YOY Walleye and perch

I have posted this link before and here it is again today as it contains some more information on this years perch and walleye hatch. Check out the latest post/reply by Tory Gabriel, Ohio Sea Grant in this thread. This is not an official news release but is just information that the Stone Lab has observed with their student teaching trawls. They are constantly researching lake Erie and are an excellent source of honest and truthful information.

http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/archive/...p?topic=1569.0

That is good news and I can't wait to see the official results! As always, thank you Wakina for keeping us informed!

Update to this years recruitment! My daughter sent this to me this evening and it looks good. Here is the link she sent me, I guess that I am lucky she lives in the Dayton area. I expect that we will hear more on this issue in the coming week!


http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/new...anglers/nncds/

That is good to hear that the hatches are better for both Eye's and Perch. Now for the Big Question....Will the limits be raised? 10 Walleye? 50 Perch? Hello, Columbus? Are you there?

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Originally Posted by wakina

Update to this years recruitment! My daughter sent this to me this evening and it looks good. Here is the link she sent me, I guess that I am lucky she lives in the Dayton area. I expect that we will hear more on this issue in the coming week!


http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/new...anglers/nncds/

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mark

That is good to hear that the hatches are better for both Eye's and Perch. Now for the Big Question....Will the limits be raised? 10 Walleye? 50 Perch? Hello, Columbus? Are you there?

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I doubt very much that the limits will be raised. Even after the major hatch of 2003 they did not raise the limits. One thing for sure it should make getting a 6 fish limit for new/inexperienced fishermen allot easier than it has been once these newly added fish get to legal size.

The article states that this years hatch is probably 3 times that of 2014 which was 19.64 per hectare for Ohio's trawl survey results in 2014 and that would make this years, 2015 recruitment at 58.92 per hectare for Ohio's trawls, 2003 was 150+ per hectare.

Please note that the Ontario numbers are not in yet and they can and sometimes do change the numbers significantly either up or down. They changed them in an upward way last year and will probably do the same this year. Here is a link to some information on the 2014 recruitment of YOY walleyes and perch. On a side note there is also some information on what could have very well caused the shiner shortage this year and can be found in the last post of the thread. It could be due to YOY walleyes as they are always hungry.

.http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/archive/...ic,1553.0.html

The shiner shortage along with the earlier than expected algae blooms could also have forced the YOY walleyes to travel to Ontario waters in larger numbers than in the past in pursuit of their food supply as well as cleaner more comfortable living conditions, and that could also be why A & J baits had their minnow boats running out of Ashtabula this summer/fall instead of locally

Great news and a great post thanks wakina!

If that's true, those numbers would be the 4th highest since 1990!

FYI...John Hageman just posted on the "other" board that 2015 Ohio trawl was 61.47 per hectare.

Here is a quote from hageman.2 a member of OGF and can be found on OGF, hageman.2 was a biologist at Gibraltar for Ohio Sea Grants Stone Lab and has retired from there. He still writes for a couple of outdoor publications and is well connected with the ODNR.

Quote"Just using Ohio's trawl average number of walleyes per hectare (2.47 acres), since Ontario hasn't released their numbers, it was 155.62 in 2003, 19.64 last year (2014) and 61.47 this year (2015). The combined Ohio/Ontario hatch number averaged 30.75 last year (2014).

So depending upon where Ontario's numbers land, it could be 2 tor 3 times greater than last year, but a far cry from 2003. The catchable numbers of 2 year old fish will be worked on by the biologists from both sides of the line to come up with a projection of future populations and next year's Total Allowable Catch. This will all be announced at the Lake Erie Committee meetings in March." Unquote, Emphasis mine!

As you can see by the difference in the numbers from Ohio to Ontario in last years YOY walleye recruitment, those numbers show that Ontario can and does hold allot of YOY walleyes that were most likely hatched in Ohio waters of Lake Erie and its tributaries but had migrated there by the time the trawls were conducted.

Here is the link and the post can be read at reply #24.

http://www.ohiogamefishing.com/threa....286903/page-2

58.97 or 61.47......I would say Wakina's original statement of 3 times the 2014 hatch is pretty darn accurate! It sure seems from all reports of yoy walleye being caught and fingerlings in minnow buckets and bait tanks it could actually be higher than that, but one things for sure....this is great news for the lake!

Wakina, Eyecrazy - agreed! Regardless of the data they throw at us (which we know will keep changing for the next two years...) I cannot, nor can I find anyone else who remembers catching the numbers of shorts we are seeing this year. The 3 and 4 inch walleye we're getting perch fishing, and the 8-10 walleye we've seen trolling, we are getting in huge numbers! I had one trip where we went through 150+ 8 inch walleye to put a limit of keepers in the box. And these small fish are everywhere!

I also don't expect to see a change in the limits - nor do I want to! The lake is nowhere near back to it's prime! Even though the better than average hatches we've seen will help us catch limits, I hope we can all agree that protecting our resource more important right now. Just my two cents.....

Here is an update from the Ontario side of the lake! It is from a news article from Windsor and not an official release. I thought I would pass it on. It was posted on OGF and I got the web address and copied and pasted it here. There numbers were about 135% of our side for walleyes at 82.5 per hectare compared to 61.47 per hectare here in Ohio.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windso...bers-1.3242477