The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources has made a request of us

[Steve]

Hi There,



My name is Wil Wegman and I work for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. As you know, Lake St Clair, Erie and many other lakes are now infested with round gobies. The district where I am from – about an hour north of Toronto, now has them as well in the Pefferlaw River which flows into Lake Simcoe, a prime area for yellow perch and very popular among Michigan Ice Anglers. Anyway, I am involved in some goby research work and we are trying to determine how frequently gobies are caught thru the ice in St Clair or Erie by winter anglers. I would presume with the small baits that perch anglers use, and the fact that perch are usually near bottom like gobies – that if any group of anglers catches non-target gobies thru the ice, it would be perch fishermen. I was hoping you could post a request … or even this message on your Lake St Clair board asking anglers who do fish that area, to report directly to me if they do catch gobies thru the ice. We believe activity is minimal during the winter period for gobies, however …. There may be times when for whatever reason, gobies do go on the feed, and are caught. Maybe some anglers catch them regularly … who knows. In either case, it sure would be useful information for us and I would be very grateful for any emails helping us fill in the winter-time goby data base. Of course pics are great too and lend excellent credibility to any reports.



Thanks a lot,

Wil Wegman

Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources,

Aurora District

905-713-7730

wil.wegman@mnr.gov.on.ca

[Week End Redneck]

How about a description on these gobies. Never heard of one. Kind of a rookie when it comes to LSC. Would love to be helpfull.

[Ed Michrina]

Week end red, Hear is a link.

http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/greatlakesfish/roundgoby.html

[WALLEYE MIKE]

Sent him my 2 cents.

[Tin Can]

Caught one Goby Last week end in a Marina near Gino's.

Tear drop and a wiggler.

[fishunter]

haven't caught one through the ice, but can't keep em off the hook when fishing the St. Clair River in front of the town of St. Clair

[fish eater]

I've never caught one through the ice, but I catch alot of em in the spring night fishing for Crappies. I have a question. Are we supposed to not put these gobies back in? A few years ago an old timer told me that were not supposed to put em back in so ever since then I've been putting them in trash bags and killing them. Is this still the right thing to do?:confused:

[rizutto61]

kill em- problably won't hurt the population but kill nuisance fish!!!

[Ed Michrina]

I think they should all be killed but on a good note I have cleaned lots of Walleye with those little buggers in the stomach.

[fishbuster]

ive heard lake trout like them but not salmon. KILL THEM ALL they compete with perch

[fish eater]

OK, continue to kill them it is. I got no problem with that. In the summer, if you go to the SCS CG station by Miller Marina, you can catch tons and tons of em. Anywhere you stand on the pier, drop a worm under a bobber down along the seawall and you'll catch them all night and all day.:(

[stream wader]

cats love to eat them i always bring them home for my barn cats :lol:

[tufguy]

try speeding up a bit.that will keep them off your line.;)haven't caught one through the ice, but can't keep em off the hook when fishing the St. Clair River in front of the town of St. Clair

[Jumbo]

I put the big squeze on them :tdo12: ~~~><>...Jumbo..! ;)

[beemerman]

:bash: I was fishing on lake Erie and was borded by the D.N.R. That didn't bother me because I allways have a valid licence on me and never drink booz when I go out. I cought a couple of the chubby cheek little robbers and had saved one to take home to show my wife. The D.N.R. Officer told me that it was ILLEGAL to have one in my posession, needles to say the little fish slipped out of my hand and went overboard. These guys quite often have a power trip so you need to BEWARE. It would be a real pain in the do-wa-diddy to get burned over a stoopid Goby. I would NOT recomend keeping them, but it seems even stoopider to reliece them without killing them. I have been giveing them a real good BODY SLAM and then throw them to the Seagulls. :yikes:

[double trouble]

tell him that i have never caught one through the ice, but i catch a bunch in the detroit river in the spring.tell him to get their net fisherman like purdy and the boats near wheatly to stop overfishing their quota's so the gobies will have some walleye to eat them.

[jstfish48162]

when we catch them on erie, we always skip them off of the top of the outboard and see what kind of distance we can get :D :D

best is about 7 feet with about 3 seconds of air-time!!!!!!

[ArrowFlinger]

:bash: I was fishing on lake Erie and was borded by the D.N.R. That didn't bother me because I allways have a valid licence on me and never drink booz when I go out. I cought a couple of the chubby cheek little robbers and had saved one to take home to show my wife. The D.N.R. Officer told me that it was ILLEGAL to have one in my posession, needles to say the little fish slipped out of my hand and went overboard. These guys quite often have a power trip so you need to BEWARE. It would be a real pain in the do-wa-diddy to get burned over a stoopid Goby. I would NOT recomend keeping them, but it seems even stoopider to reliece them without killing them. I have been giveing them a real good BODY SLAM and then throw them to the Seagulls. :yikes:


I thought the DNR had classified them as a nuisance and you were to not return them to the water?

[beemerman]

:cool: I wasn't about to argue with him!

[neil duffey]

i would have! they used to pay 5 cents a peice for the gobey back in the day... bring in a bucket full and make 20 bux. what a dumb smash that co was being. :rolleyes:

[Gone Fishing]

Have you ever checked your bait only to find that your minnow has it’s eyeballs sucked out?.....................Guess who! :mad:

[BVG]

The reason it is illegal to poses them is the DNR does not want any live Gobies or viable eggs released into another waterway. The DNR will get real upset if they find them in a bait bucket or a fish tank.

[fish eater]

The reason it is illegal to poses them is the DNR does not want any live Gobies or viable eggs released into another waterway. The DNR will get real upset if they find them in a bait bucket or a fish tank.
That makes sense. Does this mean that it's ok to have a bucketful of dead sun ripened gobies?

[rizutto61]

Just kill em-that's what the DNR wants but dont have any live ones.

[MIbowhntr]

A lot of walleye I catch in the spring have them in their bellies (LSC near the mouth of the detroit river) I mean A LOT. almost everyone i catch has one in its tummy or lodged in its gullet, I also tried them once for bait when I was younger, bass LOVE them. That was before I was told not to use them as bait..a shame because bass Gorged on them, particularly Hoss'! :lol: :lol:
Hundreds of them on the rocklines close to shore, I could stand there for hours with a small hook pulling one after the other, or getting pulled under a rock....

[fishinfan71]

Went out on Wed 2/2/05 and caught a 4 inch goby at the boat wells behind the 11 mile library in Saint Clair Shores. Never caught one before but going by the descriptions I've read and pictures online it was definitely a goby.

[neil duffey]

Went out on Wed 2/2/05 and caught a 4 inch goby at the boat wells behind the 11 mile library in Saint Clair Shores. Never caught one before but going by the descriptions I've read and pictures online it was definitely a goby.did ya put it back? please say no.

[fishinfan71]

Nope, left him on the ice to be a popsicle.

[fish eater]

Good, make sure any others meet the same fate.;)

[PencilPlugger]

I caught this through the ice on Simcoe this past weekend. I thought it was a goby but after doing some research I thought it also might be a sculpin. What do you guys think?


http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/551/1886simcoe_unknown_fish.jpg

http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/551/1886simcoe_unknown_fish2-med.jpg

[MIbowhntr]

all depends upon ther underbelly fin
Connected:Goby
Seperate: Sculpin

[PencilPlugger]

Here is the response I received from Wil Wegman concerning the fish in my pictures:

Sorry it has taken me awhile to get back to you on this. Given that we cannot see all the features of this fish in the pics you sent, we are led to believe that it resembles a sculpin more so than a goby … However there is no way of telling for sure without having the actual fish in hand. You didn’t keep it by any chance so that we could have a look?
In any case, I’d really like to thank you for sending this note and the pics to us.



Wil Wegman

[Southend517]

I got some carp fishing with bread

http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/500/8122Gobi032704.jpg

[icefisher_62]

i always blow em up with fire crackers, you have to squeeze their mouth open a little but cherry bombs are pretty small, and powerful.

[kcud rellik]

besides how they look how are they different from sculpin? are sculpin a nuisance also?

[MUSHY1]

I'm for the responses of, skipping them of the outboard for distance and hang-time, and blowing up with cherry bombs. They usally get a nice suntan on the floor of my boat, before going over board for the flying rats..... I hope and prey they dont have them in Simcoe, thats all they need to destroy the best Perch fishing lake in the World.....

Mushy

[Perch Eater]

I got 120$ ticket for fishing with gobys at the 9 mile pier for small mouth they love them.DNR said to kill them or throw them back.They said you cant use an exotic fish for bait so I paid the dam ticket isnt that bs.:rant:

[ArrowFlinger]

I understand the DNR's position of not using as bait, as that is just another way to get a species introduced to a lake. But throwing them back is silly. They can enact an order to state if you catch a goby, cut off its head and throw it in the trash.

[CL-Lewiston]

Why not ask the DNR direclty and post the answer. In any case they all could get hooked bad and die in the process of hook disgorging..

[USMarine1171]

:bash: I was fishing on lake Erie and was borded by the D.N.R. That didn't bother me because I allways have a valid licence on me and never drink booz when I go out. I cought a couple of the chubby cheek little robbers and had saved one to take home to show my wife. The D.N.R. Officer told me that it was ILLEGAL to have one in my posession, needles to say the little fish slipped out of my hand and went overboard. These guys quite often have a power trip so you need to BEWARE. It would be a real pain in the do-wa-diddy to get burned over a stoopid Goby. I would NOT recomend keeping them, but it seems even stoopider to reliece them without killing them. I have been giveing them a real good BODY SLAM and then throw them to the Seagulls. :yikes:


I can envision the goby being raised overhead ever so slowly as to summon as much power as possible, and then the consequent sound of the goby NAILING the deck. AWESOME!

[Mark Sylvester]

Spoken like a true MARINE!!!

[Little John]

As far as I'm conerned the gobies have only doen one thing to St. Clair...provide food for walleye, bass and perch. I've cought thousands of the above mentioned species that were just stuffed with gobies, especially perch in the winter time. I have caught gobies through the ice when using spikes, but only very early and late in the season when I presume the water temps and oxygen levels are highest. I believe that they are relatively inactive during the hard water season and are very easy prey for jumbo perch and other predators.

Also, I believe the gentleman from the MNR was asking us to please report on any catches of gobies from Lake Simcoe, not lake St. Clair. They already know LSC is full of them...

[brett74]

Anyway, I am involved in some goby research work and we are trying to determine how frequently gobies are caught thru the ice in St Clair or Erie by winter anglers.

that is a quote from the guy that is intrested in your info.

just a heads up.