A good year for anglers in 2013 produced a vintage year for
the state’s Fish Ohio program, too.
The Ohio Division of Wildlife’s 37-year-old (started in 1976
but re-launched in 1980 when the agency began
adding the pin feature) Fish Ohio awards program saw 12,760 submissions by anglers
last year. And the program also accounted for 532 Master Anglers last year.
For the previous year the total (2012) was 12,462 qualifying
Fish Ohio entries along with 521 Master Angler awards. In 2011, those figures
were 11,278 qualifying Fish Ohio entries and 490 Master Angler awards.
As for the year when the Wildlife Division’s Fish Ohio
program maxed out that was in 1988 when 37,132 awards were presented along with
691 Master Angler awards.
Yet the program has undergone a significant submission component
change. Beginning this year the program has incorporated an entirely new entry
format that includes – among other things – the requirement to establish a
log-in password protocol.
The advantages with the new system, says Wildlife Division officials,
is the ability to review what species an angler has submitted, when it was
caught and its length.
Interesting as well as new the system now allows people to
view the approximately to-date data of the entries electronically submitted and
for each of the 20 officially recognized species.
For example, an angler can go on line and access either via
a PDF or Excel version how many walleye have currently been entered, from what
body of water, the date of submission as well as the length for each fish.
“That’s a pretty nice feature we built into the system,”
says the Fish Ohio program administrator, Vicki Farus.
To become eligible for a Fish Ohio award consisting of a
really cool, colorful and collectable hat pin and a do-it-yourself printed
recognition certificate, an angler had to catch a qualifying specimen from one
of the aforementioned 20 recognized species.
The Master Angler award requires an angler to catch at least
one representative from a minimum of four recognized species. But this pin is
even more jazzed up and makes the additional work worth it for many anglers; as
mentioned earlier, 532 fishers to be exact.
For a Grand Slam award an angler is challenged with catching
no fewer than three eligible species, each of which must come from one of the
following specific bodies of water: Lake Erie, the Ohio River, and inland
waters. Oh, the three species vary for each specific waterway as well.
The 2013 pin featured a brown trout. The year’s Master
Angler pin is a bit fancier that includes a sort-of brushed bronze background
along with the standard “Master Angler” embossed on the pin along with the year.
A yellow perch will grace the 2014 Fish Ohio as well as 2014
Master Angler pin. This will be the forth time the yellow perch has appeared on
a Fish Ohio pin (1986, 1996, and 2006 were the years the species was depicted).
Some of the recognized species that have yet to appear, Farus
says, are the northern pike, the carp and the blue catfish.
“We added the blue cat to the list of recognized species just
last year,” Farus said.
Whatever species is depicted, however, the last thing any
recipient wants to do is besmirch these somewhat oval in shape base-metal pins
with painted fronts.
Such pins often find their way onto Internet auction and
for-sale sites. Prices range widely, depending on year and whether the pin is a
standard Fish Ohio model or as a step-up Master Angler pin or one of the even
much less common “Grand Slam” award.
Thus prices may range from about $10 each to $300 or more
with the first-year-issue 1980 pewter model featuring a raised smallmouth bass
being among the most valuable.
A complete set of Fish Ohio/Master Angler pins have been
known to sell for $650 to more than $1,300, too.
All of which is considerably more than the approximately 50
cents it costs to forge each Fish Ohio pin and a program that sets back the
agency less than $20,000 annually.
Even so, many anglers have no interest in parting company
with their award pins and sometimes will seek out missing or replacement tokens
for their collection.
Thing is, accumulating a collection constitutes a hard several
years’ worth of angling. It also typically involves fishing in more than one
body of water. After all, while an angler might catch a qualifying 36-inch
muskie from Lake Erie the odds are better this will be done in West Branch
Reservoir.
Still, Lake Erie stands at the pinnacle of where to seek a trophy,
Fish Ohio-qualifying entry. Last year 4,462 Fish Ohio entries were pulled from
Lake Erie. That figure is the most for any other body of water, public or
private, too.
In fact, of the 20
recognized Fish Ohio eligible species, Lake Erie led the public bodies of water
in fully one-half of the categories. And Lake Erie failed to break into the Top
Five public waters in only five categories.
Lake Erie produced 1,915 qualifying walleye, 1,055 yellow
perch, 838 freshwater drum (sheepshead), 256 channel catfish, and 168 white
bass.
Yet many anglers looked to private lakes and ponds to secure
their Fish Ohio awards. Fully 2,703 Fish Ohio qualifying entries came from
these private bodies of water. Among them were 1,200 sunfish/bluegill, 501
largemouth bass, 433 crappies (both black and white), 295 channel catfish, and
even 82 carp.
Way, way down the list of places where Fish Ohio qualifying
species were caught in 2013 was the Ohio River. Only 782 eligible entries were
recorded as coming from the Ohio River in 2013. This system’s Top Five entries
included 248 hybrid striped bass (wiper), 129 sauger, 77 channel catfish, 72
white bass, and 39 crappies as well as freshwater drum (tied for fifth place).
As for the state’s top lakes and rivers for catching trophy
fish in 2013 they were Mosquito Reservoir (264 entries), Buckeye Lake (171
entries), Hoover Reservoir (166 entries), Pymatuning Reservoir (148 entries),
Indian Lake (146 entries), and the Maumee River (143 entries).
Yet what is in store for the 2014 Fish Ohio program is a
major revamping of how eligible species are entered and recorded. Long gone are
the paper applications with even the Internet-based system having undergone
considerable revision.
The new rules do require that an applicant follow the
instructions specifically. For details, visit the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s
web site at: www.fishohio.org.
And still being work on is allowing a person to enter an
eligible fish for someone else. This substitution process was permissible under
the old system but the new process’s
programing prevents such a buddy approach at the moment, Farus says.
“We’re working on it, though,” Farus says.
- Jeffrey L. FrischkornJFrischk@Ameritech.net
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