Just as the Toledo Walleye hockey team is ending its first season of regular league play, the Lake Erie walleye are beginning an annual tradition as old as the Maumee River.

This time every year, up to 500,000 of the fish make their way up the largest river flowing into the Great Lakes for the “spring run.” The reproductive ritual is responsible in part for Lake Erie’s claim to fame as the Walleye Capital of the World.

This time of year, the Maumee is the Walleye Capital. Walleye run, or spawn, in other tributaries of the Great Lakes, including the Sandusky River in Fremont, but the Maumee River run is the largest and best known. Thousands of fishermen from throughout the region and beyond begin arriving in Maumee and Perrysburg shortly after the ice is gone to wade into the river after the coveted game fish.

“It’s a spectacle to watch, but it’s not new,” said Mark Plessner, who grew up on the river and has led nature walks for the Metroparks since the early 1990s. “Native Americans harvested fish in the same spots. The fishery has been here as long as the river has.”

Side Cut Metropark in Maumee is one of the most popular spring run fishing destinations. The park provides easy access from West Broadway Street to the prime spawning grounds just below the Jerome Road Rapids.

That’s where the female walleye broadcast thousands of eggs each over the cobblestone on the bottom of the river. The stones provide cover for the eggs so they don’t get washed away before the males arrive to fertilize them.

Catching walleye is all about timing.

“The fish are sensitive to the photo (daylight) period and they actually move into the river when the water reaches 45 degrees,” Plessner said. “So more than anything else you need a thermometer to tell whether or not you’re going to be successful.”

Most fishermen wade just far enough out from shore to get past the brush that can snag their fishing line, or cross a narrow channel to Blue Grass Island, where they can gain access to the larger channel on the island’s south side. Others fish from small boats or from shore.

“The angler, of all the sportsmen, is the most optimistic,” said Plessner. “He’s got on a $100 pair of waders, a $100 stick with a reel on it that probably cost $40-50 and maybe a $50 landing net. He’s just certain he’s going to catch fish.”

In 2009, many of them did just that. Maumee River fishermen reeled in an estimated 57,000 walleye during the run, the most since 1990 and the third most since 1975, according to the ODNR-Division of Wildlife, Sandusky Fish Research Station. The vast majority of the fish were males hatched six years earlier, according to Travis Hartman, a biologist at the research station.

That’s a lot of fish, especially considering that the regulations then, as now, allow each fisherman to keep just four walleye per day in March and April. Regulations also limit the size of fish, legal fishing times and types of lures that can be used.

In addition to water temperature and fishing regulations, anglers also have to contend with the delicate balance of water levels, said Clarence Labiche, of Toledo, who has sold his own brand of fishing lures at Side Cut during the spring run for more than two decades.

“You have to play it by ear,” Labiche said, adding that snowmelt and rain in Indiana can affect river levels more than precipitation here in Toledo.

The height of the river is critical because the water needs to be high enough at the right time to allow the fish to swim upstream, but low enough at other times for fishermen to wade into the river. Last year, Labiche recalled, spring floods swelled the river over its banks and across the road, putting the fishing season on hold until the water receded.

Higher water is needed again after the hatch to wash the young fish, called fry, out into the Maumee Bay because there isn’t enough food in the river to sustain them for more than a few days, Plessner said.

Plessner, a veteran observer of the spring run, offers a few tips to fishermen, from his perspective:

• Be careful, not only on the water, but also along busy West Broadway Street. Heed the warnings of signs that indicate when the water is too high to safely cross to the island.
• Don’t leave fishing line and lures behind. Plessner has photographs of wildlife, including a Canada goose and great blue heron, entangled in discarded fishing line.
• Mind legal fishing hours, sunrise to sunset, and note that the time changes March 14.
• Finally, enjoy the fishing, but also take a moment to enjoy the view. The Maumee is a state scenic river and attracts a wide array of birds and other wildlife. You might even see a bald eagle.

The Metroparks maintains a walleye hot line to keep fishermen posted about current conditions, including river height and water temperature. Call (419) 407-9731 (select option 1).

Scott Carpenter is public relations director for Metroparks. Contact him at scott.carpenter@metroparkstoledo.com. Contact Metroparks at (419) 407-9700.

Tags: Metroparks

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 8:16 am and is filed under Star, Uncategorized.
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