When there is a mystery that needs to be solved, you go to an expert.
With thousands of dead sheepshead (freshwater drum) washing up and fouling the beaches of western Lake Erie in recent weeks, anglers were looking for an explanation as to why, and Travis Hartman, the Lake Erie Fisheries Program Administrator for the Ohio Division of Wildlife, is the person with the answer.
He said the culprit in the large fish kill of drum is viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHS), a disease historically associated with rainbow trout farms in Europe and first detected in Great Lakes freshwater fish in 2005.
“My opinion is that we spent an extended period of time with the water temperature in the 40s, and that’s the most active period for the virus,” Hartman said. “We had also likely hit a point where too much of the drum population is susceptible, compared to a decade ago when most were probably resistant. This was probably the perfect storm of lots of susceptible fish and too long of a window, which led to high mortality.”
Hartman said that with the persistent northeast wind over the past few weeks, many of these dead drum have been pushed into the shoreline, making for a nasty-smelling mess in some areas.
“Most of the dead drum that we are seeing are mature adult fish and many of these fish are long-dead,” he said. “The good news is that I don’t believe many newly dead fish are showing up. We should be in the clear in the western basin soon.”
Hartman said that theories that the waves of dead drum were cast off by commercial netting operations, or the result of recreational walleye fishermen discarding their by-catch, do not hold up. He said the Ohio trap net industry harvested more than 600,000 pounds of drum last year.
“The reality is that most trap netters harvest their adult drum, especially the nearshore white bass/white perch nets that many anglers see in the western basin off of Cedar Point, Catawba, Port Clinton, and Metzger Marsh. If they are catching adult drum, they are being harvested, not released.”
He added that 2022 creel surveys indicate that anglers released 950,000 drum last year and if these releases were creating large fish kills, the dead drum would show up in numbers in June and July, when recreational fishing peaks.
“Drum die in April and early May when the water temperature is in the 40s or low 50s when VHS is active,” he said. “They sit on the bottom until it warms up enough to cause them to bloat and float, or fully decay on the bottom, and then we see the ones that float from mid-May through early June. While the timing and numbers are a little different each spring, it’s something that we’ve seen since the first big die-offs in 2006 and 2007.”
■ Lake Erie: A stout northeast wind provided tough conditions for anglers during at least part of the recent holiday weekend, but by early in the week good concentrations of walleye were found on a line between the tip of Catawba Island and West Sister Island, due north of the city of Port Clinton. Trollers were taking limit catches on Bandits, Smithwick Perfect 10s, and Moonshine spoons.
■ Maumee River: Resident fishing guru and river watcher Joe Roecklein reports that the white bass run tapered off quickly and the fishing pressure is very light these days. Shifting into summer mode, the waterway belongs to catfish hunters and light tackle artists targeting smallmouth bass.
■ Sandusky River: It’s about five minutes until midnight for the white bass run, with a few fish still being taken in the upper parks area and downstream from the city of Fremont, according to Bernie Whitt at Angler’s Supplies bait shop. He expects the next decent rain will send waves of catfish from Sandusky Bay up the river.
First Published May 31, 2023, 2:05 p.m.
