{"id":249208,"date":"2026-07-22T10:27:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/249208\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T10:27:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:27:06","slug":"unique-year-for-lake-erie-walleye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/249208\/","title":{"rendered":"Unique year for Lake Erie walleye"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>People come from all over Ohio and the world to fish Lake Erie. Locals know that walleye are more abundant this year than any fisherman can remember in a long time. Soon, anglers from elsewhere will catch wind that walleye are biting more and flock to the shores of Lorain, Erie and Huron counties.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver the years I\u2019ve had men and women come from New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Sweden and more places to fish our Great Lake,\u201d said Captain Ed Abel who owns <a href=\"https:\/\/abelstightlinecharters.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Abel\u2019s Tight-Line Charters,<\/a> based out of Lorain for 42 years. Abel is seeing a lot more anglers from all over Ohio and Canada having fun trying to tame Lake Erie while taking home quite a catch, but this summer the lake is extra busy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDue to warmer and longer falls in recent years you can usually fish much later into the season, if ice doesn\u2019t form early and it hasn\u2019t,\u201d the seasoned mariner said. \u201cThe biggest mayfly hatch in years has also helped with more walleye.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWalleye season used to slow down by mid-August around 10 years ago, but now the fishing season has recently been going until Christmas with the lake temperatures trending warmer much, much longer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Astonishing<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLake Erie\u2019s walleye production is way, way, way more than ever,\u201d said Grafton resident Dave Kelch, retired associate professor at Ohio State University who spent his career researching Lake Erie for the <a href=\"https:\/\/ohioseagrant.osu.edu\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ohio State University Sea Grant Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe amount of fish that spawn in the spring in the Western Basin of Lake Erie around Maumee Bay has been astonishing,\u201d Kelch added. \u201cAs the water temperature warms, schools of walleye head to Vermilion and Lorain creating great fishing, then onto Pennsylvania and New York.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs Lake Erie gets warmer earlier and stays warmer longer, more fish spawn, therefore more fish are hatching than ever, year after year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Drone fishing catching on<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019ve seen mysterious bright muti-colored blinking lights hovering low over the water not far from shore, it\u2019s called drone fishing and it\u2019s catching on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnglers tie their fishing line to the drone, fly it over the water, drop bait and fish are drawn to the glistening lights,\u201d Abel said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDrone fishing on Lake Erie is just another piece of equipment to catch fish and it\u2019s quite creative,\u201d Kelch said.<\/p>\n<p>As a retired professor and nationally respected researcher Kelch said he had an, \u201cIncredibly rewarding career on Lake Erie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What does Kelch do these days? \u201cI fish and hunt, then I fish and hunt, then I fish and hunt some more,\u201d Kelch said, smiling and laughing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People come from all over Ohio and the world to fish Lake Erie. Locals know that walleye are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[106619,106618,106620,136,138,137,92572,106622,106616,106621,106617],"class_list":["post-249208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-abundance-of-walleye","tag-captain-ed-abel-who-owns-abels-tight-line-charters","tag-dave-kelch","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-great-lake","tag-lake-erie-for-the-ohio-state-university-sea-grant-program","tag-lake-erie-walleye","tag-retired-associate-professor-at-ohio-state-university","tag-walleye-fishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}