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2013 Walleye Hatch ?!?
Good morning Walleye.com readers!
I was wondering what 2013 will bring for the walleye population of Lake Erie.
Many of you have had the same thought from time to time.
So, I decided to start looking at factors related to the hatch.
I will try to be brief but supply some interesting facts.
I have learned quite a bit from reading through the DNR sampling data.
****I learned that sampling data via troll netting can be widely varied, so I was not convinced by the sampling data alone.
I related this to the past estimated hatches and the prevailing weather for each year.
The DNR writers indicate that weather plays the most important role in the resulting hatch for each year.
Significant factors were:
A decent cold winter (cold enough to freeze the lake over)
A cool spring
And less rain in the months of March and April. (This has to do with keeping the eggs and fry in the protected zones and not washed out to the lake)
2003 was the year mentioned in most of the comparisons as it was the most recent 'large' hatch.
Now you ask, what is my point.
Well, as much as it is hope, there are some great comparisons from this year to 2003.
1. We had a cold winter
The temperature has been below average all spring until just recently.
March averaged 4.2 degrees colder than normal, and daily high temperatures averaged 5.9 degrees below normal at Toledo Express Airport, the official National Weather Service reporting station for the metro area.
The month’s second half was especially chilly: Every day from the 16th through the 30th was colder than normal.
Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/local/201...q6UhoYCEki1.99
2. We had below average rainfall in March and April.
The 2013 spring season ended with 1.7" of snow and 8.06" of total precipitation, which is nearly an inch and a quarter below average.
Most of the rain coming in the months of May and June.
Note only 1.7 inches of rain... Snow takes time to melt and therefore does not have the drastic effect as say a thunderstorm dumping 2 inches of rain in the Maumee River basin. The Maumee being the largest single inflow of water to the Lake.
Wishful thinking?
Well, If I could make wishes, one of them would be for a good hatch!
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Odnr
The state may have a guessed idea of the spawn for this year. This info is sometimes released in August or early Sept. I stopped listening to them on this count because they and have been wrong on the number and how its done.
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It's fashionable (and easy) to bash the state, but my observation is that the states fisheries biologists have been correct more than they have been wrong. Determining the walleye numbers in something as vast as Erie is a tough thing to do, so no one will bat 100%. Myself, I'll trust those who have spent years studying fisheries biology.......
By the way it's not just "the state" as in Ohio...it's also Mich, Penn, NY, and Province of Ontario, Canada. So that is a lot of people who don't know what they are doing.
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Here is the latest news about this years hatch!! It is contained in the last post on this thread.
http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/discuss/...01d131740fa979
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Sounds better than in past years