Quote Originally Posted by pappyon View Post
We made it to fenwicks at 6 am. I knew things were bad when we were not the only boat at the launch..but the only truck with an empty trailer there. We went out in the fog...NE. Stopped at crib..nothing. Casted and caught a few white bass...and a sheephead. Went to trolling. Nothing. The water was clear. I have seen it a lot worse and caught fish. But we could see our lure go down 3 feet or so easily. We casted again. Trying everything. Had 7 charters in a pack. We fished all around and funally had one on. Got him to the boat and he got off. But the dead eyes....my god. You can bet the bottom of the lake is covered with 100,000s of thousands....if not millions of fish. The western end is dead. I hope it can come back. We need to push the DNR to restock. We pay the license fees....they need to return some back to us and restock the lake. I think we will end up east next week. I am afraid a few years down the road this fish kill is going to kill the fishing. No reproduction one year is a huge loss. Been fishing this lake since 83. Have never seen it like this this time of the year.
I have been fishing Lake Erie since 1955, in the late 70's early 80's (can't remember the exact year) there was a walleye die off that had everyone who loved the lake worried, no matter where you looked you could see dead walleyes floating but the fact is we still have walleyes and we probably will continue to have walleyes. In the 60's we fished all summer for what we catch now in one or two days of fishing. In the early 2000's and as late as 2004 Walleyes were hard to come by in the western basin due to the very hot summers that set in earlier than normal in those years forcing the fish to head further east to deeper water sooner than normal, it was hard for some of the best charter Captains to get their limit of fish every day and most didn't without a 20 mile or longer run one way.

In the 60's and 70's the ODNR stocked walleyes into the lake to help replentish what pollution had depleted. Some were even stocked in the eastern part of lake erie by air. It was explained to me by an ODNR that if the conditions for the normal wild spawned walleyes were not proper for their survial then most likely those same conditions would not be conductive for the survival of hatchery raised fry either. The return for investment was so low that stocking the big lake was stopped.

I can relate to your concern and I hope that we can get a somewhat decent hatch and survival rate this year. To replentsh our fish and to calm our frayed nerves.