JAWS IN LAKE MICHIGAN? THE HUNT FOR GREAT WHITE SHARKS

I was accidentally watching the History Channel the other day and before I could find my remote, I became interested in the show that was airing. It was about sharks living in fresh water lakes and rivers in the United States. This gave me an idea. What if sharks were living in Lake Michigan. What if the government planted them there just to mess around with our heads? What if the bay were teaming with Great White sharks this summer just waiting to chomp us all up, swallow us and turn us into seaweed fertilizer? Finally, I met with my brothers Ted and Mike. Both of them thought it was likely the feds had planted sharks in the bay just like they put fluoride in the water. It was time for action so, we devised a plan.

The first thing we would do is borrow Uncle Bob’s boat. Next, we would get a whole pig, (butchered of course) and cut it up into pieces to use for chum (a fish lure) for the great white sharks. My brother Mike suggested we use decoys to lure in the great whites. He said that most turkey and duck hunters have great success luring in their game with look alike decoys. Of course great white sharks are too big to use actual decoys so we decided just to use the fin they have on top to lure them in. Someone said it was the dorsal fin but, I thought the dorsal fin was on the bottom because words starting with the letter "d" are usually on the underside of most animals. We all knew what "fin on the top" means from watching all those Jaws movies.

Well, the weekend rolled around so we took out the half dozen top fins (dorsal fins?) just before daybreak and launched them in the center of the bay. Uncle Bobs boat has a fish finder on it so we just relaxed for a few hours. Then, just before noon, we noticed a lot of people gathering on the shoreline to bask in the sun and go swimming. Of course sharks are going to be drawn in by all the ruckus swimmers make so we gradually eased closer to the shoreline with our shark fins pulled behind us on a string. We made sure our names and addresses were on each fin since they are not cheap to make and we wanted people to know who made these fins in case we happened to loose them.

As we drew closer to shore, we notice that hundreds of people all along the beach were swimming and running onto the shore. I and my brothers had a group think of “eureka”, we’ve found the sharks. This was confirmed by the boats coming out to meet us. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Sheriffs Department and the Coast Guard all sent out boats to meet us. We assumed that they were going to help us with our search for the great white sharks that were prowling the area. We assumed wrong.

Instead of welcoming us as hero's, the authorities gave us a bunch of citations for stuff like littering, causing a riot and being a general disregard for boater safety (we forgot our life jackets). Ted and I blamed the whole thing on my brother Mike so, he was the only one they arrested that day. Mike does not mind going to jail because they have food there.

Well, we will wait until next year. Then we will do another in depth study of shark attacks in Lake Michigan. We know that they are out there somewhere. Besides, we still have our floating shark fin decoys and most of our fresh pig to chum with.