I was born in 1972. I grew up in Chicago, but my grandfather had a place on the lake north of Toledo Beach. I'd spend summers with him and we'd be out fishing walleye all summer long. Limits in June/July were all but guaranteed back then all the way through the 90's. Casting weight forwards.

I moved to MI in 2006. I'd have days where I'd limit in 45 minutes in Michigan waters that year. All the fish were 15-17 inches. Which means they were the hatch from 3-years prior (2003). As everyone knows, 2003 was an incredibly successful hatch.

Attached is a graph the OH DNR published a couple years ago. In this graph, they go back to 1992. The 90's had several monster hatches, as you can see.

http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/stay-inf...n-trawl-survey

2010-2015 was some of the worst fishing I've experienced on this lake. Corresponding to the abysmal hatches in most of the 2000's. In 2006, the DNR estimated the adult walleye in Erie at 100,000,000. In 2012, that number decreased by 80% to and estimated 20,000,000.

I guess the point of all this is that the data that the DNR provides is an extremely good predictor of the fishing experience on the lake. The lake appears to be rebounding, as 3 out of the 4 most recent yearly hatches have been average or better, at least when looking at data since 1998. I hope that the trend continues.