Ohio Central Basin walleye anglers will see great angling into at least the early 2020s

Lake Erie Central Basin anglers are in for an extended streak of booming walleye fishing and likely improved yellow perch fishing well into at least the early years of the 2020s.

With the noteworthy walleye fishing that Ohio Central Basin anglers experienced this summer and fall comes the equally compelling news that the 2018 hatch of walleye is being described as “exceptional” by the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

Data gathered by the agency via the use of specialized trawling gear to sample for yellow perch, however, was described as only “average,” though the hatch was considerably better from Fairport Harbor east to Conneaut than it was from Huron east to Fairport Harbor.

Even so, the Wildlife Division is not inclined to credit the angler-motivated gentleman’s 

agreement to limit commercial fishing for yellow perch off Fairport Harbor’s fabled “Hump” as contributing to the better hatch from that port to Conneaut.

As for the details, the Wildlife Division says that data collected from its 2018 survey indicated that young-of-the-year walleye catch rates were “the highest recorded in the past 20 years of the Central Basin trawl survey (32 fish per hectare).”

“This year’s results, combined with the excellent 2015 year-class, will ensure adult walleye abundance in the central basin will continue to increase,” the Wildlife Division says.

Adding to that statement are the thoughts of Travis Hartman, the agency’s lead Lake Erie fisheries biologist.

“What we have seen is a strong recruitment of walleye lakewide,” Hartman said.

The “why” of such a recruitment is not fully understood but a powerful correlation suggests that in years when Lake Erie water levels are high so too is young-of-the-year walleye recruitment.

Hartman says the prevailing thought is that when Lake Erie’s water levels rise – and they are near record levels now – the just-hatched walleye get “swept toward shore” instead of out into deeper water.

In shore these young walleye find themselves in nursery waters; relatively safe and also able to access the plankton they need to feast on for growth, Hartman says.

Asked then how long it will take for the walleye born in 2018 to become of legal size, Hartman said that because of phenomenal growth due to an abundance of invertebrates for forage, a walleye hatched this year will be 12 to 14 inches by the end of the 2019 fishing season. And by 2020 these walleye will have grown to 14 to 16 inches.

“Twenty twenty-one will be the big year;” Hartman said.

In detailing the Central Basin’s yellow perch hatch the Wildlife Division was not nearly so enthusiastic, though that term is relative.

The agency says that its trawl survey in the Central Basin for yellow perch indicated that while hatch was the “highest observed since 2014 (40 fish per hectare)” it was still just below the long-term average (45 fish per hectare).

“In the individual management units, the western portion of the Central Basin (Huron to Fairport) index was 28 fish per hectare, below the average of 42 per hectare. The index in the eastern portion of the Central Basin (Fairport to Conneaut) was 51 fish per hectare, above the average of 41 per hectare,” officially says the Wildlife Division.

Hartman did add some meat to the news by saying that the Central Basin’s yellow perch experience “incredible growth rates.”

“Much of that is because of a really good population of invertebrates the perch use for forage,” Hartman says. “It’s unbelievable how fast a two- and three-year-old perch grows in the Central Basin.”

Such growth rates are seen in the numbers: A Central Basin yellow perch that hatched in 2018 and survives to this time in 2019 will average 6 to 7 inches. By 2020, they will be of a size that Central Basin anglers relish to keep, Hartman says.

A jumbo yellow perch of 12 inches or more will be four or more years old, Hartman says as well.

Even so, Hartman declines to say that the sport angler-commercial fisherman gentleman’s agreement hammered out in 2017 to keep the latter off the Fairport Harbor Hump area during the perch spawning period had anything to do with the improved hatch in the region.

Simply, Hartman does not see a direct population maintenance link between the commercial harvest of yellow perch and its spawning period.

“We manage in relationship to the (yellow perch) population and when it drops we lower the total allowable catch and adjust our appropriate regulations,” Hartman said.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net