CRYSTAL FALLS – Michigan’s freshwater cod actually has several names – burbot, lawyer, and eelpout.

The burbot is in the codfish family and is a close relative to the Atlantic and Pacific cod. This fish has very small imbedded scales and most anglers consider them “slimy.”

They are difficult to get a handle on which may lead to one of their common names, the lawyer. Their slippery nature and looks are what leads to a lack of proper respect by anglers.

When I worked on Lake Superior as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in Ashland, Wis., I would regularly see ice anglers discard burbot on the ice.

These same anglers would head in off the ice on a Friday night and go to a restaurant where they would readily pay about $10 per meal, for essentially the same thing at a cod fish fry.

As a Michigan DNR fisheries biologist, I was approached by a parent of a young ice angler, who had caught a Master Angler sized burbot.

It was determined that his daughter’s burbot was not only Michigan DNR Master Angler award size, but it was larger than many award entries I could find.

His daughter wanted him to get her trophy mounted but he was afraid he would be made fun of by local anglers. I finally convinced him this was a desirable eating fish and was probably the largest burbot that would be caught by his family in a lifetime.

The burbot is the earliest spawner of Michigan’s approximately 150 fish species, and spawns in midwinter.

Often times burbot run up rivers from deep colder lakes to spawn.

Many rivers in the Upper Peninsula that have a direct connection to the Great Lakes have a dam barrier to block these runs.

One of the few rivers I worked on without a barrier to the Great Lakes connection is the Ford River in Dickinson, Marquette, Menominee and Delta counties.

While we were assessing trout populations in the Upper Ford River near the Two Mile Creek we encountered large numbers of juvenile burbot.

The Two Mile Creek is approximately 95 river miles upstream from the mouth of the Ford River at Lake Michigan’s Green Bay. It is most likely the adult burbot spawned near the Two Mile Creek and came up from the Bay of Green Bay to do that.

If an angler wanted to target burbot, the bays of the Great Lakes, especially at ice fishing season is a good time.

Typically burbot are caught incidental to fishing for walleye, splake, trout, or lake whitefish in the Great Lakes and large deeper inland lakes and often at night or low light hours of the day.

Although this is a very incomplete list burbot are noted in Lake Superior’s Keweenaw, Huron, and Munising Bays.

In the U.P.’s portion of Lake Michigan, Green Bay and Big and Little Bays de Noc are good producers.

On the east end of the Upper Peninsula the St. Mary’s River, and Munuscong Bay are good locations to catch burbot.

Inland waters with a connection to Great Lakes are also possibilities.

Houghton County’s Portage Lake Waterway and Iron County’s Lake Mary, Peavy Reservoir and other impoundments in the Michigamme River system also produce burbot.

The burbot inhabits the deeper cold waters of these waters. For burbot to be present similar habitat conditions to trout or cisco/lake herring are required with cold deeper waters with adequate dissolved oxygen levels.

Burbot are often caught by commercial fishermen and they can be a good source for persons wanting to buy this fish.

The commercial fishermen often sell them at a price much lower than other commercial species since they are not fully appreciated in the market.

Freshwater commercial fishermen are restricted to the common name of fish they market.

If you notice, ocean commercial fish have creative names like Ocean Perch (rose fish) and Alaskan Walleye (Pollock) that help market their product.

An appropriate and honest commercial name for the burbot would be Fresh Water Cod.

In recent years with all the interest in fish oils for health supplement a large commercial fishery was created at Lake of the Woods, Minn.

A large numbers of burbot were harvested for the burbot/cod liver oil to be used in fish oil supplements.

The burbot are called eelpout in Minnesota and some Canadian provinces. There is a large annual eelpout festival in Walker Minnesota on the large Leech Lake.

Next time you are ice fishing for lake trout, or walleye and you reel up a burbot, you should get over its less than beautiful looks, and take it home for supper.