You won't find much in the way that will leave you wanting to stay out of the waters here in the Great Lakes. The description of the biggest predator in the Great Lakes may drive you to at least do it during the day if anything... Michigan's biggest predator in the Great Lakes is a Sea Lamprey.
The Dewey Lake Monster, also known as the Sister Lakes Sasquatch, in Michigan folklore, is purported to be an ape-like creature, similar to descriptions of Bigfoot, that was allegedly sighted in the summer of 1964 near Dewey Lake and Sister Lakes in Dowagiac.
Two Coho fishermen pulled a 29-inch shark from Lake Michigan about two miles off the Milwaukee shore on April 25, 1969. The shark was dead, but for several days fishermen in the area were uneasy.
On February 16, 1974, Joseph Maka landed the largest fish ever caught in Michigan: a massive lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) weighing 193 pounds and measuring 88 inches long!
The most renowned of these Great Lakes sea monsters supposedly resides in Lake Erie. Sightings of the lake monster Bessie were first made in the late 1700s but appeared again with some regularity in the 1980s. Bessie is described as being about 20 feet long, serpent-like but with appendages that resemble arms.
Lake Erie is the warmest, most shallow and most biologically diverse of the North American Great Lakes, home to 107 species of fish (90 native, 17 introduced) making it one of the largest freshwater fisheries in the world.
The first recorded sighting of a bull shark in the Great Lakes was in 1937, when a 10-foot specimen was caught near Alton, Illinois, on the Mississippi River. Since then, there have been several other reported sightings of bull sharks in the Great Lakes, including Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Ontario.
Invasive carp include bighead carp, black carp, grass carp and silver carp. Find out more about each of these species and about invasive carp in Michigan on each species' profile below.
A 4-foot alligator was found in Lake Michigan this week, but experts say there should be no worries that the reptiles could take up permanent residence in the Great Lakes the way pythons have made a home in the Florida Everglades. Midwest winters are way too cold for gators.
In Lake Michigan, Chinook salmon are a dominant and generally mid-water predator whose diet consists mostly of alewives, a generally mid-water prey fish.