Sandusky River

[judy esken]

Does anybody have an update on Sandusky River besides it being low??? Walleye when and where?

[Sportsman]

When the Walleye are up the Sandusky River, they are spawning. Most of the fish are not feeding and the ones that are caught are ones that have been snagged. So it is best to wait until they finish spawning and moved back into the lake. This way they will have a chance to properly spawn and it will keep the lake healthy for years to come, with many plentful walleye. We as sportsman should be able to leave the walleye alone for one month out of twelve so that our children will also have a chance to catch walleye when they are older.

[Gahnfishin]

I have fished both rivers for 20 years. the Walleye will bite in the Sandusky but you have to wait until the end of April when the spawn is over. Sportsman, if you know the facts 5% of the walleyes in the lake come up both rivers combined and maybe 1% of that are caught. Have you ever been on the lake and watched people SNAG with blades. If any thing the reef fishing is hurting the walleye more than fishing the rivers. So if you shut one down shut the other down . It will never happen

[Sportsman]

I have no objections with shuting down the spawn fishing all together, including the reefs. I think your numbers are al little off when you say that only 5% of the walleye spawn up both of those rivers combined. And do not forget, if only 1% of a walleye's eggs get fertilized and hatch, you will have 200 fry from that one walleye. So when you kill one walleye during spawn your actually kiling the potentional for a lot more walleye. And to say that closing spawn will never happen, it is only becuase people have the wrong attitude. They have closed season for walleye in almost every other state, WI, MN, etc.. That is why the fisherman from those states come to Lake Erie to fish during their spawn. Their season is closed, so they come and fish Erie where it is open. If they can close the spawning season in their states to protect their walleye, why can't we close our spawning season to protect our walleye. Do mean to tell me that fisherman can't leave the walleye alone for one month out of the year? Is that really to much to ask??

[Erie Jack]

Fellas-- Lets look at the facts-- Lake Erie is supposed to have 50million plus walleye depending on the year. Ohio alone takes over 1million walleye a year out of the lake. Canada still allows commercial fishing for the walleye and thousands of tons of them are neted by the Canadians (Legally). All that said, the populations in lake Erie are still relatively stable. I think that the ODNR fisheries biologists know best and they set the limits (currently at 10?? in the lake) and seasons according to what the fishery can sustain. So why don't you guys, who probalby don't have a biology degree and really aren't qualified to make a decision leave it up to the professionals, and let the rest of us continue to enjoy some of the best fishing of the year. If it is determined that fishing during the spawn does hurt the population, then we will all gladly give it up, until then Fish-on-- Not everyone is a snagger!!

[Tim FRick]

We have to remember that Lake Erie is a big lake! So the amount of fish that get taking out of those rivers are a minumum. I agree with you that we should leave them alone. Not only because there spawning but because the rivers are so populuted that it probable isn't very safe to eat anything out of there, especailly after it rains. I think we should concentrate this energy towards the netters both perch and walleye on both sides of the line. I personal will not buy any walleye from any store or restaurant.

Only 6 more days of spring!!

Good Luck!!
Tim FRick

[Sportsman]

Although I feel Lake Erie is still best Walleye fishery in the world, it does not take a biology degree to relaize that the last couple of years, Walleye fishing has gotten tougher and tougher. In addition, if you talk with Mr.Ramsey or Mr. Kahl, both being biologist for ODNR, they will tell you that the estimates of how many walleye are in the lake are nothing more than an educated guess. The same goes for David Kelch, a research with Ohio Sea Grant. Also, there were supposedly over 100 million walleye in Lake Erie in the late 1980's and early 1990's. So even using their numbers or best guesses, we still have only half the amount of walleye in the Lake we had 10 years ago.

Everyone is always pointing the finger at each other, maybe if we all made an effort to do something about the problem rather than blaming it on the other guys, the Walleye population would begin increasing rather than decreasing. I completely agree that the Candian netters do more damage to the walleye population than any one. But how can we ask them to change their ways, if we are unwilling to do our part and chage our ways.

[Aquaholic]

An another thing...You will never see a closed spawning season in Ohio because the Division Of Wildlife uses this event as their main fund raiser.,When they say you snaged that fish....you don't stand a chance.If it has a scale missing or a blemish on its face,they win.I don't river fish any more because I got tired of watching the game.Never kept a snagged fish,never questioned by the DOW but I've seen them reck the day for a lot of fishermen who put previously snaged fish on the stringer after catching them legaly.You don't atand a chance...Much more fun to chase them in the big pond anyhow

[Tim FRick]

I really hate to get in this contest but I always hear how back in the 80's there was this many and now we have only this many! We have to remember that back in the 80's the only thing to catch was the eye's. There wasn't the great number of smallies, steelhead, white bass, and all the other species that fight for there space out there. Because we have a more diverse lake we can not and won't be able to have a lake that can sunstain the walleyes we had back in the 80's. The reason we had a poor year last year wasn't because of the lack of them, but the abundance of baitfish and mayflys. The weather and changing lake conditions was no help either. In 98' we had a great year. If we think we will ever have it as good as we did in the 80's were wrong. The condition are just not the same, not even in the same ballpark. So if you think it's going to get any easier your wrong. We have to constanly change our ways like the fish have to change there ways to survive. The days of throwing the erie drie's are long gone, unfortunaly!:(

Still 6 more days till spring!!:)

Good Luck!!
Tim FRick

[bob oh]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-15-00 AT 04:14PM (CST)[p]The number of walleyes that spawn in the rivers is indeed very small. Biologists with ODNR and Sea Grant agree that the Lake had more walleyes than it could support in the late 80s so we had very hungry, easy-to-catch fish then. I've heard 80 million plus fish and now 50 million. ODNR is charged with managing our fish so we should let them decide about limits and seasons for our fish. With the billions of dollars at stake from sportfishing on Lake Erie I don't think they are going to deliberately harm our walleye fishery. A little side note Tim: Back in the 80s there were far more white bass than now and a lot more catfish and perch, and the smallies were there also but most people hadn't "found" them yet, so
there were other fish to catch ;-)
Bob

[AK]

You're right, I've only see wardens every once in a while, usually at nite. I've fished a hole that is notorious for snagers and don't see 'em there or rarely do. But, rest assured when the spring bite is on in the river the enforcement begins. Oh, and gentlemen, (ladies too), if you are fishing the run, inspect your legal fish close, they don't have to see you catch it to provide you and other helpless suckers an oppurtunity to give them 100 bucks. To me thats worse than a speed trap. AK

[RH]

Well boys your information on "potentionally killing 200 fish" is BS! If 5 fish from every females set of eggs even makes it to the lake their doing extrtemely well! I agree that maybee something should be done about the run like maximum lengths, males only, or even close it on the weekends, but let the pro's be the ones to decide that! I also know for a fact that every fish during the run "doesn't eat" you can even ask the pro's on that! In fact it may be the best time to catch the females as they guard the unhatched eggs and the fry! If the people who go to the rivers have to have that 1%( belive it or not, not even that are caught) let them have it because some of those people don't have boats to go in the lake, and if the runs satisfies them then thats just saving you fish and spots to fish, even if they do catch that 1%!

RH
P.S.: Does any one know of a really good place to go Crappie fishing in Sandusky county.

[Sportsman]

So, from what I am reading, it sounds like the only people who know anything about walleye are the biologist working for the state of Ohio. All of the other biologist working for other states with closed seasons during spawn do not know what they are doing.

I can not believe that people really think that there were too many walleyes in the lake in the late 1980's and the early 1990's. If it could maintain a healthy population of that size in those days, there is no reason why it can not maintain that same population now a days.

I realize that there are many factors that effect the walleye population, weather during spawn, the introduction of excotic species, claener water, etc.. And many of those factors, we can not do anything about. However, there are factors that we can do something about, fishing during spawn, having a 10 fish limit, limiting the commercial fisherman, etc..

Do I think that the biologist from ODNR want what is best for the lake? Yes!!! I do feel they want what is best. However, if you think for one minute they do not feel any pressure from commercial fishermen, both American and Canadian, as well as from other ecinomic entities, all of which effect their decsion making, you are mistaken. The main reason they raised the limit from 6 to 10 was because the commercial fishermen wanted to increase their quota in Canada and ODNR was starting to feel pressure from the Ohio commercial fishermen wanting to net walleyes again. So the decsion to raise the limit was based on those two pressures, it was not based on the best interest of the lake. This has been openly admitted by them, publically. So it is not simply biological decsions they are making but it is also political descions they are making. So please keep that in mind..

Another thing I have found to be interesting is it has been said that there has not been enough bait fish in Lake Erie to support a populaiton of fish like we had back in the early 1990's. However, one of the reason ODNR has given for the reason why fishing last year was less productive than it had been in years past was because the over abundance of bait fish. It is comments like those that make question if the so called pro's really know what is going on in the lake.

[Mr. Marysville]

I don't think anyone mentioned that the weather last year was horrific. Hot, dry and windless. It's dang hard to catch fish when your sitting motionless.

From what I've heard, even trolling didn't produce very many last year.

All in all, last year was just tough for Walleye.

[seahorse]

the river by the bridges downtown and the sanddocks have been producing crappie. Have seen some of them, nice slabs. Never seen them in there this thick before.

[Tim FRick]

I just recently went to the sportsman show and there is a show by the ohio sea grant people/ODNR about Lake ERie. I recommended to all fisherman. He talks about the changes in the lake and how it affects the sportfishing. They have proof that the gobies are eating the smallmouth eggs and frys. All though they don't have the proof, they feel that this is also happening to the walleye. The zebra mussels also have an impact by filtering out the zoo plankton which the small fry's need to feed on to survive. He also goes in to detail about the fishing in the rivers during spawn. He says that those fisherman are no better than the fisherman that keep there catch during the summer. There are all potential females that would lay eggs. One female lays 250,000 eggs each year. The best egg layers are ones in the 22-25in. class. He feels there should be a slot limit. As far as the limit goes he touched base on this also. Each state or country gets a certain quota of the amount of walleye to catch, based on the amount of land surrounding the lake. Ohio was 7 million and I forget canada's. We haven't hit our quote for several years now. So instead of lowering the limit and letting the commerial netters get more we raised the limit to 10 so that we had a better chance of hitting are qoute. Plus Ohio was afriad that if our total amount was getting lower that the commitee that controls this would give more to the netters than the sprotfisherman. Some other interesting things were that each fish that enters in to the great lakes has a peak point and then drops down to a level in which that specific fish fits into the lakes ecosystem. For example, the white perch, they peaked in the 80's and then drop off in the 90's to a level were they have sustain for a while now. They feel the walleye did the same. The Zebra mussels are also ones that peaked in the early 90's and are now to a sustain level. They say that eventuall the gobies will do the same. Also there's certain birds that live in Lake erie that eat fish only and this is having some impact too. It was a very excellent show and even they aren't sure how everything effects the ecosystem of LAke ERie. THey know one thing and thats the fact that Lake Erie is getting cleaner. Some other interesting facts is the smallmouth eating the gobies, which eat the zebra mussels, which filter the water which is still polluted, the smallmouth's toxic levels are to a point that should only be eaten once a month. It maybe in the future be taken off the list to eat if the levels don't come down. They say even if the walleye and perch are eating the gobies too, that they have a smaller fat percentage which is were the toxins are and that it wouldn't affect the meat. One last fact is that roughly 1/3 of the population of walleye die of natural causes. Sorry for the long story but I thought this fit the discussion.

Only 3 more days till spring but you've would of guess it by the weather!!!

Good Luck!!
Tim FRick

[bob oh]

Read Tim's post below. Yes the lake was overpopulated in the late 80s - this is not only according to ODNR. ODNR has BEEN FIGHTING the commercial guys for years (not folding to their pressure). Just recently the commercials won a court case and were all set to start netting yellow perch during their spawning season and keeping whatever size fish they wanted to instead of ODNR rules of no perch fishing until May 1 and no fish under 8 1/2 inches. Fortunately the Ohio Sup. Court intervened and stopped it and now there is a bill (SB 241) in the Ohio House (it has passed the Senate) to give ODNR the authority to set rules for fishing without legilative action. All Ohio fishermen should contact their State Reps. and get behind this bill it is imperative that we get this protection.
Of course, there is some politics involved (where aren't politics involved?), but mostly the politics is to head off the commercial interests in Canada from netting more walleyes by getting a bigger quota. I am against the 10 limit, but I also don't want to give part of our quota (what we can't catch) to the Canadians so they can haul more eyes out with their gill nets.
And, it doesn't really matter what biologists on other lake or river systems do about limits etc. because the decisions are being made for Lake Erie, not those other systems..each system is different. If it becomes necessary to close Erie during the spawn, so be it. But I think the people charged with protecting the lake should make that decision (with us watching over their shoulders of course ;-).
Bob

[Sportsman]

Bob and Tim, I agree with much of what you had to say. Tim, I assume you saw either Dave Kelch or Fred Synder from sea grant and I have also heard them talk before. I realize that there are factors which we have no control over which have a great effect on the Lake Erie walleye population inlcuding the gobies, zebra mussels, weather ect.. I only hope that we do the right things concerning the variables we do have control over, Commercial netting, size limits, bag limits, fishing during spawn ect..

I have alos heard that the reason for the 10 fish limit is to keep the Canadians from catching our quota. However, maybe the total quota of fishing being taken out of the lake should be looked at. Maybe those quotas are to high. If ODNR does not actually know the population size of walleye in Lake Erie, they give estimates from 60 mill to 30 mill, maybe they are off with how many fish should be taken from the lake. So rather than increasing our bag limits to meet our quota, may they should reduce the quota of total fish being taken from the lake, meaning that Canadas quota would be reduced as well as our quota being reduced. If the quota was reduced, we would have no problem meeting that quota. the reduction in quota should go for the Canadian netters as well.

Bill 241 is definately a step in the right direction and I hope that all local fishermen in Ohio are writting the Senators in support of the bill.

[Erie Jack]

If you guys think it is a easy as telling the Canadians that we are just going to reduce the quota, then you bumped your heads... Just think... they are the only ones who really allow large scale commercial fishing for walleye-- Michigan doesn't, Ohio doesn't, etc.... Remember-- that we are dealing with a foreign country here, and at best, they usually do what they wan't, not what is best for "all" involved... take for example the spring bear season. If the Canadians really were worried about quotas, they would get rid of the commercial fishery all together like most of the other states on Erie have done... Canada serious...ha!... enough said!!

[bob oh]

Sportsman, I agree,but the quotas are set by a group composed of the states and Canada and they do try (I'm sure not as much as we would like) to consider the tests and studies of the lake and they all remembe the "dead" years. ODNR did "cut" the catch limit and increase the length limit for smallies on Erie because they are becoming real popular and of course, everyone is keeping too many. Hopefully they will be vigilent when it comes to walleyes and of course, all of us need to prod them and our law makers when we see them missing the boat. Also Sen. Redfern told me he plans to introduce a bill to "buy out" Ohio's commercial netters something that has been talked about for years. I hope he does and I hope we do buy them out. If he proposes we need to get behind him and make it happen, just like we need to support SB 241 and make it happen....

[earthtest1]

Commercial fishing should not be done in Lake Erie. The world is covered approximatly by 75% ocean water that has plenty of fish to support any commercial fishing. Also sport fishing has grown to about $40 billion in the USA and increasing 10% in every year for the last few years. Maybe Canada will realize that sport fishing other needs (travel, fees, hotel, fuel and commerce) pays more per pound for fish then commercial fishing.

[Scott]

Those of you who say that the days of the erie dearie are gone and that we don't fill the quota like we used to have to remember one thing....all the changes the lake has gone through in the last 15 years. 15 years ago, fishable water then (regarding clairity) would today be labled very dirty. The typical clear water on the lake has forced the walleyes, and smallmouths into different types of habits. The zebras and gobies have added to the equation. The days of big catches are still around, but many won't put down that spinner rod in the summer to ever find out. Evey year more and more anglers are finding out that boards and dipsys are the erie dearie methods of today. I guess it takes some guts to admit that just because you don't catch them doesn't mean they are not available. Many people said the same thing about the smallmouth fishing ...that it had gone down hill. But some realize that the fish can now spawn in much much deeper water than previously because of the super clear water , thanks to the mussels.

As far as there being a balance or equilibrium that could maintain a lower population of walleyes compared to the earlier years....certainly is possible. The smallmouth population had an explosion in the late 80's early 90's. They can clean up forage like a hoover vacuum. Not to mention cormorants dinning habits. If you think that you can introduce those two factors and maintain the walleye count of the past....you need a lesson in cause and effect relationships. It can't happen.

[IN THE LIPS]

WHEN DOES THE SNAGGING BEGIN? SHOULD BE SOON..

[NON-SNaGGER]

To get back to your original...reply,here sportman.?..I don;t live in freemont but have fished the river.for 15 yrs ..! And guess what..we do catch them legally,!.Prespawn & Postspawn fish.! Do they come easy.? No!.Do you have to FISH! for them YES!

[jlbbass]

well put ERIE JACK ,,1999 was estamated at 1 million but thats down 1 million from 1998.researchers claim they netted just as many as the year before,and as we all know we were blown off during the peak periods,and that came early last year as i believe it will this year..GOOD LUCK , THERE ARE PLENTY FOR EVERYBODY

[JLBBASS]

OH AND I FORGOT TO SAY ,,,IT IS NOT BE THE FISHERMAN THAT THREATEN THE LAKE , IT WILL BE THE INFESTATIONS THAT WILL DETERMINE THE FATE OF THE LAKE.I BELIEVE THATS THE REAL ISSUE.

[gankman]

Just got a call from some buddies. They'd been fishing the river 4 hrs and had caught several fish. Just for everyones info, I don't try to snag I just cast my jig, and yes some fish get snagged, but I release them. I also catch quite a few jacks this time of year by the mouth, and those are kept. Just stay ethical and everyone will be happy. For those of you who think they are all snagged, GET REEL! You obviously never tried.

[RH]

Went on 3/26/00 and caught 22 jacks(all females we throw back)in 6 hours, quite a few snaged ones but they all went back! Just casting 1/8 and 1/16 oz. jigs with 1/4 oz. of weight about 24 inches from the jig! Fished between bridges about half-way in beetween! by the way there was 3 of us.Game wardens were behind the floodwall were the little brick building is at the end of Schwarzlander park.

[in the lips]

I agree not all are snags, 1 out of 100 will swim with their mouth open and somtimes the jig will fall in it's mouth?

[Gregg]

I've caught prespawn and spawning fish like RH said. It's alot of work for two or three fish, but it can be done. Just downsize the weight of the jig and let it bounce downstream, ala steelhead fishing. I don't feel the traditional "tick" that jig fishing produces, just weight. I saw a former PWT pro in his Pro V anchored between the bridges limit out casting a no. 9 Rapala to the bank (he didn't know it was illegal). I also fished beside a TV host and rod designer and we both caught fish "in the mouth". The reason more fish aren't caught is because its hard to catch a walleye when you're yanking and cranking with a 3/8 oz. jig with an elephant ear sinker in three feet of water. I prefer to wait for the park bite or Erie instead of fishing a few blocks from my house and getting my line tangled and watching guys blatantly snagging fish and not getting arrested. Then they walk to their cars all proud like they're good anglers.

[Your Crazy]

>I agree not all are snags,
>1 out of 100 will
>swim with their mouth open
>and somtimes the jig will
>fall in it's mouth?

Yesterday we caught 15 with 4 inside the mouth. Usually they will bite the first second the lure hits the water, if not you will probably snag one. But they do bite. PS I used needlenose pliers to remove a deep set hook yesterday, someone under water must have had a pair of pliers and inserted the hook inside. Fool.

[in the lips]

O.K. 4 out of 15 swim with their mouths open, and the jig got swept in their mouth with the current..