Saturday, April 4, 2020

UPDATED: Visit to Ohio's Lake Erie boat ramps shows closure needed now




(The portion originally found in this posting regarding an option to the situation and made by Ottawa County Sheriff Stephen J. Levorchick has been moved. This was done to build a more comprehensive, stand-alone story addressing Levorchick’s idea to cease for the moment all sales of angling licenses to non-residents.)

MARBLEHEAD - Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Mary Mertz are either oblivious to or are in denial of how Lake Erie walleye anglers are behaving in regards to stemming the rising tide of the cornoavirus (COVID-19) in the state.

That lack of understanding came into sharp focus today (Saturday April 4) on a trip to three of the Natural Resources Department’s most popular public boat launch sites in Ottawa County: Catawba State Park, East Harbor State Park, and the Mazurik State Access site.

Each of these locations were swollen with boating anglers who eagerly were on a placid Lake Erie in search of walleye. Those anglers who responded to shouts leaving through the driver’s side window of my Jeep all said the same thing, using different words: “Fantastic.” “Great. “Easy,” and “we were done in two hours.”

That the trailer-tow vehicle parking lots were either filled to capacity or very nearly so demonstrated how much the anglers wanted their share of Lake Erie’s horde of 116 million walleye.

In fact, at Mazurik, no fewer than four Natural Resources vehicles and several agency officials were kept busy directing traffic into and out of the park. The officers would hold back a parade of towed boats until a like number departed after their crews left with their walleye.

By their selfish action the fishers were more than willing to cut against President Trump’s plea and DeWine’s stay-at-home order.

Really, it was comical when during his daily news conference a few days ago and pointed out how anglers were crowding boat launches, DeWine incredulously dismissed it all. He did so by saying anglers don’t like to cluster themselves when angling.

Partially true, though with a loophole large enough to pilot a fully rigged Ranger boat through at high speed. The Governor failed to acknowledge that before and after fishers enjoy Lake Erie’s expansive Western Basin they often congregate in groups where rubbing elbows becomes much more likely.

Case in point: More than a few of these observed parties consisted of adults (usually males) that numbered from two to four.

It is ludicrous to believe the observed anglers were same-household family members, too. As a result, each person violated DeWine’s lawful order to avoid inter-personal, non-household contact during the on-going COVID-19 crisis.

Much more troubling was an up-dated game of name-the-license-plate we all played as kids while on a long-haul family trip.

Here, Bev – my wife – and I saw trailers and their tow vehicles from Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and as far away as South Dakota. And one Natural Resources official working the Mazurik launch area March 4th estimated that 20 percent of the boat trailer slots were being used by non-residents.

Insightful is that the current COVID-19 toll in Illinois stands at 9,266 case and 210 deaths. In Pennsylvania, the respective numbers are 8,570 and 102.

Meanwhile, Michigan is being acknowledged by both President Trump and Governor DeWine as a so-called “hot bed” of COVID-19; currently ranking third in the nation with 12,744 cases and 479 deaths.

Even in Indiana, there are currently 3,437 COVID-19 cases with 102 deaths, each figure almost identical to those in Ohio but with a much smaller population.

If it is incredulous for DeWine – and by extension, Mertz – to say that anglers are observing “social distancing, it is absurd to think these traveling anglers have obeyed demands for a 14-day quarantine when entering Ohio, let alone accepting the fishers will do the same when they return to their home states.

However and again, it’s not just out-of-state anglers that pose a threat for the spreading of COVID-19. An angler traveling from Ohio’s Seneca County, or Morrow County, or Cuyahoga County can just as easily import the disease into Ottawa County or export it back into the angler’s home county as a fisher from Detroit, Madison, Wisconsin or Muncie, Indiana.

Consequently, DeWine and Mertz are playing Russian roulette with the lives of all Ohioans as well as the citizens of other states by keeping these Lake Erie public boat launches open.

The boat ramps need to be closed. Now. Today. Before the COVID-19 threat becomes even more dangerously difficult to extinguish.





- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com

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