Fishing Limits to Remain the Same for Lake Erie

The Lake Erie walleye and perch population remained strong enough so that no changes were made in the daily fish catch limit.

The daily limit for walleye will remain at 6 from May 1 until February. Until April 30th the limit is 4 per day.

For yellow perch, the limit is 30 per day all year.

Pictured is Ballast Island as seen from the St. Hazards condos. During the spring and summer season many fishermen try their skills to the southeast of this island.

Free boat launching is available at the state marina on Middle Bass starting in April and docking will start May 1st.

Middle Bass Island & Lake Erie Fishing Forecast for 2010

Lake Erie is the largest freshwater commercial fishery in the world. Of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie has just 2% of the total water, but 50% of the fish. This means that Lake Erie has more fish for human consumption than all the four other Great Lakes combined.

The Lake Erie Committee of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (LEL) recently concluded that 2010 will be a good year for walleye fishing. That's because the 2007 class of walleye was better than expected. As a result, fisherman have a summer bag limit of six walleye and a spring spawning season limit of four between March 1 and April 30th.

More than 1 million walleye are expected to be caught by Ohio sport fishermen this year. The LEL gives Ohio fisherman a 1,124,000 quota of walleye for this year.

2003 was the record walleye hatch and those fish will be from 20 to 28 inches this year.

Yellow perch fishing is also expected to rise by more than 9% to more than 13 million pounds. Ohio sport fishermen are expected to catch alomost 3 million pounds of this Lake Erie total. Commercial fishing from Ontario Canada are expected to get almost 6 million pounds.

The Middle Bass marina is scheduled to open May 1 and has free boat launching before then and throughout the season.