Jerry
03-25-2002, 10:39 AM
Steve Pollick | Article published December 16, 2001
Warm, calm spring helped walleye outlook for 2003
The calm, gradually warming weather of last spring should spell very good walleye fishing on Lake Erie in 2003 and continued improvements in the yellow perch fishery.
That’s the word from state fisheries researchers, who say that the walleye and perch hatches were very good. Typically as well, when these top two Erie prizes do well, so do smallmouth bass. Their status, however, is harder to measure immediately.
"We have the premier fishery on the Great Lakes," stated Roger Knight, supervisor of the state’s Lake Erie Fisheries Research Station at Sandusky.
The 2001 class of walleye, Knight said, seems very comparable in size to the 1999 production, which fed catchable walleyes to anglers in very good numbers last summer. The indications of good production are based on summer trawling surveys at 40 sites in Ohio waters and 40 more in Ontario waters in the lake’s western basin.
While the 2001 production is not as strong as 1996, one of the better years in a decade, "it’s in with the upper level of 1990s hatches," Knight said. "It beats having a very poor hatch every time. If we get the same kind of hatch in 2002, we’ll be very happy campers.’’
As always when it comes to spawning time, he cautioned, "weather is always the wild card."
Knight noted that fair numbers of young-of-year walleye also showed up in Erie’s central basin, where they usually are absent. Their presence is another sign of a good 2001 hatch.
Unfortunately, the 2000 walleye production was among the poorest in recent years, the biologist said, so there likely will be few 14 to 16-inch fish available next spring and summer for anglers. Two-year-old walleye typically make up the bulk of the fishery.
But because of the conservative creel limits in place this year, there should be more 1999 fish, 16 to 18 inchers, available than under more liberal limits. Nonetheless, Knight does not expect as strong a walleye sport-fishery in 2002.
The daily walleye limit on Lake Erie and its tributaries is just four during the March 1 through April 30 spawning season, and six the rest of the year. The prior limit had been 10 year-round.
The best part about the conservative limits is that they are cooperative, lakewide. Commercial netters in Ontario also took a big hit in their allowable walleye catch. "We’re really close to turning it around for walleyes," the biologist said.
At the same time, yellow perch production in 2001 was the second-best in recent years, dating to 1986. "It was very, very strong - an exceptional hatch," Knight said. The 1996 production also was exceptional and carried the perch fishery in the early years of a long-term stock-restoration plan.
"We’re going to really benefit from this hatch, especially with the (conservative) interagency initiative to protect the stocks. We’re seeing a fish population that is recovering ... restricted fishing is the one management lever you can pull."
Most perch fishermen from late summer until now can tell you that. Excellent catches of perch, many of them 10 to 13 inches - or "jumbos," as they used to be called - were put on ice.
The bigger perch are coming from the 1996 class. The 1998 class also was fair to good, and 1999 was very strong, Knight noted. This year the hatch was very strong in the western basin and exceptional in the central basin.
Knight noted that the central basin could use more perch fishermen. Angling pressure is high in the western basin already, to the point that Ohio anglers are pushing up against the annual catch-quota there. But, added Knight, "we’ve got an abundance of quota in the central basin."
Perch anglers still are taking fish off the pier and near the shore areas at Huron, which is on the edge of the two basins. Further east, perching also continues off Vermilion and Lorain. Many of the fish are 10 to 13 inches.
wAnother alien aquatic nuisance pest has been identified in Lake Erie, the tubenose goby. It is a cousin to the round goby, another pest-fish already too-familiar to fishermen and an unwanted gift from the ballast water of overseas shipping.
The tubenose was first confirmed in Lake Erie last July, when a specimen was netted by fish-ecology students at Ohio State University’s F.T. Stone Laboratory at Put-in-Bay.
Knight thinks initially that the presence of the tubenose alongside the round goby will not double the problem because they occupy the same ecological niche - as aggressive bottom-feeders and egg-thieves. On the other hand, gobies also provide new forage for such species as smallmouth bass.
The fisheries supervisor said that tubenose gobies have become established in neighboring Lake St. Clair and already are in decline. "It’s hard for me to fathom that they’ll have a profound effect beyond what’s already here with the round goby."
Where both have been introduced, he added, the round has proliferated and the tubenose has not.
The book on gobies so far: "They have to be affecting the food chain in ways we don’t understand."
Steve Pollick is The Blade's outdoor writer. E-mail him at spollick@theblade.com.
Warm, calm spring helped walleye outlook for 2003
The calm, gradually warming weather of last spring should spell very good walleye fishing on Lake Erie in 2003 and continued improvements in the yellow perch fishery.
That’s the word from state fisheries researchers, who say that the walleye and perch hatches were very good. Typically as well, when these top two Erie prizes do well, so do smallmouth bass. Their status, however, is harder to measure immediately.
"We have the premier fishery on the Great Lakes," stated Roger Knight, supervisor of the state’s Lake Erie Fisheries Research Station at Sandusky.
The 2001 class of walleye, Knight said, seems very comparable in size to the 1999 production, which fed catchable walleyes to anglers in very good numbers last summer. The indications of good production are based on summer trawling surveys at 40 sites in Ohio waters and 40 more in Ontario waters in the lake’s western basin.
While the 2001 production is not as strong as 1996, one of the better years in a decade, "it’s in with the upper level of 1990s hatches," Knight said. "It beats having a very poor hatch every time. If we get the same kind of hatch in 2002, we’ll be very happy campers.’’
As always when it comes to spawning time, he cautioned, "weather is always the wild card."
Knight noted that fair numbers of young-of-year walleye also showed up in Erie’s central basin, where they usually are absent. Their presence is another sign of a good 2001 hatch.
Unfortunately, the 2000 walleye production was among the poorest in recent years, the biologist said, so there likely will be few 14 to 16-inch fish available next spring and summer for anglers. Two-year-old walleye typically make up the bulk of the fishery.
But because of the conservative creel limits in place this year, there should be more 1999 fish, 16 to 18 inchers, available than under more liberal limits. Nonetheless, Knight does not expect as strong a walleye sport-fishery in 2002.
The daily walleye limit on Lake Erie and its tributaries is just four during the March 1 through April 30 spawning season, and six the rest of the year. The prior limit had been 10 year-round.
The best part about the conservative limits is that they are cooperative, lakewide. Commercial netters in Ontario also took a big hit in their allowable walleye catch. "We’re really close to turning it around for walleyes," the biologist said.
At the same time, yellow perch production in 2001 was the second-best in recent years, dating to 1986. "It was very, very strong - an exceptional hatch," Knight said. The 1996 production also was exceptional and carried the perch fishery in the early years of a long-term stock-restoration plan.
"We’re going to really benefit from this hatch, especially with the (conservative) interagency initiative to protect the stocks. We’re seeing a fish population that is recovering ... restricted fishing is the one management lever you can pull."
Most perch fishermen from late summer until now can tell you that. Excellent catches of perch, many of them 10 to 13 inches - or "jumbos," as they used to be called - were put on ice.
The bigger perch are coming from the 1996 class. The 1998 class also was fair to good, and 1999 was very strong, Knight noted. This year the hatch was very strong in the western basin and exceptional in the central basin.
Knight noted that the central basin could use more perch fishermen. Angling pressure is high in the western basin already, to the point that Ohio anglers are pushing up against the annual catch-quota there. But, added Knight, "we’ve got an abundance of quota in the central basin."
Perch anglers still are taking fish off the pier and near the shore areas at Huron, which is on the edge of the two basins. Further east, perching also continues off Vermilion and Lorain. Many of the fish are 10 to 13 inches.
wAnother alien aquatic nuisance pest has been identified in Lake Erie, the tubenose goby. It is a cousin to the round goby, another pest-fish already too-familiar to fishermen and an unwanted gift from the ballast water of overseas shipping.
The tubenose was first confirmed in Lake Erie last July, when a specimen was netted by fish-ecology students at Ohio State University’s F.T. Stone Laboratory at Put-in-Bay.
Knight thinks initially that the presence of the tubenose alongside the round goby will not double the problem because they occupy the same ecological niche - as aggressive bottom-feeders and egg-thieves. On the other hand, gobies also provide new forage for such species as smallmouth bass.
The fisheries supervisor said that tubenose gobies have become established in neighboring Lake St. Clair and already are in decline. "It’s hard for me to fathom that they’ll have a profound effect beyond what’s already here with the round goby."
Where both have been introduced, he added, the round has proliferated and the tubenose has not.
The book on gobies so far: "They have to be affecting the food chain in ways we don’t understand."
Steve Pollick is The Blade's outdoor writer. E-mail him at spollick@theblade.com.