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Here's an article from the Belleville Intelligencer regarding the walleye stock in Quinte.
Walleye stocks stable’ in Bay of Quinte
MNR report says population will hover at 400,000 until at least 2008
By Derek Baldwin
Local News - Wednesday, April 12, 2006 @ 10:00
A new Ministry of Natural Resources report released Tuesday says walleye stocks the most important recreational and commercial fishery in the Bay of Quinte have stabilized and “appear healthy.”
After years of dire warnings by a variety of sources for the future of the multi-million dollar walleye fishery, the ministry’s 2005 annual report of the Lake Ontario Management Unit in Glenora says the population appears to have levelled off.
“While abundance remains considerably lower than during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the walleye population has now been relatively stable since 2001,” the report states.
Healthy reproduction years in 2003 and 2004 of young juveniles has created a strong population, contrary to predictions in 2002 that the walleye population might crash if it fell below roughly 165,000 fish.
Four years ago, fears of a crash led to talk by the ministry for a possible moratorium on walleye fishing, prompting an outcry by tourism-based businesses in Quinte dependent on the fishery.
The Bay of Quinte Fisheries Advisory Committee was formed to study the problem as the ministry stepped back from possible closure of the fishery. Slot limits were imposed for a couple of years and later removed in an attempt to protect larger females from harvest.
The report states that based on successful years of reproduction, “and assuming no drastic change in the mortality of older fish, the population of age-three and older (walleye) fish will likely continue to hover around 400,000 until at least 2008.”
The numbers released Tuesday are as close as the ministry could get, failing a headcount of each fish, said Mike Mason of Trenton, a fishing guide and appointed member of the public fisheries committee.
“These are factual numbers that have been researched by the public committee,” Mason said.
Mason has fished for walleye on the bay for 40 years and said news of the stabilization of the walleye population is not only good for the fish, but also for the economy of the region. When anglers visit from across Ontario and the United States, they spend money at restaurants, tackle outfitters, hotels and other tourism-based enterprises.
He said when walleye numbers were reported as extremely low in 2002, fishing success rates in the upper reaches of the bay near Trenton coincidentally plummeted and word soon spread across the Ontario angling community that the walleye fishery was dead in the Bay of Quinte.
Clearer water filtered by zebra mussels coupled with apparent declining walleye stocks changed the sport fishery, he said, because walleye moved to deeper waters, farther to the south near Picton. Walleye prefer darker waters and stayed away from clear, shallow waters near Trenton.
That trend continues today, he said.
“What has happened is the fish have moved from the eight-foot shallows into the 12- to 48-foot waters. We’ve just changed our presentation, used deeper running lures and fished deeper water closer to the weeds,” Mason said.
An apparently stable walleye population in the bay was welcome news for Ron Skevington, owner of Skevy’s Outdoor Specialities in Belleville. The store specializes in fishing materials for anglers.
Signs that the walleye population was rebounding were very clear last summer and fall, Skevington said, based upon his own fishing experiences as well as those of his customers.
“If this season is what it was like last year, we’re going to have one hell of a season,” he said on Tuesday.
Some customers reported catches of up to 24 fish in a single day last year.
The limit is four walleye for the holder of a sport fisherman licence and two for those with a conservation licence. Only one fish longer than 63 centimetres is allowed to be kept on a single outing.
“The fishery certainly has stabilized,” said Skevington, who grew up on Lake Erie, the first of the Great Lakes to be hit hard by the zebra mussel and its proclivity for cleaning up murky water.
Skevington said fish in Lake Erie rebounded by adjusting to the new clearer water environment, a pattern he believes is being repeated in the Bay of Quinte.
Patricia Edwards, Natural Resources Ministry biologist responsible for the Bay of Quinte, said the walleye appear to “have really turned around.”
After five or six years of ever-clearing water thanks to zebra mussels, walleye are returning to levels that can be supported, she said.
“Whether it’s human, animal or fish, any time you change the environment, there is an adjustment period,” Edwards said Tuesday from Peterborough.
The ministry, meanwhile, is working on a first-ever draft management plan for the Bay of Quinte fishery. After handing out surveys at angler shows in Toronto in recent months, Edwards said the ministry is reviewing them and will present the findings in public meetings at the end of May.
The management plan could spell out how human demands on the fishery in future years will be meshed with property conservation efforts by the ministry, Edwards said.
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David Delcloo aka Superdad
(Retired)
Kingston
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