JACK WOLLITZ Erie fishing still rates at top

The evidence is becoming more and more convincing that Lake Erie is a great fishing destination.
That's hardly headline news here in northeastern Ohio. After all, we declared Erie the Walleye Capital of the World in the early 1980s and nobody challenged the title.
Today, the walleyes still are numerous and huge. And the smallmouth bass population is excellent. Perch fishing continues to draw large numbers of anglers to the big lake. In fact, just about every species that swims in Lake Erie is thriving.
Lake Erie most certainly deserves its world-class ranking these days, and anglers around the nation are beginning to notice.
I have a particular interest in the smallies. They are big, beautiful and strong, and I love to catch them on tube jigs out on the wide open expanses of Lake Erie.
One way to judge the bass population is to look at tournament results. In competitive events this year on Lake Erie, the winners' catches are averaging more than four pounds per fish.
Relatively common
Five-pounders are relatively common and six-pounders are seen at each weigh-in. Three-pounders are welcome, but are quickly culled once tourney anglers reach their limits.
Those kinds of numbers tend to pique anglers' interests. Ask most any serious bass angler anywhere in the U.S. about top smallmouth waters and they most likely will include Lake Erie in their top three.
All of this success is not to be taken for granted. Any fishery is fragile, subject to exploitation by overfishing - or more appropriately, overharvest.
Ohio fisheries managers have recognized the possibility that Lake Erie's walleyes, smallmouth bass and yellow perch may be overfished. The limit on perch, for example, was designed to protect the fish from meat fishermen intent on filling the freezers of all their relatives.
Now the Ohio Department of Natural Resources is proposing regulations that would limit the walleye and bass harvest. A closed season has been recommended for smallmouth bass, to prevent large numbers of male bass from being caught off the nests, where they guard eggs and fry from predation by such species as the round goby.
Anglers need to give such measures a try. Tournament anglers may not like the fact that competitive events may not be permitted in May and early June, but the benefit will be in the number of successful spawns in the future.
Recreational, catch-and-release fishing will not be affected, so anglers can continue to enjoy the action during the spring.
Significant expansion
And as more is learned about how to catch walleyes and smallmouth bass in July, August and beyond, the season has been significantly expanded.
It used to be that bass anglers pretty much stopped targeting smallies after they moved off the spawning reefs and flats. But today we know how to catch them on the little humps and breaks and other off-shore structure. So if we miss a few weeks in the spring, we still can get out there for deep-water fishing.
Lake Erie fishing is precious enough that we need to be open-minded when it comes to protecting it.
We need to let Ohio's fisheries bosses do their thing in terms of regulating the harvest, so we can continue to our thing with our favorite species.
jwwollitz@aol.com