PUT-IN-BAY, Ohio — Walleye fishing appears headed for another banner year following a record hatch in 2021 while the state’s boating industry is one of the few until recently that had fared well during the coronavirus pandemic, the Ohio Lake Erie Commission learned in an update Wednesday.
The commission, which coordinates Ohio’s Lake Erie programs, held its quarterly meeting on South Bass Island at the Aquatic Visitors Center before heading next door for a tour of the Put-in-Bay research facility that Ohio State University’s Stone Laboratory uses in tandem with one on five-acre Gibraltar Island nearby.
Travis Hartman, Lake Erie fisheries program administrator, began the presentations with a graph showing the 76 million walleye that are believed to populate Lake Erie in 2022 are nearly eight times the lake’s estimated population of 10 million walleye in 1978.
For the past four years, walleye fishing has been even better than it was during the heyday of the 1980s, an era which fishery experts have long considered “the gold standard,” he said.
“Right now, we're in some incredible walleye fishing times,” Mr. Hartman said. “We’re catching walleye at historic rates.”
He said there are no plans, however, to increase the daily catch limit of six walleye.
“We’re in a six-limit for a long time to come,” Mr. Hartman said. “There’s not a need to harvest more fish. We’re very comfortable where we are.”
The same can’t be said for yellow perch, which are holding stable in the lake’s western basin but whose numbers have plummeted in the central and eastern basins, he said.
“They don’t migrate much,” Mr. Hartman said. “Anglers are struggling to catch perch.”
The lake commission also heard from Michelle Burke, Lake Erie Marine Trades Association president, about how the coronavirus pandemic resulted in strong boat sales until recently.
In 2020 and again in 2021, people rediscovered nature when there was limited access to movie theaters, festivals, and other large gatherings, such as concerts. Boating followed the trend of nature trails in terms of picking up the slack, helping the industry achieve its objective of trying to bring more young people into boating, she said.
“Who would have thought a pandemic would be the best thing to happen to the boating industry?” Ms. Burke asked. “Boat sales had their highest-unit growth in 13 years last year.”
Boat registrations grew to 631,000 in 2021, bringing Ohio into sixth-place nationally, she said.
About a third of Ohio’s registered boaters say they boat primarily on Lake Erie, Ms. Burke said.
But dealers are now having problems with supply chain issues. After an initial buying frenzy that “cleared out showrooms,” many dealers are now having trouble getting boats to sell, she said.
Sales this year won’t be as impressive as the last two for that reason. Another is rising gasoline prices, Ms. Burke said.
Nonetheless, the Ohio boating industry “does remain vibrant,” she said.
“Clearly, the lake is a tourist mecca,” Ms. Burke said.
Also on Wednesday, the commission also heard from a Cleveland woman who said she’s been getting more Blacks and other minorities to enjoy Lake Erie and nature in general since creating a nonprofit dedicated to that in 2017.
The commission also heard from Kim Woodford, founder of Cleveland-based Journey on Yonder, or JOY, which has a mission of inspiring more people of color to “have healthy connections with nature that lead to an increase of environmental stewardship.”
It promotes greater minority involvement in Lake Erie recreation and in understanding issues affecting it, as well as nature hikes in woods, urban gardening, and activities that have often been more associated with white people through advertising, she said. “If you don’t see yourself, you won’t go,” Ms. Woodford said of the dearth of advertising showing Black people in nature.
“With Journey on Yonder, I don't have a specific age group I go after because we all need it,” she said.
Ms. Woodford said she has held a variety of activities in the Cleveland area to encourage more minority participation in nature, such as kayaking and swimming events.
“Most importantly, the work I do is in building community,” she said. “If you don't feel like you belong, you won't come back.”
Commission member Crystal Davis, a Black woman from Cleveland and an employee of the Chicago-based Alliance for the Great Lakes, agreed that’s an important point.
“It is important in all of our conversations that we represent the breadth of the people that use the lake,” Ms. Davis said.
Most of the commission’s 13 members attended the meeting.
For years, the Ohio Lake Erie Commission had been comprised of only directors of six state agencies most closely involved in Lake Erie issues, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Ohio Department of Health, the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the Ohio Department of Transportation, and the Ohio Department of Development.
There are now five additional commission members appointed by the governor, and two board members of the Chicago-based Great Lakes Protection Fund who serve as ex-officio members.
First Published June 8, 2022, 9:32 p.m.
