Uh, they are native to Lake Erie, why would it be a hoax????

 

That was not a picture from Maumee River...

 

Where did you get info that they are native to lake erie?

 

I think they are in the Ohio river. Not sure about Erie and the maumee....

 

As a life long resident of Toledo, I have never seen any credible evidence of paddle fish in the area.

 

From the ODNR web site:

Historically they were much more common and could be found as far up the Ohio River as Pennsylvania. It is also probable that there was a small population in Lake Erie at one time. Today paddlefish are most common it the Ohio River from Portsmouth downstream to the Indiana state line.

 

My cousin landed a paddlefish out of Deer Creek about 15 years ago. We were fishing for sauger and he snagged it in the bill with a leadhead. Freaky thing...probably about 15# or so.

 

Saw a thread about a saugeye out of the Maumee

 

Yup there in there

 

There was a thread on here last night about a potential paddlefish caught from the Maumee over the weekend. Where did the thread go?

The author removed the picture... most likely a hoax... the thread served no purpose.

 

This is also on the ODNR site in the species guide index under reproduction.......

Saugeye are created by crossing walleye eggs with sperm from a sauger. The result is a fast growing fish that has excellent survival abilities. This also makes it ideal for stocking into Ohio reservoirs. Occasionally this hybrid naturally occurs where both parent species are found but it is rare. A small percentage of saugeye can reproduce and will do so with one another or either parent species if they are present in the same water body. Walleye, sauger and saugeye scatter their eggs over a hard bottom and provide no parental care for the young.

 

And this is what I was getting at. Probably 10 years ago my father in Law and I were at Orleans Park near the end of the run. We had already hit a quick limit of Eyes at Buttonwood and he hates crowds, so we went down there to get some whitebass. Straight out from the boat ramp I caught what at the time I thought was the weirdest looking walleye ever. He said it looked sick, being that it was only around 12-13 inches. Looking back now, I'm fairly sure it was a Sauger. Come to find out, there is still a small population of them in the Lake. I wish like hell I had a pic of it

 

The truth is the Odnr is pretty tight lipped about this phenomenon, a couple of fish in question were identified as Saugeye, but could have been misidentified. I would call the district office to get it straight from the horses mouth...

 

My grandfather caught a sauger from Lake Erie, about a 4 pounder, many years ago. And Google it about the paddlefish, even though they are rare now, they used to be in Erie.

 

I've caught saugeye at independence dam near defiance, they have always had the definite characteristics of a saugeye.

 

I thought the DNR confirmed saugeye in the Maumee a couple years ago? They claimed these fish escaped the hatchery by Grand Lake St. Mary's. That's the "walleye" everyone was catching at providence and independence dam a couple years back.

 

This is what I heard as well.

 

Ditto the prior 2. I caught a heck of a few 2 yrs ago. Very few the next yr & only 1 last yr. Shows how they reproduce not.

 

Thanks gents, we know about saugfish..