Daily creel limit for perch expected to be down to 25

[Spiel]

Daily creel limit for perch expected to be down to 25

 

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Steve Pollick / toledoblade.com

 

OHIO - Expect to see commercial fishing nets in the western basin of Lake Erie this summer, but they will not be landing yellow perch.

 

And expect to see the daily sport angler creel limit on perch there to drop from 30 to 25, as forecast, come July 1.

 

Those changes, under discussion among state fisheries managers since at least January, appear likely now that the Lake Erie Committee of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission formally has lowered the lakewide allowable catch for 2008. The committee significantly lowered the lakewide walleye take as well, though that action is not likely to affect sport limits this year.

 

The lowered allowances for both species are responses to poor walleye and yellow perch year-classes in 2002, 2004, and 2006, and a below-average class in 2007, all of which translates into declining stocks and increasing anxiety over the need for good hatches this year.

 

"Commercial fishermen still can net white perch, white bass, channel catfish, and carp," noted Jeff Tyson, supervisor of Lake Erie fish management and research for the Ohio Division of Wildlife. "But they will not be able to land [yellow] perch."

 

The commercial fishing season for yellow perch opens May 1 on the lake, and Tyson said that the division intends to follow what is known as Policy 2 under increased authority and control over netters granted by Senate Bill 77, which was passed last fall.

 

The state annually receives catch-quotas on yellow perch and walleye, which represents its share of the available stocks, as set by cooperative agreement under the GLFC. Policy 2 in turn dictates that first priority in the catch-quota goes to the sport fishery, and if there is a forecast surplus, then it is assigned to the commercial fishery. No commercial taking of walleye has been allowed in Ohio waters of the lake for some 25 years, since deadly gillnets were banned here.

 

The state's annual catch-quota is further subdivided by basin, with the western basin - the center for most sportfishing activity - allotted just 700,000 pounds for yellow perch. A year ago sport anglers and netters combined to take 980,000 pounds of perch from the basin, some 20 percent over the quota of 833,000 pounds. Sport anglers alone took more than 800,000 pounds of the total.

 

Lakewide the perch allocation by the GLFC was reduced from 11.39 million pounds in 2007 to 10.16 million pounds this year. An area-based sharing formula gives Ohio about 4.39 million pounds and Ontario 4.861 million pounds, with the rest split among the other three states.

 

The lakewide allowance compares to an actual landing of about 9.69 million pounds a year ago.

 

Failure to do something about adhering to quotas could lead to a fishing war with Ontario, the other major player in the lake fisheries and which is ruled by a large fleet of commercial netters and a relative dearth of sport anglers. The province, plus Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York, all sit on the GLFC and its lake committee.

 

Given such realities, the Ohio Division of Wildlife's fisheries managers have been scrambling when it came to setting sport-catch rules for 2008.

 

Tyson noted that the existing lakewide 30-perch daily limit is forecast to land 750,000 to 800,000 pounds of perch in the western basin, well in excess of the quota. Which is why the Ohio Wildlife Council is likely to approve the 25-limit on April 2, with an effective date of July 1 - well in time for the big late-summer and fall perching season, and why the few trapnetters allowed to take perch in the basin will have to shift their fishing to waters east of Huron.

 

The central basin perch stock and quota typically can withstand the shift in pressure.

 

On the walleye front, Tyson is forecasting that Ohio anglers will take about 1.4 million fish, well below the 2007 catch of 2.1 million. The reduction reflects the fact that the fishery has been living off the 2003 mega-class, and it grows smaller by the year because of natural mortality and fishing.

 

This year's 2003 fish should be dandies -20 to 24-inchers. But Tyson said, fish "tend to move east" as the post-spawning season progresses. "If it stays cool this summer in the west end, those fish will stay here and we'll likely be pushing right against the quota." That is almost 1.85 million walleye for Ohio out of a lakewide allowance of almost 3.6 million. The lakewide allowance in 2007 was 5.36 million and the actual harvest was almost 4.49 million.

 

Tyson said he could not yet predict what may happen with sport limits on walleye for 2009. But it is clear the fishery is declining and in need of another solid year-class this year. But even then, 2008 fish will not enter the catchable stock at 15 inches until 2010.

 

Hovering in the background on both the yellow perch and walleye stocks is the million-dollar question over the degree of impact of fishing on the stocks. That is, whether fishing, even under quotas, simply crops off surplus stock that would die naturally anyway, or whether it eats into the meat of a stock's productive potential.

 

"There is a big debate in the fisheries community over whether fishing is compensatory [cropping surplus] or additive [eating up principal]," said Tyson. "We're operating on the assumption that it's both, because it hasn't been resolved."

[Greencoachdog]

That's a good thing! 25 12" Perch is enough to feed most families. They will just have to be more selective in size, and I think that's what the DNR is shootin' for.

[Whopper]

That's a good thing! 25 12" Perch is enough to feed most families. They will just have to be more selective in size, and I think that's what the DNR is shootin' for.

Couldn't agree with you more Glen, I just wish they would put posession limits on the perch and walleye.