Plan aims to slow perch stock decline

Spiel · February 15, 2008

Plan aims to slow perch stock decline

Friday, February 15, 2008

Ohio fish managers formally have proposed a reduction from 30 to 25 a day in the sport fishing creel limit for yellow perch in western Lake Erie.

The plan recently was presented to the rules-making Ohio Wildlife Council, which will decide on the rule change on April 2.

Before then the public will have opportunities to comment and testify, respectively, at district wildlife open houses on March 2 and a statewide hearing in Columbus on March 6.

The northwest district open house is at 952 Lima Ave., Findlay. The statewide hearing is at Wildlife District One offices, 1500 Dublin Rd., Columbus. Directions to the open houses can be obtained by calling 1-800-WILDLIFE or online at www.ohiodnr.com.

The proposed creel reduction, the Ohio Division of Wildlife has said, is aimed at easing fishing pressure on the western basin perch stock, which has been in a decline because of low production in several recent year-classes. The creel limit would remain unchanged at 30 a day in waters east of Huron.

Ohio anglers exceeded the western basin catch-quota by about 20 percent in 2007, according to the division, which also is seeking to close the basin this year to commercial trapnetting of perch. Netters took just under their allocation of basin perch in 2007, but sport anglers took well above the sport allotment.

Jeff Tyson, supervisor at the state's Lake Erie Fisheries Research Station at Sandusky, said the proposed net closure is not a part of the OWC proposal because it is being pursued under rules that implement Senate Bill 77.

The bill became law last Oct. 10 and seeks to more strictly monitor and control perch netting in the wake of a lakefront perch industry racketeering scandal revolving around extensive underreporting of commercial perch catches.