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New proposal may limit Ohio walleye, yellow perch harvest

By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Wildlife Council is considering changes that would affect Lake Erie walleye, yellow perch and crappies in 44 inland lakes, and Ohio River catfish, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), Division of Wildlife.
The proposed change on walleye and yellow perch involves timing, said Scott Hale, inland fisheries program administrator with the ODNR Division of Wildlife.

At present daily limits for those fish are set in the fall because of the rule and regulation schedule and because of the printing schedule for the Fish and Wildlife Digest which is published at the beginning of the new fishing season beginning March 1 of each year.

“The problem is that the biological and the scientific information that it takes to determine what those daily limits should look like isn’t completed until later in the year,” Hale said.

Lake Erie is a shared resource between the State of Ohio, the Provence of Ontario and to a lesser extent Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania, Hale said. Each of those groups has an allocation of the total number of fish available based on information that biologists collect throughout the lake.

“It is a complicated process,” Hale said. “It allows us to prevent the lake from being overharvested.”

If the proposed changes take place the new regulations wouldn’t go into effect until May 1. The information would be passed on to anglers by various means including press releases, the Internet, signage and the like, Hale said.

Another proposed change is to add 38 lakes to the current list of six lakes which have a minimum nine-inch size limit on crappies. The proposal would also include setting a bag limit of 30 crappies on all lakes with the nine-inch limits.

Alum Creek, Caesar Creek, Deer Creek, Seneca and Tappan Lakes have had the nine-inch limit since 2001; Delaware Reservoir has had the limit since 1997. Catches from these lakes indicated the number of large crappies has increased and both black and white crappies have maintained good growth rates.

“It has been tremendously popular with fisherman,” Hale said of the length limits. “We did an online survey in 2008 and that indicated that 71 percent of reservoir anglers and 81 percent of anglers on reservoirs fishing specifically for crappie supported the idea of nine-inch length limits.”

The 38 new reservoirs are: Acton, Atwood, Berlin, Buckeye, C.J. Brown, Clear Fork, Clendening, Dillon, East Fork, Ferguson, Grand Lake St, Marys, Griggs, Hargus, Hoover, Indian, Kiser, Knox, Loramie, Milton, Leesville, Madison, Mosquito, Nimisilla, O’Shaughnessy, Portage Lakes: East, Long, North, Turkeyfoot and West, Paint Creek, Piedmont, Pleasant Hill, Rocky Fork, Rush Creek, Salt Fork, Springfield, Veterans Memorial and West Branch.
The third proposed change is the extension of statewide catfish regulations to include the Ohio River, Hale said. “What we want to do is protect some of those larger, older catfish,” he said.

“We already have regulations in place on inland water, except the Ohio River, that limit people to one channel cat of 28 inches or larger or one flathead catfish of 35 inches or larger or one blue catfish of 35 inches or larger. All we’re doing here is extending that to the Ohio River.”

A statewide hearing on all the proposed rules will be held at 9 a.m. on Thursday, September 10 at the wildlife division’s District One Office at 1500 Dublin Road in Columbus. After considering public input the Ohio Wildlife Council will vote on the proposed rules during its Oct. 7 meeting.

For more information visit the ODNR website www.ohiodnr.com

9/2/2009