Numbers promising for yellow perch, walleye
Given the right circumstance, average can rate as dandy.
Such seems to be the case with the 2017 hatches of walleye and yellow perch, the fish that fuel the productive Lake Erie sport fishing engine.
“For the Ohio waters of the western basin, the yellow perch and walleye hatches were surprisingly good,” said fishery biologist Eric Weimer, supervisor at the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s Lake Erie Fisheries Research Unit in Sandusky. “We weren’t sure what to expect with the odd winter weather and an iffy spring.”
Lake Erie never developed much ice, let alone an ice sheet, last winter, a situation not associated with a strong walleye hatch. Further, spring rains and winds created less-than-ideal spawning conditions in rivers and on reefs.
However, trawl surveys conducted in August showed youngof-year numbers close to the 20-year average.
“That put a smile on our faces,” Weimer said, “knowing it will mean continued good walleye and yellow perch fishing on Lake Erie for the next three, four, five, 10 years and beyond.”
Not that average automatically translates into great fishing, but an accumulation of average hatches sandwiched around an exceptional year portends numerous bites to come.
The exceptional year for walleye was 2015, when surveys showed a hatch three times the 20-year norm that will provide the backbone of the fishery for years to come. Those fish, which finally are approaching or surpassing keeper size of 15 inches in length, were earlier this year so numerous as undersize fish they often became pesky, bait-stealing throwbacks.
Moreover, yellow perch hatches in the shallow western end of the lake have been on a years-long roll.
“In the western basin, this yellow perch hatch represents the fifth year in a row of average or better hatches,” Weimer said. “Walleye have produced good or great hatches in three of the last four years.”
Specifically, August trawl surveys turned up an average of 280 yellow perch per hectare, only slightly below the 20-year average of 300. A hectare is equivalent to about 2½ acres.
Walleye numbers averaged 21 per hectare, nearly par with the 20-year average of 22.
Trawl surveys taken in the deeper central basin, which stretches from west of Lorain to the Pennsylvania border, take place a little later in the year. As a result, the numbers had yet to be crunched last week.
Yellow perch, which in years past provided spectacular fall angling and fine dining, largely have been MIA in the central basin from a fishing perspective for at least a couple of years.
Hatches apparently have not been successful, Weimer acknowledged, though the process remains so mysterious he couldn’t “even begin to speculate” why that is so.
“It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a good hatch in the central basin,” he said. “It used to be that the central basin held great numbers of yellow perch. Now it’s the western basin. For whatever reason the script has flipped.”
Parting shots
Bass Pro Shops completed its $4 billion acquisition of Cabela’s, an outdoors retailer that has a presence in Columbus at the Polaris Centers of Commerce. Cabela’s will keep its name and a number of proprietary brands. … Minnesota artist Bob Hautman won the 2018-19 Federal Duck Stamp Contest competition with a painting of a pair of mallards flying over a cattail marsh. Hautman previously won the competition in 1997-98 and 2001-02. Christine Clayton of Sidney, Ohio, finished third with an oil painting of a blue-winged teal. … A diagnosis of rabies was confirmed in a dead deer found in Cherokee County, North Carolina. How the deer contracted rabies puzzled examining experts. One possibility is the deer was bitten while feeding on a pile of corn by a rabid raccoon. … Ohio’s youth waterfowl hunting season is Saturday and next Sunday.