Big Fish From 3/30 with 4 kids

[Davesnothere]

Great Job Dave! I am sure the kids had a blast.

[zakzonez]

I see at least FIVE females that will never spawn

[mikecat13]

I see at least FIVE females that will never spawn

Before criticising other people's choices as to whether or not to keep a fish, do some research. Females over 28" produce many fewer eggs and those that they do are much less likely to get fertilized and hatched.

Regardless of all that, as long as everyone follows the laws it's their choice to keep or throw back any given fish. Especially when paying for a charter, maybe they only go once a year and wanted as much meat as possible. Education is one thing, bashing people with a once sentence post just doesn't accomplish anything

[wakina]

I see at least FIVE females that will never spawn

I see at least 5 female fish that have had more than enough time in the lake to have replaced themselves many times over. Those fish are probably at least 5 or more years old, with at least 2 or more spawns in their spawning history. That same argument could be used next month and every month there after, and they would still be females next spawning season. If a person has a problem with keeping those fish they can release them if they so chose. If they don't like the laws as they are written and enforced as to what is legal to keep then they should petition their State Legislature as well as the ODNR to get those laws changed. Bitching about those who follow the law does no one any good. It would be best to direct your attention to those who can actually get the change that you seek enacted. But the facts do not support your argument and here is why. You can do the math if you disbelieve the following.

Once the 2003 hatch became mature adults there were roughly 35,000,000 adult breeders in lake Erie! Now assuming that only half of those adults were females of breeding age that would be roughly 17,500,000 mature females. The average number of eggs laid by a mature female is roughly 250,000. Please read the last post in this thread in the provided link as it is my source for the average number of eggs laid per mature female.

http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/archive/...ic,1075.0.html


So with 17,500,000 females laying an average of 250,000 eggs each that would be a total of 4,375,000,000,000. That is (four trillion three hundred seventy five billion) eggs laid. If only 1% hatched, that would be 43,750,000,000 fry and if only 1% of those fry lived to maturity that would be 437,500,000 (four hundred thirty seven million five hundred thousand) walleyes that would have survived into adulthood. So since those numbers have not or were not ever realized there has to be more involved than the few thousand females taken just before and during the spawn as you can see those few thousand fish would have a very minor roll in the total overall egg production.