Ed Michrina
03-18-2005, 09:29 PM
Walleye, perch on rise, but so are 'invaders
"It's generally believed that a long, hard winter is good for walleye and perch production." DEC Lake Erie walleye expert Don Einhouse.
The state of Lake Erie is, as ever, under constant change.
That was the main message coming from last week's "state of the lake" panel arranged by Assemblyman Dick Smith, D-Hamburg, and Sea Grant. Speakers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Department of Environmental Conservation and Sea Grant gave lake users their best guess as to what the near future holds.
The news was both good and scary.
For fishermen, the good news is that walleye and perch production is likely to be high this year, although it will be several years before we see those fish being landed as "keepers."
"It's generally believed that a long, hard winter is good for walleye and perch production," said Don Einhouse, the DEC's Lake Erie walleye expert. "That's because a cold spring delays egg laying until later in the season. By then, we start getting a lot of warmer days, so the lake warms quickly and the eggs hatch faster."
While in the egg, walleye and perch are subject to great predation by egg-eaters like round gobies and alewives - as well as being torn from their spawning beds by spring storms - so the faster they hatch, the greater the chance of survival. And the cold winter has also killed off plenty of alewives, Einhouse said, since that invader is at the edge of its possible range.
"A little early to tell - in fact we won't know for a couple of years if this will hold true," he said, but past indications are that it might."
The problem with predictions is that the lake changes too fast.
"The last great hatch year we had, 1984, followed a weather pattern like this one," Einhouse said, "but we didn't have the zebra mussel then, we'd never heard of the round goby."
Those invaders have radically changed the lake, and may be a key in the outbreak of botulism that occurred here last year.
"More than 17,000 birds, in New York waters alone, died of botulism," said Helen Domske of Sea Grant. "Quagga mussels - which are another exotic species that came here in the ballast water of ships - are displacing the zebra mussel and may be the link. They can filter out smaller particles, and are actually capable of filtering out the botulinum organism which is endemic in the lake."
The mussel concentrates these organisms and is, in turn, eaten by the round goby - yet another "exotic" - and the round goby is eaten by bass, sturgeon and sheepshead as well, which are all bottom feeders. The goby is also eaten by fish-eating birds such as loons, mergansers, grebes and old-squaw ducks.
"This could pose a health hazard to fishermen, too," Domske warned. "Botulism makes fish swim funny. They can't swim upright. They may start broaching, head up. If you catch a bass that appears not to be swimming or fighting normally you may not want to eat it. And any fish from Lake Erie ought to be cleaned by filleting, not cutting into the belly, because the botulinum will concentrate in the gut."
That was the bad news.
Those seeking cold-water species, such as trout, got mixed news from Jim Markham of the DEC's Dunkirk station. He noted that, historically, man has been trying to introduce trout and Pacific salmon to Lake Erie since the 1880s, and most plantings simply did not take.
"The one success has been rainbow trout, which were successfully planted in the lake in the 19th and 20th centuries. And more recently steelhead, a near relative, have also been successful," he said.
The king salmon has not prospered, nor has the coho, the most costly fish to rear in a hatchery.
Pennsylvania, with almost no Lake Erie shorefront, will end coho salmon plantings this year, and has capped its steelhead/rainbow stocking at 1 million fish. And Ohio, with even fewer suitable streams, will continue to plant 400,000 steelhead a year.
"They have a booming offshore fishery," Markham said. New York will continue to stream stock about a quarter million steelhead annually. We have stopped trying with other salmonids.
The lake trout - actually a char - was native to the Great Lakes and its recovery to a commercially fishable species was the impetus for forming the Great Lakes Commission between the U.S. and Canada.
New York stocks lakers in Lake Erie, although they have met with mixed natural recovery; but next year the federal hatchery that supplies lake trout will begin planting a different strain - the Klondike strain from Lake Superior, which likes deeper, colder water and spawns there too. The hope is that this strain might do better in terms of natural reproduction.
"We will also continue to stock the Lean Lake strain," said Markham. "That's a somewhat larger fish and it spawns in shallower, warmer waters."
And everyone who uses or lives along the lake wants to know about water levels. The Army Corps of Engineers thinks the lake, which was abnormally low for the last few seasons, is not likely to rise because snowfall in the upper lakes has not been so great. But Markham thinks we might see some small rise in lake levels here, though it won't be significant.
- Wed, 4/30/2003
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"It's generally believed that a long, hard winter is good for walleye and perch production." DEC Lake Erie walleye expert Don Einhouse.
The state of Lake Erie is, as ever, under constant change.
That was the main message coming from last week's "state of the lake" panel arranged by Assemblyman Dick Smith, D-Hamburg, and Sea Grant. Speakers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Department of Environmental Conservation and Sea Grant gave lake users their best guess as to what the near future holds.
The news was both good and scary.
For fishermen, the good news is that walleye and perch production is likely to be high this year, although it will be several years before we see those fish being landed as "keepers."
"It's generally believed that a long, hard winter is good for walleye and perch production," said Don Einhouse, the DEC's Lake Erie walleye expert. "That's because a cold spring delays egg laying until later in the season. By then, we start getting a lot of warmer days, so the lake warms quickly and the eggs hatch faster."
While in the egg, walleye and perch are subject to great predation by egg-eaters like round gobies and alewives - as well as being torn from their spawning beds by spring storms - so the faster they hatch, the greater the chance of survival. And the cold winter has also killed off plenty of alewives, Einhouse said, since that invader is at the edge of its possible range.
"A little early to tell - in fact we won't know for a couple of years if this will hold true," he said, but past indications are that it might."
The problem with predictions is that the lake changes too fast.
"The last great hatch year we had, 1984, followed a weather pattern like this one," Einhouse said, "but we didn't have the zebra mussel then, we'd never heard of the round goby."
Those invaders have radically changed the lake, and may be a key in the outbreak of botulism that occurred here last year.
"More than 17,000 birds, in New York waters alone, died of botulism," said Helen Domske of Sea Grant. "Quagga mussels - which are another exotic species that came here in the ballast water of ships - are displacing the zebra mussel and may be the link. They can filter out smaller particles, and are actually capable of filtering out the botulinum organism which is endemic in the lake."
The mussel concentrates these organisms and is, in turn, eaten by the round goby - yet another "exotic" - and the round goby is eaten by bass, sturgeon and sheepshead as well, which are all bottom feeders. The goby is also eaten by fish-eating birds such as loons, mergansers, grebes and old-squaw ducks.
"This could pose a health hazard to fishermen, too," Domske warned. "Botulism makes fish swim funny. They can't swim upright. They may start broaching, head up. If you catch a bass that appears not to be swimming or fighting normally you may not want to eat it. And any fish from Lake Erie ought to be cleaned by filleting, not cutting into the belly, because the botulinum will concentrate in the gut."
That was the bad news.
Those seeking cold-water species, such as trout, got mixed news from Jim Markham of the DEC's Dunkirk station. He noted that, historically, man has been trying to introduce trout and Pacific salmon to Lake Erie since the 1880s, and most plantings simply did not take.
"The one success has been rainbow trout, which were successfully planted in the lake in the 19th and 20th centuries. And more recently steelhead, a near relative, have also been successful," he said.
The king salmon has not prospered, nor has the coho, the most costly fish to rear in a hatchery.
Pennsylvania, with almost no Lake Erie shorefront, will end coho salmon plantings this year, and has capped its steelhead/rainbow stocking at 1 million fish. And Ohio, with even fewer suitable streams, will continue to plant 400,000 steelhead a year.
"They have a booming offshore fishery," Markham said. New York will continue to stream stock about a quarter million steelhead annually. We have stopped trying with other salmonids.
The lake trout - actually a char - was native to the Great Lakes and its recovery to a commercially fishable species was the impetus for forming the Great Lakes Commission between the U.S. and Canada.
New York stocks lakers in Lake Erie, although they have met with mixed natural recovery; but next year the federal hatchery that supplies lake trout will begin planting a different strain - the Klondike strain from Lake Superior, which likes deeper, colder water and spawns there too. The hope is that this strain might do better in terms of natural reproduction.
"We will also continue to stock the Lean Lake strain," said Markham. "That's a somewhat larger fish and it spawns in shallower, warmer waters."
And everyone who uses or lives along the lake wants to know about water levels. The Army Corps of Engineers thinks the lake, which was abnormally low for the last few seasons, is not likely to rise because snowfall in the upper lakes has not been so great. But Markham thinks we might see some small rise in lake levels here, though it won't be significant.
- Wed, 4/30/2003
E-mail this Article
To A Friend
Be A BoatersDream
Contributing Author
Recommended Links
Sell Products without Chargebacks
450 Merchants,save TIME & MONEY
Apply for Online Payday Loans
Hosted Intranet ~ Try it FREE today
Free Online Dating
Add Your Link
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