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I attended a meeting for the Western Basin Sportfishing Assoc. earlier this week. A guest speaker, Travis Hartman, Fisheries Biologist, DOW, presented some great information about Erie walleye spawning, life spans, migration, etc.
The hatch for 2003 stills looks like the best in a long time. The current estimated walleye population of 19 million could jump to 70 million in 2005, 2006 when last years hatch reaches a catchable size.
He presented tracking data on the movemants of tagged walleye. This was amazing to me. Tagged walleye from the Maumee and Sandusky rivers have been caught over in NY waters. It is believed that these fish roam far and wide and yet still return to the western basin to spawn. To see the color chart he presented is really the only way to really appreciate this data.
The DOW is now collecting the Otolith from the heads of walleye to better age walleye. The Otolith displays growth rings similar to a tree from each year of growth. This new method is much more accurate for aging fish versus the older scale sample method. A graph was supplied detailing the data from the 2003 PWT harvested walleye. One fact learned is that the walleye live much longer than originally believed in Erie. Walleye to 21 years old were caught. The age per length per gender was also very interesting. If you catch a fish that is much over 25" long the chances are very good that it is a female, the males tend to top out at around 25" on average. A 10 year old male will average 22-23", a 10 year old female will average around 27", a female 29" will be somewhere between 16 -20 years old!
A lotmore great information was presented, just to much to detail here in this post.
Kim
The hatch for 2003 stills looks like the best in a long time. The current estimated walleye population of 19 million could jump to 70 million in 2005, 2006 when last years hatch reaches a catchable size.
He presented tracking data on the movemants of tagged walleye. This was amazing to me. Tagged walleye from the Maumee and Sandusky rivers have been caught over in NY waters. It is believed that these fish roam far and wide and yet still return to the western basin to spawn. To see the color chart he presented is really the only way to really appreciate this data.
The DOW is now collecting the Otolith from the heads of walleye to better age walleye. The Otolith displays growth rings similar to a tree from each year of growth. This new method is much more accurate for aging fish versus the older scale sample method. A graph was supplied detailing the data from the 2003 PWT harvested walleye. One fact learned is that the walleye live much longer than originally believed in Erie. Walleye to 21 years old were caught. The age per length per gender was also very interesting. If you catch a fish that is much over 25" long the chances are very good that it is a female, the males tend to top out at around 25" on average. A 10 year old male will average 22-23", a 10 year old female will average around 27", a female 29" will be somewhere between 16 -20 years old!
A lotmore great information was presented, just to much to detail here in this post.
Kim
I caught her last year in the Ohio Canal. She must have been very old as her color was a milky brown and huge scales, all her teeth had fallen out and her mouth had become very round with rubbery lips. She still had a forked tail. She was 38" long and very heavy. Couldn't weigh her as I forgot my scale. I knew she had to be a walleye as I caught her while dragging an Erie Deary, tipped with a worm, along the bottom. 
