filled with with caviar, and so you bring it home and it it's just all the food at IKEA, gross, but, but so I will bring him and several tubes of caviar from Ikea, and he will hopefully break that out At at his holiday get together this year. So I will be to get together with caviar. Sometimes
Carolyn Foley 22:24
it can be wishful thinking that life is fancier than it is, or if you want to pretend to be fancy, but I will reset now. Stuart, okay, so everyone who's listening and watching live, this is Ask Dr fish, a show where our two doctors fishes answer your fish questions, science questions and life questions. If you have a question for our doctors, put it into the chat right now, and we should be able to see it and share it. Or you can use the Twitter hashtag Ask Doctor fish. You can also email us at askdoctorfish@gmail.com.com com.com, Stuart introduced the next one. Yes. Why is
Stuart Carlton 23:06
that? Alright? Here we go. Next up we have trading mackerel for a haircut. So Business Insider reporting that FTX, former FTX owner, head chair, whatever the job was, Sam bankman freed, also known as maybe the biggest embezzler scam artist in the history of the world, has figured out that mackerel is the currency of choice among inmates, and has currently used prison mackerel to get a haircut. Titus, how many mackerel would it take Do you think for you to get a haircut in prison,
Titus Seilheimer 23:43
you know, I don't, I don't. I'm gonna say, buy the container, you know, like a single, a single container of mackerel. I think that's a the haircut. Maybe it's two and three, though. I mean, really depends on the quality of the mackerel. Yeah,
Stuart Carlton 23:57
I'm not sure how good prison mackerel is, but, yeah, so no more on this story. So yeah, Sarah mcfried is in prison, and so after cigarettes were banned from prisons, this is I went too deep on this story, after cigarettes were banned in prison a number of years ago, mackerel or they call them Max in prison. They call them max that developed as a currency, and the reason for this is because nobody wants to eat them, and so you have pouches of macro, which are available to the commissary, but they're also limited. You can only buy a certain number of them per week, which is why they're, you know, it's kind of like nfts, right? There's a built in limited supply, and so people get their Macs and they're able to trade them as a currency. And as it turns out, fincoin would be another way to put that, I suppose. From Katie O'Reilly, thank you for that. It turns out, though they are worth more money before they expire. Those are called eating Macs, and then they're worth less money, but still not in. Nothing after they expire, then they're called Money max. So you got your money Max and you're eating max. And so that's just a great example of fish as a currency. Katie, do you know about other fish as currency? Is that something you've come across in your studies? Or maybe not?
Katie O'Reilly 25:15
Yeah. So actually, I'm gonna sound like a broken record, because eels were used as currency in medieval England. And actually, there's this really awesome historian on Twitter, surprised eel historian, and he made a map like how eels were used in medieval Europe, mostly medieval England, but essentially they were used from people who were renting land from landlords. They would pay their rent in eels. And that just blows my mind. Because, like, why did we move away from this system? I wish I could just go to my landlord and be like, here are five eels. We're good for the month. So, I mean, I don't know what kind of society we live in that doesn't allow eels as currency. Yeah, it's
Stuart Carlton 26:08
a good question. It's a good question. It's more tangible than other things. Yeah. Oh, we have a question here. I see this a question from from viewer Peter, related to Cisco spawning. Viewer Peter wants to know, for how long do they spawn in the fall? Titus, how long does Cisco do their deed? I mean, as a season, not an individual. I'm not interested in hearing about an individual session.
Titus Seilheimer 26:30
Oh, you know, actually, I mean, Cisco's spawning is, it's fairly general. There's nothing explicit about it. You know, they're just kind of these generalist broadcast spawners. So just you get a bunch of Cisco together, you got your reproductive material all over the place, settles to the bottom, and then, and then you're good. So, you know, basically it is, you know, kind of November, December is basically the main time. And they, you know, they are really, they move around the lake. So we're, you know, mainly talking Lake Superior and like the the spawning stock in the Apostle Islands in northern Wisconsin is, you know, it's actually these fish will kind of return here, around, you know, from really, lots of parts of the lake. And they, they come, you know, swim around during the year, and then they return kind of to the the apostle area. And then, you know, these big aggregations spawn. And that's, you know, why for the caviar market, you know, you can go out there and target them when they're all because you want that those, you know, the row you want those ripe females, because that's where the money's at. And you know, you get them when they're all kind of grouped together, spawning. So, yeah, it's about, you know, a month, two months, it'll all depend on kind of the the weather, and it's a, you know, temperature queue kind of thing. And then those eggs just kind of drift to the bottom and wait until the spring and hatch out. And then we get to see what happens. Is
Stuart Carlton 27:59
it temperature cue on the back end too, when they hatch out, you know, yeah,
Titus Seilheimer 28:03
definitely, you know, they're, you know, and one of the advantages for them is they're, they're already there, so they don't, you know, lots of your fish will spawn, you know, like a pike is going to spawn pretty early, but they're still coming in, you know, right after ice out. And it's, you know, 40 degree water temperatures. But you know, if you're if your fertilized eggs are already there, you just, you know, don't have to worry about those adults moving around and breaking through the ice and stuff.
Stuart Carlton 28:34
This is half Doctor fish to show where our two doctors fishes answer your fish questions, your science questions, and your life questions. If you has one, has one. If you has one, or you have one, go ahead and put that in the chat on Facebook, YouTube, or maybe Twitter. I don't get that one, but you can use the hashtag the X tag, ask Dr fish. And I will search for that right now to see if anybody's doing anything. But So every month, we like to every other month, I guess every episode, we'd like to have our famous ask Dr fish challenge, whereby famous, I mean, we just started this this month. And so if you recall last month, I was the Challenger, and everybody else was the challengeee. And the challenge was this. The challenge was to celebrate hashtag fishmiths, since that is the month, so we will go around and we will ask what you did. And so we left this totally open ended. It could be something minor, or you could spend entirely too much time doing this, given the return that you're likely to get on it, which I recommend. But the challenge was to go ahead and celebrate fishness. And since Katie O'Reilly is the progenitor the genius behind fish. Miss, in fact, since many people call her the originator of 25 days of fish, miss, that's what the Owen O'Reilly stands for originator. What is, how are you choosing to celebrate fish? Miss, Katie, so
Katie O'Reilly 29:56
I'm going to be pretty boring with my challenge here. I am celebrating fish. Miss. By doing fish miss every single day. Normally, I get a start on preparing, you know, my tweets and research earlier in the summer. But this year's just, you know, kind of flown by, as I'm sure it has for everybody. And so, you know, a lot of my research has been kind of little more last minute than I would like. So mostly I spend every day learning about Great Lakes fish species, which honestly, is the best job in the world. So I can't complain, but yeah, my fish Miss challenge has been to spread fish. Miss cheer.
Stuart Carlton 30:34
There we go. Excellent. Katie. There's,
Titus Seilheimer 30:36
there's not a better gift than daily fish facts and learning about fish. It's, it's wonderful.
Katie O'Reilly 30:43
It's the gift that keeps on giving. Titus,
Stuart Carlton 30:45
sure is. Titus. Did you celebrate fish was this year? How are you celebrating Fishman's? Yeah,
Titus Seilheimer 30:50
do you? Do you? Did you all open your gifts that you got for me? I do. So that's, that's really what I did this year. And so if you, I don't know if you want to hold those up,
Stuart Carlton 31:03
yeah. And we have, we have some video footage too that I think Carolyn can put in. Do you need the link, Carolyn, or do you have it? There we go, so the people at home can see this amazing stuff that Titus sent, really beautiful, arrived in the mail just a couple days ago, a fisherman ornament, and then a coaster. Perhaps,
Titus Seilheimer 31:19
I let's go with coaster. And actually, if you look at the back, there's also a great lakes outline I gave you kind of a Stewart's DJing for his DJ Ness. Katie's running on hers. Carolyn, I hope it's kind of a baby Yoda thing that seems like, right. Okay, yeah. Mine is a really beautiful, amazing, yeah. So, so what I did, you know, I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. You know, Katie's gonna win, obviously. But so we actually at our MakerSpace at our Public Library, they have this Glowforge thing, which is, you know, some kind of laser cutting machine. And I was like, Oh, hey, I'm gonna sign up for that. So I learned how to use it, and then I made those things. So it was fun, you know, fun to do that. I've actually lost my ornament already. I don't know where it went, so that's pretty awesome. It's probably in my house somewhere. I was
Katie O'Reilly 32:15
gonna say Titus, yeah, there's, I definitely do not win, because they are beautiful. Yeah, they're
Carolyn Foley 32:20
really awesome. And so we have a new cat this year. If my door was open, he would probably be in here. And this is a kitty safe ornament for sure. Like, we have very few ornaments on the tree, but I was like, one that I can put on. This is awesome. Thank you.
Stuart Carlton 32:39
Nice to get go for it.
Katie O'Reilly 32:41
No, I was just gonna say Titus is also being too modest, because he is also celebrating fish mess by doing sketch fish mess. So we talked a little bit about Sunday fish sketch, which is the once a week thing, but Titus sketches every single fish I feature,
Titus Seilheimer 32:58
which is, yeah. So I started that last year. I was like, oh, you know, I try to sketch every day. That's been my my process for the last couple years. And you know, I think my sketches are getting better. I did have my freshman year of college, my intro to studio arts class was my best grade that I got. So that was before I learned how to study and that I actually had to do homework in college, but still, I got a B plus, and that was, that was my highest grade. So, yeah, I just, you know, last year I was like, I should just sketch every fish as they come up. So that's what I've been doing again this year, and it is. It's fun to just, you know, have a nice prompt there. I don't have to do any thinking. Thank you, Katie. That makes it a lot easier, and even if I have to go on x, which is makes me feel like this. You know, Ill every time I go on there. But eel, yes. Eel,
Carolyn Foley 33:57
how many Katie fit in in an hour? Yes, right? Well, this
Stuart Carlton 34:03
is fantastic, but no Titus, this was really kind. I was so, so excited to see this come in and so much what we do now, you don't get a physical manifestation of it, right? And so to see the beautiful ass director fish logo, defined by Ethan, designed by Ethan Kosak and very cool Mary fish, our kids are very fired up. I brought them in today so I'd have them, but they're going, wow. It
Katie O'Reilly 34:24
meant so much to Stuart. He
Titus Seilheimer 34:27
froze up. So emotional. It was
Carolyn Foley 34:31
really great. You were kind of looking down. It was like you got a little bit too Oh, well,
Katie O'Reilly 34:36
pause, but it was, it was very touching.
Stuart Carlton 34:38
Yeah. Well, there you go. Carolyn, did you celebrate fish myths?
Carolyn Foley 34:43
Yes, but mine is extraordinarily not cool, but delicious. I bought my kids some Swedish fish that were very colorful, and it used to be very full, and it's no longer full. And as always, I don't know if this is the way it is in everybody's family, but the lemon. And are the last to go. So yes,
Katie O'Reilly 35:06
together the, you know, the sweet treat part of an advent calendar with the fishness part. So I salute you for
Carolyn Foley 35:11
that. Yes, I definitely meant that. Yeah, thank you, Katie
Stuart Carlton 35:17
as the challenger. Of course, I I'm under no obligation to celebrate fish. Miss, however, however, Carolyn, can you call up the video that I just pasted in the chat and that one has sound? And for those who have not watched this before, I apologize in advance if you don't listen to teach me about the Great Lakes, you have no idea what you're in for. Once, Carolyn gets this going, here we go. All right. Oh,
"theme song" 35:48
fish misses the most wonderful time of year
Stuart Carlton 35:55
we share in Pisces knowledge and holiday cheer. I year,
"theme song" 36:03
there's a fish every day, each one is better than the last.
Stuart Carlton 36:11
The only problem with fish miss is that it's gone way too fast, because it's 340
"theme song" 36:22
days until next fish. Miss. What are we supposed to do with all of the time?
Stuart Carlton 36:36
Actually, next year is leap year, so that's 341 days. Until we next celebrate the holiday mo sublime. There's salmon and sturgeon and all kinds of trout and bluegill and bass with both large and small mouth and perch that are yellow and pirate perch too, and hog fish and jump rocks and red fish and blue and groupers, both Goliath And gag
"theme song" 37:15
and jawless fish, both lampreys and hag they're suckers and catfish and lionfish too, and betas and minnows and the Bengal danio and look downs and amphitros, several of which are the nine different species. There are of bone fish, but that depends on how you interpret the genetics, because taxonomy seems so easy, but it's complex.
Stuart Carlton 37:55
There's sardines and sand sharks and killifish too. Don't forget the pelagics, money banks and Wahoo, barracuda, baroundi, barali, bitterling, tunas and lungfish. I
"theme song" 38:09
could keep going, but what I'm really trying to say is that fish Miss needs more than 25 measly days, so please give me a salmon cannon this year for fish miss, load me up and shoot me to the moon. As days without fish. Miss, aren't worth living anyway, and
Stuart Carlton 38:52
by the time I land, it'll be fish. Miss again,
"theme song" 38:55
soon, we need more fishmas. We need more fishmas.
Stuart Carlton 39:07
We need more fishmas.
"theme song" 39:11
Bring us more fishmas.
Stuart Carlton 39:18
Our viewership numbers just tanked. I They
Unknown Speaker 39:20
turned
Titus Seilheimer 39:23
it on. They were like, What am I listening to? This is amazing.
Katie O'Reilly 39:27
Oh, my God. Stuart, Illinois, Indiana, Sea Grant was close to tears.
Titus Seilheimer 39:36
We will, we will keep fish miss in our hearts every day of the
Katie O'Reilly 39:39
year. Really, fish miss. Carol, we can play on all the stations. So
Stuart Carlton 39:47
beautiful, so beautiful. Anyway. Mary Fisher, so now we have to pick a winner. I, of course, am not eligible, which is good, because I would get outvoted three or four to nothing. So the winner of this week's challenge, this month's challenge. Challenge is, I'll be honest, I think it's Titus seilheimer. Titus seilheimer, I choose as our winner because not only does he celebrate fish was by sending stuff, bribing the judges, but he also does the drawing. So Titus is our winner. So Titus, in between now and the end of the show, you need to pick out our next Ask Dr fish challenge, but,
Carolyn Foley 40:23
but you're also going to be playing a game, so have fun with that.
Titus Seilheimer 40:28
I thought, I thought you said I won. I feel like I've lost.
Stuart Carlton 40:31
When you get to choose the challenge, you don't have to do the challenge. It's huge victory.
Carolyn Foley 40:35
I am going to go at the end of the show we, we always play a game, because that that's our thing. Okay, so Katie and Titus, I am going to share a link in the thing if I can open the right tab. Okay, um, so as I we always talk a lot about food, right? We talk a lot about food. We talk a lot about eating. And so I started looking around for holiday dishes that include fish, and there's a lot of them. But one thing that kept coming up over and over and over again was this Feast of the Seven Fishes, which is an Italian American tradition where on Christmas Eve people will have just a seafood feast with seven different seafood courses and things like that. So in theory, I'm going to share this and you all can see it. Alright? So we're going to have a a Feast of the Seven Fishes here. Competition. So here's what, here's the rules, okay, each dish so there's, there's a series of dishes throughout this presentation. Each dish can only appear on one table, so you have to fight over the dishes that are in this presentation. You must add in your own dish to complete the Seven Fishes. It's only Titus and Katie, by the way, it's not Stewart and Carolyn. The dishes should appear in the order you would serve them. So you'll see in a minute you have a table. So you should put them in the order you would serve them. You have 30 seconds to review all of the available dishes, then three minutes to create your feast. And during that 30 seconds, I will kind of like knock through and let everybody else see what they are. And then you have to present your feast to us as if you're on a food game show, because I've been watching way too many of those holiday baking challenge and things like that on the Food Network. So alright, so the options that you have to create your table lamprey pie, whole roasted fish, shrimp cocktail, salted cod, pickled herring, fish stew, seafood gumbo, fried catfish, smoked salmon, sashimi, fish cakes and poached, poached Fish with pasta and so this is Katie's table, and that is Titus table. So in theory, what's going to happen here is you all can, just like, cut and paste and be as cutthroat as you want. Okay, so I'm going to say your 30 seconds are done and ready. You have three minutes to make your stuff. Okay, ready, go, go, go, go, go.
Stuart Carlton 43:40
So while we're waiting, I've got for mine. I've got shrimp po boy, no no no, crawfish. Boil, shrimp boil, seafood gumbo, crawfish auffe, shrimp creole, and then another, another, Friedrich oyster polish. There we go, half and half. They call it the
Carolyn Foley 44:03
Okay, feast of Seven Fishes. You're done. Okay. Um Carolyn watches too many food tables. Katie, tell us about your Feast of the Seven Fishes.
Katie O'Reilly 44:12
Yes. So I wanted to start us off with some appetizers to kind of, you know, Cleanse the palate palette and, you know, kind of get us in the mood. So I have the sashimi and the shrimp cocktail to kind of just, you know, chill things out a little bit at the start. I also wanted to make sure I got the shrimp because, you know, we were very vertebrate, heavy, heavy with most of our fish species. I then went, you know, we'll transition away from the appetizers, the hors d'oeuvres, into our first course, which is fried two ways. You can either have your fried catfish, very, you know, comfort food, or you could have the lamprey pie, which would take the lamprey and, you know, put, basically, put it in a pot pie type thing. So good, good starter meals. And then for our main course, I decided to go. With the fish stew and poached fish with pasta. Both, you know, could be endlessly sort of remixable. You could, you know, change your sauces. So a lot of flexibility there. But what I'm proudest of is our final dessert course, which is a dish from Portugal called lemria del ovos, and it has no fish in it, but it's made of 40 egg yolks that are whipped together with sugar and then formed in the shape of a sea lamprey, complete with maraschino cherry eyes and almonds for teeth. This is probably one of my favorite and it's a Christmas tradition in Portugal. So it is perfect for capping off our feast of Seven Fishes.
Stuart Carlton 45:47
Boy, is it? Have you? Have you had I think we've talked about this before, that picture, or maybe it's my nightmare, so I can't remember. But so if you've sampled the the I missed the name, sorry,
Katie O'Reilly 45:57
I have the lambrielle del ovos. I have not sampled it, but it is really on my bucket list that's
Carolyn Foley 46:04
awesome and way to completely understand the assignment. Katie, nice work.
Stuart Carlton 46:09
That's gonna give you a leg up when it comes time to judging. I think that it's true. All right.
Carolyn Foley 46:13
Titus, can you please describe your Feast of the Seven Fishes for us?
Titus Seilheimer 46:18
All right, so we, as a Wisconsin resident, I know that you're gonna, you're gonna get some pickled herring as a starter at my table, which may be a we're at a salad bar, and you know, you're, if you're at a supper club and near they got a salad bar, there's gonna be pickled herring there. And you know, we start with that. We then trend. We're gonna, we've got that, that tart kind of pickled flavor. Let's, we'll kind of cut that, that tartness with a little fried smelt. And we will go with the head on this time, we're gonna have whole head on fried smelt little tasty treat there. And, you know, for the Scandinavians and Icelandic people at the party, we're gonna we've got a whole block assaulted cod, which they can gnaw on for the next, you know, for the rest of the year when Stewart is like, Oh, fish miss, is over. You know that 300 days you gotta, you're gonna, you're gonna take your tote bag, your gift bag, home with you, and it's gonna be full of salted cot. So you're gonna have fish throughout the year. It's a gift that keeps on giving. We'll also have some fish cakes. And in this case, I'm gonna use locally caught Lake whitefish, fish cakes. Which Lake whitefish delicious anytime we will then have a seafood gumbo using some of the fresh well, they're frozen, but the wild caught Georgia shrimp that I just got from a colleague at Georgia Sea Grant in exchange for some Wisconsin cheese. So, you know, just calling in that card and delicious shrimp, we've got a whole whole roasted fish, and that's going to be a Lake Huron lake trout, which is, I've heard people complain about the flavor of Lake Michigan lake trout who eat a lot of alewives. So we're gonna go over to Lake Huron and eat one of their apparently more delicious, less fatty, lake trout, and then for dessert, a a delicious candied maple and brown sugar smoked salmon to to finish the meal out, quite delicious. And as as Katie's guests are getting parasites from their sashimi that she made out of perch or something, will will be enjoying smoked salmon.
Stuart Carlton 49:00
Titus, you're nothing if not on brand. Okay,
Carolyn Foley 49:03
and so we have audience. You can vote on your winner. Now, just type your name into the chat. So we also nicely done, Titus, that that was yes, yes, everything that I hoped it would be when I was pulling things together. So thank you both. That was awesome. And mostly I feel like the thing I learned is, is that that all like there's so many different ways that you can eat fish, and they are all delicious, alright? So we have one vote that has come in, alright? We can look for other votes, and
Stuart Carlton 49:34
then Carolyn and I, in our back end chat, will paste in the name that that we think should win. We do it on the count of 3123,
Unknown Speaker 49:48
all right. Well, it
Stuart Carlton 49:49
looks like by plurality, if not majority, of the vote, this month's winner is Dr catfish herself, Katie O'Reilly. That means Katie. Gets 30 seconds of soapbox time. But before that, Titus, what is the next? Asked Dr fish challenge,
Titus Seilheimer 50:10
yeah, so I actually sent it to Carolyn, and she is going to read it for me. There we go. And I don't know what it was. I'm just going with your private chat here,
Carolyn Foley 50:19
right? Yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry. Many, many times open. Okay. So actually, inspired by everything that happened, you know, looking at all the different food dishes and basically getting really hungry, um, try a new fish, new to you. Fish dish. Go find from somewhere in the world of all the fishes, and try create something that's new to you, and take a picture as people, or want to take pictures of stuff and things like that. Yes,
Titus Seilheimer 50:48
that's totally what I was thinking. Thank
Stuart Carlton 50:50
you for that, Titus, that was really thoughtful, and the way that you tied it into the challenge that you knew was coming, or the game that you knew was coming, that that's exactly
Carolyn Foley 50:57
didn't know it was coming. It was amazing. Anyway, okay, so Katie is 30 seconds go.
Katie O'Reilly 51:04
Okay, I'm going with my 30 seconds. Well, it is the end of the year. And you know, you're looking for the perfect gift, and honestly, we are. We have the best gift of all in the Great Lakes. That is the Great Lakes. So I just think, you know, at the end of the year, as we're reflecting on things, taking a chance to think about all the cool stuff, all the cool research that's been happening around the lakes, and, you know, all, just all the people who are working to try and keep the lakes healthy and really just restore them to their their glorious, great state, states. So I just, I think, you know, in terms of that end of the year, you know, where we've been, where are we going? I just really would love everyone to take a second to think about what they're grateful for in, you know, in their backyard, whether it's the Great Lakes or elsewhere, and all the cool, cool science that's happening, cool people that are doing the science and cool plants and animals that are out there
Stuart Carlton 52:04
fantastic, that is super and a moment of gratitude is always worth it. Sorry. It took me a second to take that in lately. That's something we've been talking about a lot at home and at work. So that is well done, and it is just a really neat time of year, I think, in the Great Lakes. So that is good to go
Carolyn Foley 52:32
ask Dr fish is brought to you by the fine people at Illinois, Indiana Sea Grant, Wisconsin Sea Grant and booby dog media. The show is produced and hosted by Stuart, Carlton, Carolyn Foley, Dr fish, Katie O'Reilly and Dr fish Titus.
Stuart Carlton 52:49
The live broadcast is supported by Moti ago beyond day, and the podcast version of the show is edited by it's still me. It's still me. Somehow it's still me. The podcast artwork is by Ethan kosack, and you can view his portfolio at Ethan cosack.com that is k, O, C, A, K.
Carolyn Foley 53:09
If you have questions for the DR fish, send an email to ask Dr fish@gmail.com use the Twitter hashtag, yeah, we're still calling it Twitter, ask Dr fish or call our hotline at 765-496-4474, thanks for listening, and we'll see you on tu live on Facebook and YouTube at 11am Eastern on usually the second Monday of every month in between. Now and then, if you have fish questions, science questions or life questions, just ask.
Stuart Carlton 53:52
How long you're gonna make me do this. I.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai