At Pymatuning Lake, hearty walleyes stocked in 2009 are reaching legal size
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Following a change in stocking strategy, a large number of Pymatuning walleyes are expected to come of age in 2012. Above, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission biologist Gary Smith holds a sauger-walleye crossbreed, a saugeye, left, and walleye, right.
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A successful plan is a beautiful thing, especially when the story grows from an apparent failure.
In 2001, electro-fishing surveys conducted by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission charted a disturbing decline in walleye numbers on jointly managed Pymatuning Reservoir. In 2005, surveys counted no walleyes in the lake -- zero -- and anglers reported a catch rate of one for every 30 hours of fishing.
But by 2011, DNR netting surveys showed the walleyes had bounced back to healthy population levels, and those stocked in 2009 were near or over the 15-inch legal size. Angler surveys reported one walleye caught every 1.3 hours -- unofficially some fishermen were boating three per hour.
Biologists in both states predict outstanding walleye fishing at Pymatuning in 2012.
The dramatic changes at the 14,000-acre impoundment are the result of natural cycles and a progressive wildlife management approach on both sides of the state line -- a scientific method in which actions were taken, analyzed, reconsidered and improved until the desired impact was achieved.
Matt Wolfe, a fisheries biologist at Ohio DNR, will explain the Pymatuning walleye recovery and assess this year's fishery at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Allegheny Sport, Travel and Outdoor Show at the Monroeville Convention Center at Monroeville Mall.
"Once we noticed a problem, we realized that in a lake the size of Pymatuning, there was only one thing we could control -- what we were stocking," said Wolfe, who grew up in Jeannette, Westmoreland County, and briefly worked for the Fish and Boat Commission.
With little natural walleye reproduction, in the late 1980s DNR and PFBC began stocking millions of inexpensive and easy-to-raise half-inch walleye fry. A large percentage of vulnerable fry routinely succumb to predation, weather and water conditions, but enough seemed to be surviving until the 2000s.
It's still unclear what changed at Pymatuning resulting in the elimination of an entire year-class of an important predator. Water quality was good and no over-fishing occurred -- suspected causes include unusually high predation, a decline in the health of zooplankton that fry eat, or both.
First Published February 12, 2012 12:00 am
