PORT CLINTON — There are some Lake Erie walleye fishermen who are determined to display only the poker face. They prefer to keep their emotions a couple of fathoms under the surface and keep their cards close to the vest, while not allowing themselves to get too excited about what could be sitting out there on the horizon.

There are others who have followed the ebb and flow of the walleye population for decades, and when asked about the walleye stockpile they tip their hand ever so slightly, with a wink and a subdued Mona Lisa smile, as if they are losing the battle at keeping their emotions under wraps.

And finally we have anglers like Captain Mike McCroskey. Big Mike, a veteran of decades on the lake, can’t contain himself when the subject turns to the prospects for walleye fishing in 2018 and beyond.

“Lake Erie’s walleye fishery has been reborn,” McCroskey said after a recent outing on the lake in which his clients put a limit of fish in the cooler in around two hours. “We saw it coming last year, with all of those fish that were just under the 15-inch size limit, but they’re 17-inchers or so now, and they are attacking the baits. For walleye fishermen on Lake Erie, this summer will be one to remember.”

Although they do so with less glee and thunder, the biologists who make the study of the lake’s fishery their life’s work agree with that optimistic outlook. They expect the bulk of the 2018 catch will be made up of fish from the strong 2014 and 2015 hatches, with additional harvest coming from the 2010 through 2013 classes, and more than a few trophies from the 2003 and 2007 hatches still prowling the lake.

Travis Hartman, the Lake Erie Program Administrator for the Ohio Division of Wildlife at its Sandusky Fisheries Research Station, said the 2014 and 2015 fish, although some were below the size limit and were released, provided the “highest walleye catch rate ever documented” in the 2017 Lake Erie creel survey. As the next page in the Lake Erie walleye diary is written, Hartman said we could see a more than 40-year-old harvest rate record fall this summer.

“Weather conditions permitting, it would be reasonable to consider that the 2018 season might break our all-time harvest rate record of 0.64 fish per hour that was set back in 1977,” he said.

Bob Barnhart, the owner of Maumee-based tackle supplier Netcraft who fishes Lake Erie both recreationally and in tournaments, said the volume of undersized fish caught and released last season, plus the indications this spring, tell him we likely are on the precipice of another round of walleye boom years.

“I’ve never seen this many fish, and it’s every place you go, from Maumee Bay to Kelleys Island,” Barnhart said, recounting those repeated fish finder images that showed numerous clusters of fish. “And those younger fish that were 14 inches last year — the ones guys were cussing about — well, they’ve all grown to legal size, and there’s a whole bunch of them out there.”

McCroskey said his action-packed spring outings, spent vertically fishing jigs over the reef complexes, have seen walleye from 17 to 22 inches long make up the bulk of the catch.

“It’s like the fish from those recent hatches came from a cookie cutter, since there are so many about the same size, and the whole bottom of the lake seems to be covered with fish, no matter where we stop,” he said. “The best analogy I can come up with is it reminds me of fishing for bluegills in a pond.”

The state biologists say they expect the fish from the 2015 walleye hatch have reached 15 to 20 inches this season, while the walleye hatched in 2014 will likely be in the 16 to 24-inch range. They estimate that the 2014 hatch class accounted for just over half of the 2017 harvest of 1.3 million walleye taken from the Ohio waters of Lake Erie.

Hartman anticipates that the lake’s walleye stock will keep anglers busy, since an average hatch last year has provided Lake Erie with four straight years of average or above average hatches.

“We can expect excellent catch rates to continue a few years down the road, as the 2017 hatch was similar to the 2014 hatch,” Hartman said. “Most walleye anglers won’t catch many of the 2017 fish this year, as they will still be mostly 12 inches and shorter. During the 2019 season, the 2017 fish will get closer 15 inches, but will mostly need to be released.”

He reminds anglers that the best insurance for good walleye stocks down the line is to handle those undersized fish with care, releasing them quickly and gently.

Leaning on history, Barnhart expects those solid hatches in recent years to sustain the fishery for many seasons to come.

“I am certainly no fisheries biologist, but if the numbers are in fact what they claim them to be, the next two to five years will be pretty impressive for the lake,” he said. “Based on what I’ve seen happen with the 1999-year class, the 2003 class and then with 2007 — some of those bumper classes and how they impacted the lake — they really provided a strong fishery for so many years.”

Biologists believe there are still good numbers of fish from the 2003 and 2007 hatches around and those ultra-mature walleye will provide anglers with the opportunity to secure a “Fish Ohio” award, which goes to an angler catching a fish greater than 28 inches in length. The experts add that there are enough big fish in the lake that Ohio’s walleye state record could be eclipsed. The record fish went 16.19 pounds, measured 33 inches, and was caught in Lake Erie in 1999.

Barnhart said that so far this year he has not seen as many of the larger walleye — fish in the 25-inch-plus range — that Lake Erie’s walleye legend has been built on, but that could be because of the overwhelming numbers of fish from those recent hatch classes.

“We have enjoyed the big fish of Lake Erie for a while, and I understand that it’s a cyclical thing, and you gotta have those little fish in order to get big fish,” he said. “And I’m confident there are a lot of fish out there.”

Hartman said that the 2015 class was unique in that conditions throughout the lake were conducive to significant walleye survival rates. He mentioned the incredible 2003 class as producing that same phenomenon.

“Many year classes are only caught in the Western Basin until they mature and start migrating to other areas of the lake during warm summer temperatures,” Hartman said. “We’ve seen evidence of 2015 walleye in all jurisdictions of the lake, including waters east of Ohio. The last time that we saw such widespread distribution of young fish was the 2003 year class.”

For McCroskey and many other Lake Erie walleye theologians, 2018 should be a banner year, and the seasons that follow might raise the bar even higher.

“You’ll have some slow years with the walleye fishing, but the lake comes back. Lake Erie is always taking care of itself,” he said. “I think 2018 has the potential to be the best season we’ve had in 20 years, but give these fish two or three years to grow, and wow, it might be something we can’t imagine.”

The walleye daily bag limit is four per angler in the Ohio waters of Lake Erie through April 30, when that limit increases to six.

Contact Blade outdoors editor Matt Markey at mmarkey@theblade.com or 419-724-6068.

First Published April 13, 2018, 6:00 p.m.