{"id":67588,"date":"2025-12-22T15:25:58","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T15:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67588\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T15:25:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T15:25:58","slug":"lake-eries-massive-walleye-hatch-this-year-promises-excellent-future-fishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67588\/","title":{"rendered":"Lake Erie\u2019s Massive Walleye Hatch This Year Promises Excellent Future Fishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lake Erie has been a top walleye fishing \u201cgo to\u201d spot<\/a> for many years. And a recent Ohio trawl survey of fingerling fish shows why Lake Erie walleye fishing will continue to be outstanding for years to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cErie\u2019s spring walleye hatch seems to get better every year,\u201d Ohio\u2019s Lake Erie Fisheries Administrator Travis Hartman tells Wired2fish. \u201cEight of the last 11 years Erie has had great walleye hatches during the spring spawn. Every year there seems to be more fish and they get bigger, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ohio trawl survey targets small 3- to 4-inch-long walleye fingerlings to learn how good the spring spawn was on Erie. Hartman says the fish spawn in March and April and the trawl survey<\/a> is done in August. Fingerlings are young-of-the-year walleyes that grow to catchable 15-inch size in about two years.<\/p>\n

\"Lake\"LakeLake Erie\u2019s 2025 Trawl Survey results. Courtesy Ohio Department of Natural Resources<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year\u2019s hatch is the 6th largest we\u2019ve recorded in the 38 years that we\u2019ve run the trawl survey,\u201d says Hartman, a 22-year veteran with the Ohio DNR. \u201cThe lake has a superb food chain base, with lots of zooplankton for walleye larva and fry to feast on.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs they grow, Erie\u2019s mixed forage base of emerald shiners, rainbow smelt and gizzard shad ensures they get big, and fast. There are lots of heavy walleyes in Erie now because the lake is in such excellent condition, with lots of forage and good water quality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most recent trawl survey done in the western Ohio basin of Erie showed there are 128 fingerling walleyes per 2.5 acres of water. That\u2019s more than double the average of 57 fish usually caught in Erie trawl surveys.<\/p>\n

Historically the western basin of Lake Erie is the most productive area for walleye spawning. Through the year fish scatter to the central basin of the lake. But Hartman says in recent years spawning in other regions of Erie has gotten better, with the central basin area now contributing to good fish reproduction, too.<\/p>\n

\"Lake\"LakeThe Lake Erie Trawl Index results. Courtesy Ohio Department of Natural Resources<\/p>\n

The most recent trawl survey also showed a good yellow perch<\/a> hatch, which should spell great Erie perch fishing in the future, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cLake Erie is in an outstanding place now, with lots of walleyes and plenty of forage for them in the food chain,\u201d Hartman continues. \u201cIt\u2019s a lake-wide story, with walleye stocks growing throughout the fishery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great time for walleyes in Lake Erie, and the lake has well-earned its title of \u2018Walleye Fishing Capital of the World\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Bob\"Bob<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBob McNally<\/a><\/p>\n

Bob McNally has been around fishing and the outdoors all his adult life. He has fished throughout the much of the world pursuing the globe’s important gamefish. He’s written over 5,000 feature magazine articles, and for many years also was a full-time metropolitan newspaper outdoor writer, and is the author of 11 outdoor books. His writing, broadcast and photography work have won dozens of state, regional and national awards. For years he hosted a daily syndicated fishing radio show, and was a weekly on-camera host of a fishing TV show for Fox Sports Outdoors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lake Erie has been a top walleye fishing \u201cgo to\u201d spot for many years. And a recent Ohio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-67588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-erie","9":"tag-erie-headlines","10":"tag-erie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67588","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=67588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}