It appears the spring walleye run is in full swing from the posts and pictures from along the Maumee River and other rivers that are appearing on social media.

This is a great time of year once the weather breaks.

Ex­cept that it didn’t stay clear last Sun­day af­ter­noon when my son and I wanted to head down to the Maumee River. The wind was still whip­ping up and spray­ing a mist. I’m sure that’s OK with some, but not with this guy, es­pe­cially when I have to be up at 2:30 a.m. for one of my other con­cerns. And it could get dicey if I had to clean fish on top of it.

I just en­coun­tered this a cou­ple of week­ends ago when I vol­un­teered to take in the rab­bits the party shot and it took lon­ger than I thought to pro­cess them. The meat, how­ever, was greatly ap­pre­ci­ated.

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Regard­less, there is so much to do it can be hard to choose from, and there is a ten­dency to do it all! Well, no.

But what I al­ways get ex­cited for this time of year is the spring tur­key sea­son. I know one reader last year who was on me be­cause in his eyes, all I wrote about was “tur­key, tur­key, tur­key.” Maybe there was a lit­tle of that.

A post on one of the wall­eye run Face­book group feeds was by an out-of-towner say­ing he had a good time, caught some fish, and saw plenty of lim­its be­ing pa­raded about on string­ers, but was dis­ap­pointed in how many fouled-caught fish were be­ing kept by an­glers.

Whereas it could be an­other ex­am­ple of a Don­nie Downer and the like try­ing to take a shot at what is oth­er­wise a great event for north­west Ohio, I thought I would pur­sue the sub­ject fur­ther with the Divi­sion of Wild­life.

Sarah Schott, Ohio Divi­sion of Wild­life com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist, said that it is likely that il­le­gally snagged fish have been caught and kept.

“With in­creased op­por­tu­nity, there is al­ways the chance that there will be more il­le­gal ac­tiv­ity,” she said to me in an email on Tues­day. “Hence, why en­force­ment is in­creased in these par­tic­u­lar ar­eas dur­ing this time of year. Snag­ging is a com­mon vi­o­la­tion this time of year that our wild­life of­fi­cers are on the look­out for. How­ever, they can­not be in ev­ery place at one time, which is why we have the Turn in a Poacher [TIP] pro­gram. An­glers can re­port il­le­gal wild­life ac­tiv­ity by call­ing 1-800-POACHER or sub­mit­ting an on­line form. TIPS can re­main anon­y­mous.”

It may worth noting that keeping a snagged walleye is a misdemeanor of the fourth degree with a maximum fine of $250 but it is dependent on the court and other considerations, such as if any previous violations have been committed by the accused, she added. The definition for snagging can be found on page 17 in the fishing regulations at bit.ly/43U4Czi.

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As far as whether there have been more snagging violations currently, Schott said it would be difficult to say since the walleye run has just started and comparative numbers (to other years) won’t be available until the walleye run has concluded.

“I think a safe, general statement would be that the amount of snagged walleye is likely similar to past years,” she said. “The individual who made the Facebook post may have just been in the right place to observe multiple violations, which is definitely one of the reasons we stress that folks call us to report potential violations.”

AND BELIEVE it or not, it’s time for the Lake Erie Walleye Trail tour to begin its 2025 season.

The first event is Magee East at Oak Harbor, Ohio, on Sunday, but there are some challenges as to whether they will get this one in based on typical weather issues.

“Weather is up and down as it always is late March and April,” said LEWT director Jason Fischer in a Facebook post on Thursday.

He was hopeful there would be a window either Saturday or Sunday, which was the first blow day. The southwest winds — 40-plus mph Friday night into Saturday — and then shifting northwest back to south were one obstacle but the biggest was the low water levels in Turtle Creek. All of the water was being pushed out of the lake to the west, Fisher said.

“Turtle Creek is shallow. Period,” he stressed. But he was upbeat the water level would return by Sunday, so the tournament was moved to Sunday.

If they don’t get to fish this weekend, the next blow dates are for March 29 and 30.

With that being said, he was allowing competitors to launch from alternative sites as long as they took off from the mouth of the Turtle Creek and came back to weigh in there as well.

The first of two flights of 64 teams depart at 7:30 a.m. with the weigh in at 3:30 p.m. There are no fishing boundaries.

IN OTHER fishing news, Wildlife law enforcement recently closed two Lake Erie cases from Erie County in Huron Municipal Court that involved 10 anglers caught double tripping in December.

Double tripping is going on multiple trips in order to take walleye over the six-fish daily limit.

In the first party, the four anglers were from Paulding and Montgomery counties. Each were fined $210 and court costs and surrendered 15 fish to the ODNR. With the second group, the six were from Michigan. They were fined $310 and court costs and gave up 22 walleye.

The incidents occurred at the Huron Fishing Access Boat Launch.

THE DIVISION of Wildlife is reminding hunters and anglers of special spring 2025 trout fishing dates and wild turkey hunts. It costs $3 to apply for the lottery draws, which can be done online through the Ohio Wildlife Licensing System or with the HuntFish OH mobile app.

And as I have mentioned previously, as well as the ODNR, you will need all licenses and permits before you apply.

The closer wild turkey hunts to northwest Ohio are at Killdeer Plains (Wyandot County) and Lake La Su An (Williams County).

For the trout, Cold Creek in Erie County is available to apply for and “the stream is one of Ohio’s most productive and unique waterways.” The section of creek is located just down from the Castalia State Fish Hatchery for dates between May 5 and Nov. 28.

More information on these is available at wildohio.gov. The drawings are open until March 31.

EARLIER LAST week the Division of Wildlife verified that a deer taken by hunter in Morrow County during the 2024-25 season tested positive for chronic wasting disease, or CWD, which was the first time a deer was found there with CWD, according to an ODNR news release.

CWD is a fatal neurological disease that affects deer and other cervids by misfolded proteins called prions that damages their brains and spine and leads to death. There is no cure. It is contagious to other deer and spread through bodily fluids. Some of the symptoms they exhibit are a loss of fear to humans, extreme thirst and weight loss, and confusion. There is no evidence of humans contracting it from deer, but health officials warn against consuming venison from infected deer.

In all, including the Morrow County deer, there were 24 that tested positive last season out of 5,783 that were examined.

As I reported in a March 2 column, this resulted in the Disease Surveillance Area being expanded in the recommendations by wildlife officials to the Ohio Wildlife Council as well as the proposed limit for antlerless deer on public land for the 2025-26 deer season.

“The expansion of the Disease Surveillance Area is a way to inform hunters of where the disease exists and ensure that we collect adequate samples in those surrounding areas to determine disease prevalence and better inform hunters of the likelihood of encountering/harvesting a CWD-positive deer,” said Clint McCoy, Division of Wildlife deer biologist, in a previous email to me. The DSA includes longer seasons that start sooner than the standard ones.

For instance the archery season that would normally open Sept. 27 instead gets under way Sept. 13 in the DSA, which also has an early firearms season from Oct. 11 to Oct. 13. There is a CWD online dashboard that shows where deer have tested positive from this season and in the past. Go to https://bit.ly/4bmwZYs.

First Published March 23, 2025, 12:54 p.m.