2012 Walleye hatch

[B can man]

the subject of a slot limit has been beat to death. there are 20+ million walleye in lake erie currently which produces trillions of eggs to be fertilized. The lake has changed from years ago and may not be able to sustain 40+ milliion walleye. The reality is, it may require fewer walleye in the lake to produce a banner hatch. Fewer walleye = more available food = higher survival rate. I believe the survival rate of the fry is the real issue at hand. Everyone thinks immediately that if you have more walleye, you have more fry, and you have more survival when you can actually decrease the survival rate with more fry if there isn't available forage to sustain the fry. Many factors involved here with the least significant factor being the amount of walleye currently in the lake.

You make a good point, but I have to respectfully disagree. The reason that you think that the slot limit issue has been beat to death is because it is the common sense approach. I have seen too many issues "muddied up" by political pressure. Like it or not, these issues are decided by those that likely have something to lose by instituting a slot limit.

I have not seen any studies that suggest that there is not enough forage for the fry. In fact, proving that would be pretty much impossible. (If you have seen one, please point me in that direction and I am willing to change my opinion.) With that said, it becomes a math problem. 100 fry born with a 5% survival rate = 5 surviving, 200 fry born with the same survival rate = 10 surviving.

At the risk of sounding overly simplistic (really just a common sense type of guy), the lake had a healthy population of walleye prior to the huge explosion of sport and commercial fishing a several decades back. Sport fishing has declined since, but commercial fishing has not.

While I will accept in truth that run-off nutrients helps the fry to grow bigger and faster, I will not accept the idea that more walleye breeding will equate to less fry surviving.

[eyetrapper]

Guys, check out ohio sea grants website, plenty of info there from fishery management people who are constantly studying the lake. Seems to be a lot more than just the number of eggs that are laid determining walleye population and yearly hatch success.

Jim

[wakina]

The following 2 quotes from the article sheds alot of light on why the survival rate of the newly hatched walleyes may be suffering.

QUOTE~
"Instead, the drought reduced lakewide productivity (algae and zooplankton production) and turbidity (muddiness), which are factors that offer the best feeding conditions for fry while minimizing predation from white perch, alewife, and (rainbow) smelt.

These invasive species have been shown to have higher survival rates during mild, ice-free winters, such as we had last year. When they are abundant, they take a higher toll on eggs and fry."



"Hartman pointed out that after the zebra mussel infestation in 1988, Lake Erie can no longer consistently support the higher numbers of fish possible prior to the invasion of this exotic species. Lake Erie frequently produced Ohio harvests in excess of 4 million walleyes per year from a population that may have been over 70-80 million strong." ~UNQUOTE


Slot limits would only benefit the Canadian Gill netting industry as they much prefer those fish in the 18" to 24" range as they bring premium prices vs. the larger 25+" fish and they take up much less space in the gill tugs storage lockers than those larger fish do. The lake Erie fisheries Management unit which determines the total allowable catch would never be able to convince the Canadians to only target those fish outside the slot bracket if that would even be a possiblity to target just the larger fish in the first place.

[MBLMIKE]

I had a fellow from the state fishery dept here in southern Ohio come in for some repairs to there trucks, he was telling us about there egg hatchery for restocking the reservoirs would a hatchery for walleye be of benefit with all the females loaded with eggs and males we see in the spring maybe a grant can be obtained to start a fish farm to increase the numbers of walleye that will spawn on there own next year I think like you better to do something now than wait till its to late