March 28, 1999
By Matt Markey
A-T outdoors columnist
Finally, some good news. The world is flush with the bad stuff, so it's nice to hear something positive for a change. Any good news is worth getting excited about.
That's true, even if it's just news about fish. For some people, at this time of year any fish news is good fish news. They are that anxious for the season to get going.
The good news in this case is the report card on Lake Erie's big three &endash; walleye, yellow perch and smallmouth bass. The official fish counters, the people that make their living keeping track of these prized gamefish, say that all three populations are sound. And the prospects for a great fishing year are excellent.
Lake Erie is full of those three species, and a variety of other fish. But when it comes to fishing for sport or fishing for the table, that popular trio gets the bulk of the attention.
Walleye fishermen have learned to live with the lake in its new form. Zebra mussels invaded Erie a few years ago, riding in on ocean tankers and setting up residence when the ships purged their ballast tanks. The hundreds of millions of mussels constantly filter the lake, and the cleaner, cleaner Erie presents a series of different challenges.
Fishermen have gone to more trolling, and have stretched the season on both ends, braving winter's last bite to fish the reefs after ice-out, and working the near-shore areas into November and even December.
They'll find plenty of walleye out there this year. The experts say 1999 will be a super year, and they expect a harvest that will rival or surpass last year's haul of 2.3 million fish. The 1998 walleye harvest was nearly double the catch in 1997, and it ranks with the best this decade, second only to the 2.6 million walleye harvested in 1993.
Fisheries folks say there are some 60 million catchable adult walleye in Lake Erie this year. That figure alone is enough to push antsy walleye fishermen out the door and get them headed to the lake.
On the yellow perch front the news is equally rosy. The 1996 class of fish, pesky bait thieves a couple of years ago, should have grown to about eight inches in size by now, making them just right for the skillet.
Lake Erie fishermen caught 5.2 million perch in 1998, a slight decrease over the previous year's catch of 5.5 million. Yellow perch had a good class hatch last year and that should help them continue their steady recovery from the down days a few years back.
State fisheries people say the 1996 yellow perch class was the best in a decade, so anglers should have plenty of action with decent-sized fish to show for it. The daily limit is still 30, and strict quotas remain in place for commercial fishermen. The fish folks want to give the yellow perch every opportunity to make a full comeback.
The smallmouth bass continues to grow in popularity among Lake Erie anglers, and its numbers have been able to support the trend. Fifteen years ago, bass fishermen were an oddity on Lake Erie. Today, they are found on all the reefs and around all the islands.
Fishermen take smallmouth from shore, from the piers, and from an increasing number of charters, but bass boats are the principal means of attack. It is not uncommon to see three dozen of the sleek speed craft around the launch basin at Catawba State Park or Demsey Access on a pleasant June evening.
Lake Erie fishermen took an estimated 75,000 smallmouth last year. That harvest was down from the whopping 112,000 fish taken in 1997, but a strong group of five and six-year-old fish are expected to dominate a strong population of smallmouth and give anglers plenty of fight this year.
The fishing fun doesn't stop there, however. The big three catch the attention of most lake fishermen, but Erie has more to offer than that. There is literally something for everybody.
Fishermen working the piers, shorelines and backwater areas catch plenty of catfish. bullhead and carp that offer a ton of fight. Night fishing seems to be the most productive, but the fish aren't too particular and can be taken just about anytime.
Some of the best Lake Erie action of all is offered by schools of marauding white bass that roam the open water pursuing moving clouds of minnows.
Fishermen that happen on these aggressive feeders can have a day's worth of action in a half an hour by tossing anything with a little flash to it into the school of frenzied fish. The white bass are full of fight all the way to the boat, and it is not uncommon to grab a second one of the silver-sided bullies on the retrieve.
Lake Erie offers plenty of options to the anxious angler, and the forecast from the experts tells us there will be ample numbers of our favorite fish out there this year. That is the good news most winter-weary fishermen have been waiting to hear.