Walleye Limit May Be Tightened

Wildlife officials in several Great Lakes states are concerned about the dwindling number of walleye in Lake Erie. That’s why there’s a move to limit the number of fish that may be legally caught each day. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:

Transcript

Wildlife officials in several Great Lakes states are worrying that the number of
walleye in Lake Erie is dwindling. That’s why there’s a move to limit the number
of fish that may be legally caught each day. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports.


Right now, Ohio fishermen may catch up to 10 walleye a day
from Lake Erie, but that may soon change to six. Ohio wildlife
officials are proposing a tighter limit, because they believe there
are fewer fish in the lake these days. Scott Johnson is a fisheries
biologist for Ohio’s division of wildlife.

The catch rates were very poor in 1999. In ‘99, we got a harvest of about a million fish. And the year before that, the catch rates were considerably higher. And the harvest was 2.3 million fish in ’98.”

Johnson says other states bordering Lake Erie plan to follow Ohio and
reduce their limits on walleye catches. That includes Michigan,
Pennsylvania, New York, and the Canadian province of Ontario.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Cohen in Columbus.