Sad State of Perch Fishing on Lake Erie

[hageman]

Been fishing lake erie forwell over 60 years and have never swa anyone go after sheepshead oor white bass. Ever wonder why their population just keeps growing and growing !! Dont forget about the multimillion dollar industry that will flush down the toilet when all there are left is sheepshead and white bass....I was around when we almost lost the walleye population and the lake was considered dead, if we dont watch ourselves it can easily and quickly happen again !!

Well, I have been fishing the lake for near 60 years too and have seen some of the same. The walleye population was pretty low, but not from starvation. It was from pollution and overharvest.

The lake is much improved, thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972. We can now have lots of walleyes, yellow perch, white bass, freshwater drum, white perch and many other species in great numbers as long as the western basin remains as productive as it is now. They are not mutually exclusive, although white perch have tried to take away more than their fair share of the available resources.

Zebra mussels are even more devastating, but that is a whole other story that doesn't affect the western basin as much as it does elsewhere.

There is no evidence to support the claim that walleyes eating too many yellow perch. No doubt that they get some, but dont seek them out.

They eat a lot more young-of-year white perch and some young-of-year white bass and "sheepshead", which are less abundant. I have even seen them with 6-8 young-of-year channel catfish in their stomachs.

This is not guesswork, but learned through opening adult walleyes and looking at their stomach contents in numbers sufficient to generate valid scientific data. Div. of Wildlife trawling figures show high densities of yearling yellow perch are surviving, so claims of walleyes eating "all the perch" by some fishermen are also not supported by science.

Regarding white bass fishing, people used to look for flocks of gulls diving into the lake- then race over and cast to the schools of white bass which have trapped emerald shiners up to the surface of the lake. Big fun if you never tried it. My best streak was catching 39 white bass on 13 casts (using 3- 1/8oz. leadhead jigs dressed with white curly-tails). Lower numbers of emerald shiners make this observation a rarity compared to before white perch invaded the lake and multiplied in the 80's.

Enjoy the lake now, with its record numbers of walleyes, good populations of perch in the western basin and enough white bass to catch as many as you can drag when they run up the rivers. Many people come from a long distance away to fill their freezers with white bass in May.

Thankfully the sheepshead, white bass and white perch haven't eaten all the prey yet and likely won't in the near future- as long as the farms keep fertilizing the watershed with animal waste so that we can have cheaper bacon. (actually it is so that they can have a higher profit margin....)

P.S.- In addition to being a 50+ year-long Lake Erie angler, I also have a Fisheries Management degree from Ohio State and was involved in fish research on the lake for over 40 years.

I usually don't get involved with these conversations, but I was bored enough to do it this time while I was searching for a good perch fishing report.

[PatSea]

hageman, thank you for yur insight to the fishery. I believe the ODNR has done a great job managing the lake Erie fishery. It's one of the best in the country. I too remember fishing for white bass by watching for diving birds and casting white spinner baits and catching bass on every cast for awhile then moving on to the next area of diving birds, It was a blast!
So is the lack of emerald shiners due primarily to the white bass population?