[Stuart Carlton]
Teach me about the Great Lakes, teach me about the Great Lakes. Welcome back to Teach Me About the Great Lakes, a twice monthly podcast in which I, a Great Lakes novice, ask people who are smarter and harder working than I am to teach me all about the Great Lakes and we're here live, Carolyn Foley. We are live from Cleveland, aren't we?

[Carolyn Foley]
Yes, yes we are.

[Stuart Carlton]
You know what that means, time for our Cleveland theme song. We are live from Mass Head, beautiful downtown Cleveland.

[Carolyn Foley]
Yes.

[Stuart Carlton]
And let's hear it for Sea Grant Week, everybody. I'm joined tonight by a cavalcade of superstars with me as often as Carolyn Foley.

Carolyn, how are you?

[Carolyn Foley]
I am doing well, thanks. Stuart?

[Stuart Carlton]
I'm good, it's good to be well. And here, oh my goodness, it must be a live podcast because there's Hope Charters. Hope, how's it going?

[Hope Charters]
I'm back again.

[Stuart Carlton]
Back in, she's back. She comes from the ones at the breweries.

And we have a special, special guest tonight as part of Sea Grant Week 2020, no 2021, no 2022. Dr. Chris Winslow, Director of Ohio Sea Grant and the Stone Lab. Chris, how are you?

[Chris Winslow]
I'm fantastic. And it's just Chris. Only my brothers have to call me doctor.

[Stuart Carlton]
Fair enough. Yeah, no, I was just calling you doctor to be cute. No, what we do is we establish the authority and then we undermine it.

So you establish and then you undermine. So Dr. Chris, what's up? And so the thing is about this podcast is what we do is we try to learn something about the Great Lakes every episode.

And then what really happens is I am so focused on trying to make sure that I don't forget to do the recording right that I learn absolutely nothing.

[Carolyn Foley]
Hey, Stuart, did you actually hit record?

[Stuart Carlton]
For example, no, I did hit record.

All right, cool. But so Carolyn has come up for it's a live show, so we got to do something a little bit extra special. And so for the live show, Carolyn has come up, I think.

Is this right?

[Carolyn Foley]
Well, do we want to let him introduce himself first?

[Stuart Carlton]
OK, fine.

So Chris, you're director of Ohio Sea Grant and the Stone Lab. Tell me what is what is we know what Sea Grant is. What is the Stone Lab exactly?

[Chris Winslow]
Yeah, my God, I'm a little intimidated here. This is intense.

[Stuart Carlton]
It is very intense. Thank you.

[Chris Winslow]
Stone Lab.

[Stuart Carlton]
It's like a camping trip. It's so intense. Hey.

[Chris Winslow]
Oh, my God, this is where we're going.

[Carolyn Foley]
Every time Stuart Tate makes a stupid joke, I'm going to take a drink.

[Chris Winslow]
So Stone Lab is an island owned by Ohio State University, not the Ohio State University. We're just going to call it Ohio State.

[Stuart Carlton]
That's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't need definitive articles on this.

Knock it down a couple of pegs. Teach us about a great lake.

[Chris Winslow]
Looking for hands on opportunities for kids to learn about the lake. And then Sea Grant, we all know what Sea Grant is, right? Sea Grant is the three legged stool, right?

So we've got we've got to fund some research on the issues. We've got to get that research into the hands of formal education. And then we've got to reach all those stakeholders, all those elected officials, all those state agencies, all those lake area residents and let them know what's going on in the lake behind them or in front of them.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. So really, with Stone Lab, you'll have like school groups out there. I don't really know.

[Chris Winslow]
Absolutely.

[Stuart Carlton]
I looked at a job sometime like 10 years ago. I didn't apply. Thank God.

But so what do you bring out like?

[Chris Winslow]
I've seen your resume. You wouldn't be allowed to the island.

[Stuart Carlton]
Fair enough. Fair enough. But is it like K through 12 type groups or what do y'all what do y'all do?

[Chris Winslow]
You know, a fifth through 12th graders coming up in the spring and in the fall. And then also we have college courses during the summer, somewhere between 20 and 25 college courses, about 250 students.

[Stuart Carlton]
And so it's on an island. The island is.

[Carolyn Foley]
No, no, no, no, no, no. You're taking the wind out of my sails.

[Stuart Carlton]
I'm taking the wind out of Carolyn's sails. Carolyn, what's the Chris? That's actually not what we're here to talk about.

We're here to talk about today.

[Chris Winslow]
We do sail on the lake.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. Oh, you do sail on the lake with wind. Not the wind that I've done.

I wanted to go into detail about Stone Lab, but we're not going to do that. Instead, Carolyn's made a game called the Wheel of Eerie. And what Carolyn does not know is that the Wheel of Eerie game has a theme song, the Wheel of Eerie theme song.

And she might not be able to hear the words tonight, but she'll listen to it and she will retroactively hate me for this. It is time for the Wheel of Eerie. What it will land on is a big mystery.

So many issues with Lake Erie. Which of them will we discuss on Teach Me About the Great Lakes?

[Carolyn Foley]
I thought you said you weren't going to have time to record.

[Stuart Carlton]
I wasn't. But then my mother-in-law came in town and yada, yada, yada. There's a Wheel of Eerie song. All right. So tell us how this is going to work.

[Carolyn Foley]
All right. So here's how it's going to work today on Teach Me About the Great Lakes.

We are going to learn about the Great Lake Eerie.

[Stuart Carlton]
Eerie.

[Carolyn Foley]
And to help us pick topics, we have this lovely wheel.

There are six topics.

[Stuart Carlton]
Six topics. One wheel.

[Carolyn Foley]
You're going to spin and then you'll talk about them.

[Stuart Carlton]
All right. Good.

[Chris Winslow]
This feels eerily like Twister.

I'm a little worried.

[Carolyn Foley]
It's possible that there are some hands.

[Stuart Carlton]
Carolyn, hold it up to the microphone as you spin so everybody can hear the realistic spin sound.

[Carolyn Foley]
Okay.

Well, this is just a sample.

[Stuart Carlton]
There it is. All right.

All right.

[Carolyn Foley]
Okay. So go ahead, Chris.

Give her a spin.

[Chris Winslow]
All right. Looking good.

[Carolyn Foley]
And the first topic on Lake Eerie is the Maumee River.

[Stuart Carlton]
The Maumee River.

[Carolyn Foley]
What can you tell us about the Maumee River?

[Chris Winslow]
It's huge. Is that it? We're doing succinct or we're doing long?

[Stuart Carlton]
It's Teach Me About the Great Lakes. We're doing long. It's fine.

[Chris Winslow]
Yeah. It's huge. Huge.

I can't do that accurately.

[Stuart Carlton]
As Mark would say, it's huge probably, right?

[Chris Winslow]
There we go. It's actually the longest tributary in all of the Great Lakes. Sadly, it drains a lot of agricultural land and it's bringing a lot of nutrients into Lake Eerie.

So that's one of the things. Plus, it's just a cool word to say.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. Maumee.

[Chris Winslow]
Maumee.

[Stuart Carlton]
So with the nutrients. So the nutrients it drains are from farming. Is that right?

There's a lot of farmers.

[Chris Winslow]
So some of the nutrients are coming from farms. Some is coming from wastewater treatment plants. Some of it's coming from fertilizer runoff from suburban areas.

We also have a home sewage treatment plants. Do we want to talk about sewage as we're hanging out at a restaurant?

[Carolyn Foley]
You can do that if you like.

[Stuart Carlton]
If you like to talk about sewage, I'll talk about sewage. That's fine.

[Chris Winslow]
So there's a little bit of poo in there.

[Stuart Carlton]
Little bit of poo. There's our title. Thank you for that one. Okay.

[Chris Winslow]
So it's a combination. And so when we're addressing the nutrients coming into Lake Eerie, that's a lot of stakeholders that we got to engage.

[Stuart Carlton]
And so you work with different groups. And a variety of people work with groups in the Maumee River Basin to try to stop. And something that happens in the western basin of Lake Eerie sometimes when there's too much runoff.

[Chris Winslow]
Fantastic. Yes. So we have harmful algal blooms.

So what we have is a growth of a cyanobacteria, even though we use the word algae, and it grows in excess. So nutrients in a lake aren't bad just in general. When you have too much, then you grow blooms.

And so what we're working on when we talk about the Maumee River is how do we reduce nutrients? And it's both phosphorus and nitrogen. And so we're trying to bring down those concentrations so that we bring this growth that's natural for the Great Lakes, especially in Lake Eerie, to a normal population or normal concentration.

[Stuart Carlton]
So help me understand just very big picture. What it is, is so these nutrients come in and the algae, which we call a bacteria, that sends them in overdrive, right? And they reproduce quickly and really bloom in terms of population.

And that causes problems. What's bad about that exactly?

[Chris Winslow]
Yeah, so number one, just excess growth becomes what we would just call nuisance. But these organisms, which again, we call them generically algae, but they're bacteria, have the ability to produce toxins. And those toxins are at risk for whether it's through a water treatment process or through recreational exposure when you're hanging out on the beach or doing your jet skis.

[Carolyn Foley]
And dogs.

[Chris Winslow]
And dogs.

[Stuart Carlton]
Wait, what happens to dogs with HABs?

[Chris Winslow]
Oh, no.

So dogs, when they're in the water and they're hot, they're always lapping up that water. And they're not thinking about go dogs. We've got a Georgia fan in the audience.

Well, and we're at Cleveland.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. All right.

[Chris Winslow]
Go dogs.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Winslow]
Got the dog pound.

[Stuart Carlton]
A lot of dogs. Oh, so they drink. Oh, no.

What happens? It doesn't hurt the dogs. Or to what extent does it hurt the dogs?

[Chris Winslow]
So it depends.

[Stuart Carlton]
And be nice.

[Chris Winslow]
It's OK, Carolyn. It's OK.

[Carolyn Foley]
No, it's not.

[Chris Winslow]
Depends on the level of exposure. But we have seen a couple dog deaths in Lake Erie. It's really sad.

[Stuart Carlton]
OK, that is sad. And so HABs, let's spin the wheel. I'm told we need to spin the wheel again.

[Hope Charters]
I have a question, though, before we spin the wheel. So when we see those really cool satellite photos of the Great Lakes and Lake Erie is completely green, is that just because of the HABs? Or is that because it's shallow or both?

[Chris Winslow]
Oh, that's a great question. And so we also say that it's not completely green. What we love about Lake Erie is it's a huge lake.

It's actually a great lake, one of five. But when the HABs show up, we definitely want to let our stakeholders know where you can go and where you can't go. So we don't want to tell people that the whole lake is closed is number one.

[Carolyn Foley]
Save the dogs. Yes.

[Stuart Carlton]
So I have a question then. So you talk to some people about Lake Michigan and some people argue that Lake Michigan is too clean. You hear that a lot.

[Carolyn Foley]
No, you don't.

[Stuart Carlton]
And so would you say that A is Lake Michigan too clean and B is Lake Erie too dirty or too nutrient rich?

[Chris Winslow]
Yeah, so we try not to use words like good or poor health or dirty or clean. We kind of talk about condition. How do they look relative to the way they looked historically?

Yeah, and so Lake Erie, it's just out of whack. I mean, that's the easiest way to say it, is that we know where the nutrients should be and they're not where they're at.

[Stuart Carlton]
They're a little higher than where they've been. Actually, I was talking to a good friend of ours, Titus Sarlheimer. Hello, Titus.

And what he said that really inspired me once we were talking about the lakes, and he said, you know, we have the lakes that we have now, right? And so then that's a certain set of conditions and then we can do what we want with that. But these are the lakes we have.

So that's good. Carolyn tells me it's time to spin, though. So let's do it.

[Carolyn Foley]
Yep, spin.

[Stuart Carlton]
Spin it again. Can I make the noise or are you making the noise? I mean, this is the noise.

I'm not making a noise. Well, that was a big spin. Holy mackerel. Wow.

[Chris Winslow]
I lost the spinner. I had to find it.

[Stuart Carlton]
All right, what did we land on?

[Carolyn Foley]
Yellow perch and walleye.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yellow perch and walleye.

Not one, but two.

[Chris Winslow]
Tasty. My answer is tasty.

[Carolyn Foley]
In relation to Lake Erie, this is the Wheel of Erie, sir.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, all right. So walleye and perch, tasty.

Okay, what else about yellow perch and walleye?

[Chris Winslow]
We have not had populations in the lake as high as we have them right now.

[Stuart Carlton]
Oh, why are they so high now? Is it the habs that they eat the little, they love algae? And so they're like, yes, score!

[Chris Winslow]
Well, we all know that, you know, algae, that's kind of the base of the food webs. You need the algae to feed the zooplankton, so the little critters in the water that we then feed the baitfish and the baitfish feed the game fish. So for Lake Erie, we're definitely seeing higher populations than we have on record.

We don't fully 100% know why, but we think it has to do with water levels. We do think it has to do with the quality of the water again, the condition again of the water. But yeah, if you're coming out, we've got some of our charter captains, a great industry in Lake Erie, that they're turning around customers left and right because they're hitting their max catch limit very quickly.

So it's really good.

[Carolyn Foley]
And who sets the max catch limit?

[Chris Winslow]
The Great Lakes are an interesting place on how we decide. But basically what I love about Sea Grant and about the Great Lakes, it's collaborative. So it's a bunch of state agencies that get together and they first very rigorously decide how many fish are in the lake.

And then they decide how many that we can harvest to make sure that that population stays around in perpetuity. And so it's a collaborative effort. It's a great effort.

But it's and it's also what I'd love to say is it's joint between the U.S. and Canada. We love our neighbors to the north.

[Carolyn Foley]
Didn't even have to prompt you. Nice work.

[Hope Charters]
Oh, while we're talking about fish, can you tell us anything about blue pike? We had a couple of people say that we should add blue pike to the wheel of Erie.

[Stuart Carlton]
Oh, I don't know.

[Hope Charters]
And you're laughing now. So I feel like there's a story here.

[Stuart Carlton]
Hold on. That's not fair. Let's just spin the wheel of Erie and see where it lands. Hold on.

[Carolyn Foley]
No, no, no, no. This is a tag on.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, it's fine. We're going to spin it.

[Carolyn Foley]
All right.

[Chris Winslow]
Oh, my gosh. So I'm I'm going to reach the level of my knowledge in this place. So blue pike is said that it was a different type of walleye in the lake. But when we look at genetics and again, I'm not a fish squeezer anymore.

I heard liar. Do we want to talk about whether Michigan and Huron is one lake or two? I don't know if we want to get into that discussion.

[Carolyn Foley]
Michigan and Huron. It's one.

[Chris Winslow]
Got it. There we go. So I see two in the background.

Are we doing? I got one. I got two.

I got one. I got two.

[Stuart Carlton]
Jim, you can come on some other time. You have a podcast.

[Chris Winslow]
No. So again, this is a little outside my wheelhouse, but it's, you know, when you get into that idea of are we lumpers or splitters? So what is a walleye versus what is a blue pike?

Is it subspecies or the same species?

[Stuart Carlton]
So it's very similar. It's a similar fish that may or may not be a different. So I came up as a fisheries biologist in Florida.

And so there's a big deal with bonefish. And they would do a lot of genetic analysis to find out this bonefish is different from that bonefish, maybe, which was important for reasons that are different podcasts. But so is that the deal here that they're like close?

[Chris Winslow]
Same thing. So the idea is when do you decide when they're different species versus they just look a little different? And where do you draw the line at speciation?

[Hope Charters]
Do they taste similar?

[Chris Winslow]
Tasty.

[Carolyn Foley]
My question was, where do people currently draw the line?

[Chris Winslow]
Gosh, I don't know.

[Carolyn Foley]
Does it depend on who you're talking to?

[Chris Winslow]
It would depend on who you're talking to. You'll talk to some anglers that are now in their 60s, 70s and say that they missed the blue pike. And there's memories of that.

But scientifically, as we describe organisms, is it two? Is it one? It's a fun battle.

Fun discussion.

[Carolyn Foley]
There you go.

[Stuart Carlton]
Let's spin that wheel again. Give another spin, Chris.

[Carolyn Foley]
South Bass Island.

[Stuart Carlton]
The wheel is still spinning. How do you know what it stopped on, Carolyn?

This is so awkward. Oh, now it stopped, as you can see, looking at the wheel.

[Carolyn Foley]
So one of South Bass Island, which we started talking about earlier.

It's possible Carolyn was like, stop it, Stuart. Stop.

[Stuart Carlton]
The wheel spins how it's going to spin.

[Carolyn Foley]
Can you tell us anything else about South Bass Island? You talked a little bit about Stone Lab, but can you tell us about South Bass Island or the islands in Lake Erie in particular?

[Chris Winslow]
100%. So there's a lot of islands in the western Lake Erie basin. We're very creative.

We call one South Bass, Middle Bass, and then North Bass. Isn't that great?

[Carolyn Foley]
Yeah.

[Chris Winslow]
And so South Bass is where the village of Put-in-Bay is. It's a tourist destination. If you go there and you didn't see 12 bachelor, bachelorette parties, you weren't looking.

But on that island, there is also a research station that's owned by Ohio State. And that's where Stone Lab is located. It's a great location for us to do some critical research that's needed for Lake Erie.

[Stuart Carlton]
What kind of research? Give me two projects at Stone Lab right now that you think are really awesome.

[Chris Winslow]
Oh, no, absolutely. So we're looking at microplastics. I can give you more than two, Stuart.

[Stuart Carlton]
I know you can, which is why I requested two.

[Chris Winslow]
Microplastics, emerging contaminants. We talked earlier about HABs, harmful algal blooms, and they produce toxins. We're looking at do fish store those toxins in the edible flesh that we buy at our nice deep fried restaurants.

[Stuart Carlton]
Where do fish hold their... I mean, they don't have pockets, so they got to put it somewhere. So what...

All right. So I want you to break news and teach me about the Great Lakes. Give me one sort of research result that's coming in.

I don't want you to bust anybody's embargo, but maybe it's just out in a journal now or something cool that y'all just reported on that we can share with our audience.

[Chris Winslow]
Man, the cutting edge right now. You want the Lake Erie.

[Stuart Carlton]
I want the bleeding... I want the Avantis of Gard.

[Chris Winslow]
Oh, man. I'm going to make the six extension agents that work for us here very frustrated.

[Stuart Carlton]
That's fine. We tried to get Torey Gabriel in.

[Chris Winslow]
There they are.

[Stuart Carlton]
We tried to get Torey Gabriel in. We just couldn't afford him.

[Chris Winslow]
Calls are coming in already. For us, honestly, and it's sad to say, I really do think the harmful algal blooms and the impacts on the economy and the potential impacts on the ecosystem. I mean, that's top right now.

And I can say it wouldn't be without state support, but federal support to start answering some of those questions. But that's it. It's when do they show up?

When do they go away? Why are they here? How do we get them to go away?

[Carolyn Foley]
All right. One more time. One more spin.

[Stuart Carlton]
One more spin.

[Chris Winslow]
Just one more. We got...

[Stuart Carlton]
I got a lot more questions.

[Chris Winslow]
So much fun.

[Stuart Carlton]
Hold on.

[Carolyn Foley]
Yes! Sorry. It hasn't stopped spinning yet. That was a legitimate reaction.

[Stuart Carlton]
Chris, it takes a long time to spin the wheel. Your fingers are all numb.

I'm getting old.

[Carolyn Foley]
That was a legitimate reaction. And those who know me and know what's on this wheel know that it's mayflies that we're talking about now.

[Stuart Carlton]
It's awfully late to be talking about mayflies.

[Carolyn Foley]
Where's Kristen?

[Chris Winslow]
She's right over there. So the expert is right over there. Mayflies, Kristen.

We're talking mayflies. She's giddy. Giddy over there.

Yeah. So mayflies, they don't come out in May, June. I don't know why that's going on.

So an insect that spends a year of its life on the bottom of the lake.

[Carolyn Foley]
Do people really like it when it comes out?

[Chris Winslow]
They tend not to. We can actually pick it up on weather satellites when the hatches happen and they look like...

[Stuart Carlton]
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, Chris. Hold on.

That's a really interesting factoid, but we have to introduce that properly. You're saying that you can... I want you to repeat that.

You can pick it up on satellites, but I want you to repeat it after this. It's a Great Lakes factoid. A Great Lakes factoid.

It's a great factoid about the Great Lakes.

[Chris Winslow]
It's absolutely hilarious. So do not... Right now, the lake is in such a good condition.

I don't want to use the word health again, but condition that if you park your car under a street lamp during June, you will be covered in mayflies.

[Stuart Carlton]
Whoa.

[Chris Winslow]
And it's a good thing. Those organisms live at the bottom. And if the bottom of the lake is not where it needs to be with oxygen or pollutants, those organisms will not live there.

So the residents that hate these annoying hatches that show up every June, it's an indication that we're doing the right thing and protecting and restoring Lake Erie.

[Stuart Carlton]
So do y'all communicate about... I'm curious about that because it is a nuisance, right? Like we know they're good, but I mean, it's a... You've seen Carolyn showed us news reports and they're like everywhere.

And it is... Do y'all do communication around that? You know, that mayflies are good or...

[Chris Winslow]
I know we do. We try and do communication about it. But no matter how much you say...

So I actually eat them in front of my students.

[Stuart Carlton]
You eat mayflies?

[Carolyn Foley]
Oh, yeah.

[Hope Charters]
That is disgusting.

[Stuart Carlton]
Like do you cook them?

[Chris Winslow]
Well, no, no. They just hatch.

They're on your shirt. You pick one up. A student's looking at you.

You just kind of pop it in your mouth.

[Hope Charters]
Do they realize that you're a psychopath afterwards?

[Chris Winslow]
Yes, correct. Okay. Correct.

They don't have any taste. They pop in your mouth.

[Carolyn Foley]
They've got long tails though.

[Chris Winslow]
Yeah, they sometimes get stuck in your teeth. But you still got to eat them every once in a while.

[Stuart Carlton]
I have a question. What shape are mayflies? Are they kind of tubular?

What's that? Are mayflies kind of tubular?

[Chris Winslow]
The body is, but then the wings are perpendicular.

[Stuart Carlton]
How long? How long?

[Chris Winslow]
I mean, an adult is probably an inch and a half.

[Stuart Carlton]
There it is.

Okay.

[Chris Winslow]
I'm using inch and a half. We can do it in centimeters if you want.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, Carolyn would, but that's fine. So I'm going to toss this out there.

[Chris Winslow]
I love it.

[Stuart Carlton]
All right. You ever go to a cocktail party?

[Chris Winslow]
A what?

[Stuart Carlton]
A cocktail party.

[Chris Winslow]
Yes. I love cocktail parties. Isn't this kind of a cocktail party?

[Stuart Carlton]
It's kind of like one, but I had to pay for my beer. No, you paid for it.

Anyway, the point is this. And you get these little hot dog, little mini-sized ones, right?

[Chris Winslow]
Yeah.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. And they come to... So what if we get rid of the hot dog part, keep the bun and put a mayfly in there?

Little mayfly dogs.

[Chris Winslow]
So like stuffed olives? You could do a hot dog stuffed mayfly?

[Stuart Carlton]
Mayfly stuffed mayfly.

[Chris Winslow]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Stuart Carlton]
I think that could be a thing.

[Carolyn Foley]
I wish we could record Hope's face right now. Like it could convey...

[Chris Winslow]
When you sign up for the excursion tomorrow, we will give you some mayflies.

[Hope Charters]
I could probably do them dried out, but like live, that sounds disgusting.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, our director, Thomas Hook is our director. I think he's here tonight. And he came back from some event all fired up.

He had a chocolate bar and in the chocolate bar was some sort of insect. Maybe crickets, maybe mayflies. Oh, he's trying to...

All right, well, he's my boss. I guess I might as well try to get whatever. And so it was gross.

Like, I'm not going to lie. Like, I figured out why he gave me the chocolate bar and because it was gross. And so the only insects you should be eating, I see Louisiana or Florida Seagrant here.

I don't know. You should be eating crawfish and maybe shrimp. Those are the insects you should be eating.

[Carolyn Foley]
They're not insects.

[Stuart Carlton]
Technically, they're not insects. But you know what? They taste a lot better than mayflies.

[Chris Winslow]
So Kristen Fossil got stopped at the border. She was doing research in Canada, tried to come over from Canada, and the inspection caught mayfly eggs.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, you can't bring Canadian mayflies.

[Chris Winslow]
No, no, no. But they're in the same lake. Like, the mayflies on the Canadian side are different than the US.

[Stuart Carlton]
Well, they gotta swim. They gotta swim. If they swim, it's fine.

But if you're carrying them, yeah, it's no good.

[Hope Charters]
So I think we've established at this point that Lake Erie has two horrors, right? Algal blooms and mayflies.

[Stuart Carlton]
Two horrors.

[Carolyn Foley]
Horrors, yes.

[Stuart Carlton]
I'm not going to tell you what I thought she said. Two enunciate. It's like we're at JASM.

We have to enunciate very carefully.

[Chris Winslow]
Oh my god.

[Hope Charters]
So do the mayflies harm the dogs at all? Because I just really am here to save the dogs at this point.

[Chris Winslow]
The dogs are okay.

[Hope Charters]
Okay.

[Carolyn Foley]
Dogs might even enjoy going after the mayflies. So I guess before we close out the wheel, is there anything that was not on the wheel that you would like to share with us about the awesome lake that is Lake Erie?

[Chris Winslow]
Man, that's a great question. Um, I would say shallowest, warmest has the most ice cover in the winter.

[Stuart Carlton]
Wait, like by percentage or by absolute value?

[Chris Winslow]
No, so let's do this. So 50% of the Great Lakes water is in Lake Superior, roughly. It's actually 53%.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, you don't need to give Lake Superior. Lake Superior's got plenty of ego. It doesn't need you.

Okay.

[Chris Winslow]
53% of the water, Lake Superior, only about 2% of the fish biomass. Lake Erie has 2% of the volume of water for the Great Lakes, but 50% of the fish biomass.

[Stuart Carlton]
No kidding.

[Chris Winslow]
So we call it the 50 to 2 rule.

[Stuart Carlton]
The 50 to 2 rule.

[Chris Winslow]
Yeah. And this is why yellow perch, smallmouth bass, walleye are such.

[Stuart Carlton]
So if I want to go fishing in the Great Lakes, I should go to Lake Erie.

[Chris Winslow]
Yeah, so the field trips tomorrow, skip them. Go out on a charter fish expedition.

[Stuart Carlton]
We're done with the Wheel of Erie. Well, hold on one more time with the deal. Well, we're not done with the podcast, Chris.

I have more questions. But we have to close the, we have to close the Wheel of Erie. The problem is I'm fundamentally an optimist.

And so I'm in my basement doing this and I'm like, this is going to go over good. People are going to hear this and they're going to say, now that's witty and funny. And then I hit the button and I'm like, oh, this was a mistake.

This was a very, very big mistake. That's fine. So I have a question.

So people think of Lake Erie. We haven't talked about Lake Erie a lot. We've done 66 episodes.

This is our 66th episode. Three years now. And we talked a lot about Superior.

Hey, now, a lot about Michigan. And because of Carolyn, we talk about like Huron and Ontario, all these Canadian lakes. And so, but I get the feeling that Lake Erie is like the little brother is of great lakes.

Do you feel like that's the case that people feel that way or is it not?

[Chris Winslow]
No, I mean, we're the walleye capital of the world. I mean, when you have 2% of the water, but 50% of the fish. When I come up in the spring to the lab, all the license plates in the parking lot are North Dakota, South Dakota, Virginia, Tennessee.

I mean, that's people are coming to Lake Erie for that reason. I think I think it's an amazing resource. Absolutely amazing.

We saw 40% of charter captains in the Great Lakes are based in Lake Erie alone.

[Stuart Carlton]
No kidding.

[Carolyn Foley]
So does that include the Canadian side?

[Chris Winslow]
Thanks, Carolyn. I don't have that data.

[Stuart Carlton]
I don't have that data. All right.

[Carolyn Foley]
I do appreciate that you called it out earlier.

[Stuart Carlton]
So one other question we've been asking lately.

So I mean, most people know you as like the director of Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Lab and things like that. But what is something you want to geek out about? We want to ask people geek out about what is the thing you're most passionate, like in a nerdy, geeky way about that you think?

[Chris Winslow]
I mean, how do people not? I mean, 20% of the world's surface freshwater is right in our backyard. Like, I mean, how awesome is that?

[Stuart Carlton]
So I didn't even know that till I got here. I didn't appreciate it. And then you go and you see the lake and you're like, well, this looks like the Gulf because you can't see anything except Chicago.

And I agree that the point of this podcast, the real point is to joke around with my friends twice a month. But the other point is like it's an amazing resource. And I feel like so many people, even in this area, don't fully appreciate that.

Right. And so the more people we can have on, frankly, to passionately talk about how awesome the Great Lakes are, I think the better. And there's all sorts of cool things.

And, you know, the secret of this show, like I've mentioned many times before, is I don't actually learn anything because I'm more worried about producing the show. We need to hire a producer. Hey, Bonnie.

But that's good. So I think it's really important. And I think the culture and the biology and the ecology is just amazing.

[Chris Winslow]
Oh, it's amazing. And the lessons we learn in these Great Lakes, we have folks from China coming over that are going through issues that we went through three decades ago. And they're learning from us.

I mean, I think we're ahead of the curve. We're not where we want to be. But the Great Lakes, it's just been amazing.

[Stuart Carlton]
So Chris Winslow, director of Ohio Grant in the Stone Lab. That's really interesting to hear you come on and talk about Lake Erie and the fishing and the habs and all of that. But that's actually not why we invited you to teach me about the Great Lakes this week.

The reason we invited you to teach me about the Great Lakes is to ask two questions. And the first one is this. If you could have a great donut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch, which one would you have?

[Chris Winslow]
So great donut for breakfast.

[Stuart Carlton]
Or a great sandwich for lunch.

[Hope Charters]
This is a very important question.

[Stuart Carlton]
This is the key.

[Chris Winslow]
I know.

[Carolyn Foley]
Yeah, we are definitely all judging you right now.

[Chris Winslow]
Oh my gosh.

[Stuart Carlton]
I mean, there's a valuation. And there's like 60 people here secretly nearby.

[Chris Winslow]
So here's the problem. I'm going to complicate the question.

[Stuart Carlton]
Nope. All right. What is it?

[Chris Winslow]
So I'm going to have a great sandwich for lunch. OK. But it's going to be a bagel with egg and bacon on it.

[Hope Charters]
That's fine. That does not count as a donut.

[Stuart Carlton]
It's not a donut.

[Carolyn Foley]
But it's not a donut for breakfast.

[Chris Winslow]
It's not a donut.

[Stuart Carlton]
All right.

All right. So hold on.

[Chris Winslow]
OK.

[Stuart Carlton]
All right.

[Chris Winslow]
I want a club sandwich.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, no, no. You're fine. You're fine.

So sandwich is great.

[Chris Winslow]
All right. Bacon maple for breakfast. I don't know what you want from me, Stuart.

[Stuart Carlton]
What I want is for you to listen to me so I can move the segment forward like a podcast professional. This is not that hard. You have selected a sandwich.

That's a wonderful selection.

[Carolyn Foley]
One second. Back up. But did you truly select a sandwich? Or would you rather have a great donut for breakfast?

Because.

[Stuart Carlton]
I mean, it's an easy question.

[Carolyn Foley]
No, it's not an easy question.

[Chris Winslow]
It's not an easy question.

[Hope Charters]
He chose a sandwich, though. There's no going back.

[Chris Winslow]
I would rather have a sandwich.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah.

[Chris Winslow]
Because the donut sets in weird parts of my body.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. That's where I hide microplastic and donuts all in the same little dark nook. But all right.

So then here's the question, then. So I'm in Cleveland, Ohio. All right.

[Carolyn Foley]
When OK, we're in Cleveland now. But technically, Chris, it's in Columbus. Which one would we go for?

[Stuart Carlton]
We're going for Cleveland. I'm in Cleveland, Ohio.

[Carolyn Foley]
Okay. Sorry, my bad.

[Stuart Carlton]
I came all the way to Cleveland for a podcast.

[Chris Winslow]
So I grew up outside of Cleveland, but I live in Columbus now. So we're OK.

[Stuart Carlton]
You grew up in Westlake. I just remembered.

[Chris Winslow]
North Ridgeville. I'll tell you my parents' address. She makes a great breakfast sandwich.

[Stuart Carlton]
All right. She's not welcome. So here's the question.

I'm in Cleveland. Tomorrow, I'm going to go. We have box lunches, of course.

But if I don't pick up my box lunch because I want to spend that sweet, sweet per diem on a sandwich, where should I go to get a really great sandwich?

[Chris Winslow]
Oh, my God. I have a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old. I haven't eaten out in like nine years.

[Stuart Carlton]
I've got a three-and-a-half-year-old and an 11-year-old. I'm like, I guess Jimmy John's because they deliver quick.

[Chris Winslow]
Um, gosh, Berry's Bagels is pretty good.

[Stuart Carlton]
Berry's Bagels. You really are crossing the streams on this one, man. OK, so I'm going to go to Berry's Bagels and I'm going to get a sandwich for lunch.

[Chris Winslow]
I think so. A breakfast sandwich for lunch.

[Carolyn Foley]
I would do that. So I'm totally down.

[Hope Charters]
Is there a special place in the Great Lakes that you can tell us about that is just really close to your heart?

[Chris Winslow]
So I'm going to answer and I'm going to try and make it short, but it's going to be long. I mean, it's Stone Laboratory. And so a lot of folks are going to come visit while we're here in Cleveland.

So I was doing my PhD work out there, doing my weird geeky science stuff. And the director at that time kept bringing stakeholders down to my experiments and asking me to explain what I was doing to these visitors, whether they were county commissioners, mayors, decision makers. And I realized that I was not very good explaining science to a lay audience.

And so he motivated me to be better at that. And so when I finished my PhD and got my tenure track position at a university, Sea Grant had an opening for an assistant director and I applied because I realized that I needed to find a way to connect research to people that could actually take that information and do good things. And so Stone Lab is that place, not only because it's beautiful, but because it was an inflection point in my career.

And I feel like that's what brought me to Sea Grant.

[Stuart Carlton]
Oh, that's wonderful. So Chris, if people want to find out more about Stone Lab and maybe get involved some way, where should they go?

[Chris Winslow]
Yeah. So go to the Ohio Sea Grant webpage. We have endowments there where you can actually donate money that goes to scholarships for students, buys research equipment for scientists.

[Stuart Carlton]
Everybody, give money to Chris's endowment.

[Chris Winslow]
That's right. It's not my endowment. Oh, I got hands back here. If they want to give too, I have a tab that's at the bar right over there that we can take care of too.

[Stuart Carlton]
What name is that tab on there? Ask me for a friend. No, but so they should go to some...

Where should they go to find it?

[Chris Winslow]
So just do your Google machine and type in Ohio Sea Grant and the Stone Lab links are there and there are 27 different named endowments and you pick your flavor. If you want to support research, if you want to support education, if you want to support facilities, any way you feel like you want to give, it's right there.

[Stuart Carlton]
Well, Dr. Chris Winslow, director of Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Lab, host of Sea Grant Week 2022, which thus far has been an excellent conference. Picked up, of course, after Kristen showed up, but that's great. Thank you so much for coming on and teaching us all about the Great Lakes.

[Carolyn Foley]
And we would like to thank Masthead Brewery. Yeah, see, you blew up my spot. Now I'm blowing up yours.

[Stuart Carlton]
We got some thank yous. So I do have a thank you. Thank you to Masthead Brewery.

Thank you to Ohio Sea Grant. Thank you to Chris Winslow.

[Chris Winslow]
Thank you to the Ohio Sea Grant team. This meeting wouldn't have happened without the entire Sea Grant team.

[Stuart Carlton]
That is absolutely true. I just realized I have a thing. Hold on.

Oh, I've done better. Thank you so much to all of our partners who helped with this show. It's fun.

We do these live things about two times a year, it seems like. And it's the most fun we have. It may or may not be the best episode for this, but I don't care.

But if you want to find out more about what we do, go to teachmeaboutthegreatlakes.com. Get yourself a sticker. The other thing we have is Titus is here.

Titus, turn around a wave. Starting in October, we're going to produce our new show, live streaming video called Ask Dr. Fish with Titus Seilheimer and Katie O'Reilly. And we're going to get teachers to ask us questions.

And we're going to stream it live. And what could possibly go wrong with live streaming video?

[Carolyn Foley]
Absolutely nothing.

[Stuart Carlton]
Nothing could go wrong. And so that's why I'm super excited. Anyway, my point is this.

Dr. Chris Winslow, thank you so much for coming on and teaching us all about The Great Lakes.

[Chris Winslow]
Go grab a breakfast sandwich at lunch.

[Stuart Carlton]
Thank you, everybody, for coming. We've already done the thank you. So we're just going to go straight into our very important credits.

Teach Me About The Great Lakes is brought to you by the fine people at Illinois Indiana Sea Grant. That's all of us. Thank you to our leadership team for putting up with this nonsense. Not everybody would. But that's why it's the best Sea Grant program to work at, except for your Sea Grant program, of course. It's equally as good. Where was I?

We encourage you to check out the great work that we do at iiseagrant.org and ilinseagrant on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. But not TikTok. Not TikTok.

We're too old for that. We're too old for TikTok. I don't drink hazy IPAs and I don't do TikTok.

That's the way it is. Teach Me About The Great Lakes is produced by Hope Charters. Hope, give a wave.

You can give a verbal wave. That's fine.

[Hope Charters]
A verbal wave.

[Stuart Carlton]
Carolyn Foley. Yes. Megan Gunn, who's amazing, but not here.

Reni Miles, also amazing, also not here. Ethan Chidias, he's our associate producer and our fixer. Our super fun podcast artwork, which you can get a copy of in sticker form right there, is done by Joel Davenport.

The show is edited by the awesome and hopefully patient Quinn Rose, and I encourage you to check out her work at aspiringrobot.com. Hey, do you have a question for the show? I bet you do.

Send an email to teachmeaboutthegreatlakes at gmail.com or leave us a message on our hotline 765-496-IISG. That's for Illinois Union of Sea Grant. You can also follow the show on Twitter at teachgreatlakes.

Hey, everybody. Thanks so much for listening. And keep grading those lakes.