Live emerald shiners the most important bait in catching yellow perch

[Spiel]

Live emerald shiners the most important bait in catching yellow perch

 

Outfish biodegradable, rubberish artificial shiner imitations packed in stinky liquid

 

 

January 4, 2010 / www.great-lakes.org

 

 

Recently, when yellow perch fishermen have stopped by their favorite bait shop on the way out for a day on Lake Erie, they’ve discovered a “Sold Out” sign over the tank of emerald shiners—the preferred bait fish for yellow perch. The shortage is directly related to the arrival and spread of the fish disease viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) in the Great Lakes region since 2006. The federal government and various state governments have issued restrictions to limit the transport of susceptible fish, making it illegal to move some bait fish across state lines, privately or commercially, even within the same body of water.

 

Since most bait fish sold in Ohio have traditionally come from commercial trappers in New York, shortages of live emerald shiners have hit Ohio fishermen, as well as fishing businesses, hard. Those businesses have started trapping the shiners themselves in an attempt to relieve the market stress, but fishermen have also started to get more creative.

 

“Some anglers, when there’s a shortage, switch to artificial shiner imitations,” says Curt Wagner, Biologist for the Ohio DNR, and member of the Ohio Chapter of the American Fisheries Society (OCAFS). “Particularly popular are biodegradable, rubberish bait packed in this stinky liquid. It’s supposed to have the look, the scent, and the appeal of the real thing for yellow perch.” However, no one was sure that the artificial baits were as effective as the real thing, so Wagner put together a study for OCAFS members during their annual summer meeting. Since the meeting was to be held at Stone Laboratory, he applied for and received grant funding from Ohio Sea Grant for NOAA shiptime aboard the Gibraltar III research boat.

 

The weekend of the OCAFS meeting, 13 anglers set out to a spot between Lake Erie’s Rattlesnake and Middle Bass islands, prepared to test four different types of emerald shiner baits: live, frozen, brine preserved, and artificial. “In advance, we assigned a random rotation of bait types so that each angler fished each of the four baits for 30 minutes and not everyone was fishing the same bait at the same time,” Wagner explains. “We would blow a whistle and everyone would switch to a different bait type. We wanted to get a fair, side-byside comparison.”

 

Using identical fishing rigs, each participant was instructed to fish all four baits the same way, letting it go all the way to the lake floor, then cranking it up one or two times to get it a little bit off the bottom.

 

Their findings were surprising: out of a total of 59 perch caught within the two-hour timeframe, 27 were caught using live bait, 18 on frozen shiners, 14 on brine-preserved shiners, and none on artificial. From a management perspective, the data indicate a potential need for Ohio businesses to begin to cultivate emerald shiners to keep up with demand. However, Eugene Braig, assistant Director of Ohio Sea Grant who took part in the study, believes that anglers should simply start planning ahead for their bait needs.

 

“Emerald shiners are available in Ohio waters in the spring each year, so it may be a good idea to stock up early in the season and preserve them so you have enough to get you through fall,” Braig says

[EC1]

This is kind of biased. Everyone knows that artificials need to be twitched, jigged, and not stationary the whole time!

 

In order for this info to be accurate, how about someone actually be put there to jig for 2 hours?

[irishfield]

Did the live bait license'e pay for that study! lol

[Terry]

Did the live bait license'e pay for that study! lol

 

you think

[fishboy]

I've never needed live emeralds...just a piece of one on the good ol' jigging rap-have never even needed to bother with a second rod