SteelEyes

Holy cow did that reporter misinterpret what the scientists are talking about. The goby didn't save the snakes in the face of the reductions of the native prey fish. It was a primary cause in their demise and the snakes eat the goby because they are the food source that is left.

As Dan Duchniak states in his opinion piece, Lake Michigan water is the best option for Waukesha, since developing local water resources like shallow water wells, the Fox River, or using local reservoirs like Pewaukee all could have negative effects on the citizens of Waukesha. If they get to use water from Lake Michigan they get all the benefits, but get to leave all the adverse effects with the residents of the Great Lakes watershed. It's a win-win for them.

http://www.walleye.com/BoatsforSale.aspx

Got into town Friday afternoon and took the boat out myself to see if I could locate the fish. Went out of Ashtabula Lakeshore Park. Headed North-Northeast out of the harbor. Started at the 4 line and trolled NW to just beyond the 7 line. Got a lot of white bass, then got into the walleye at the 7 line. Was running 1 dipsey and 1 rigger. Got the walleye on the rigger at 50' down, 50' behind the ball on a Dreamweaver SuperSlim Spoon, Blue Monkey Puke. Dad and I got out Saturday morning and headed back to the same area, started between the 6 and 7 line, trolling NE with the waves the whole time. Trolled out to beyond the 11 line, so from 10-17 miles out in ~75' of water. Speed was around 1.8, but would be faster or slower depending on the wave surge. Ran 4 lines: 1 rigger, 1 wire line, and 2 dipsies. The rigger was 50'-55' down, running the bait 50' behind the ball, the same DW SS Blue Monkey Puke spoon. It got 2 small (~12") steelhead which we released, two 28"+ walleye, & one 22" walleye. Never changed the bait on this since it consistently produced. The wire line was probably 250-275' back, and started producing once we put the purple & white reefrunner on it (I think eriedescent). Got one ~28" and one ~22" walleye on it, and 1 big steelhead which shook off right by the boat. (Old man wasn't happy reeling in all that line only to lose it before the net even got in the water ) Only got one walleye on a dipsey, not even many junk fish on them. Tried a variety of baits on them, spoons, stickbaits, wiggle warts, etc. The one we got, ~28", was our last fish and we were then at the 11 line, was on a 1 setting 125' back, had brought it in and changed to a longer leader length of 9', and put on a Luhr Jensen 3.5" Coyote spoon, color Hot Dot. Not sure if it was the longer leader length, the spoon color, or pure luck that finally got us a dipsey strike. Note the spoon colors, both are silver backed, with darker colored fronts. Around 1:00 we started to try to troll back through the same area heading SW, but the lake was getting rougher and was hard to control the boat. Decided to head in before it got to rough. But think we could of had our limit if we had made another pass through. Just didn't want to take any chances for the long ride back since there was a Small Craft Advisory coming for late afternoon.

Went out Wednesday afternoon (7/3) and Friday morning for walleye, couldn't find a program to get them to bite. Fished from 60'-72', marked fish anywhere from 30' to the bottom. Markings were sporadic and based on radio chatter it was hit and miss for everyone. Seems like they aren't really schooloing up yet. Ran in and went back out for perch Friday afternoon (7/5) and had a 2 person limit in less the 2 hours. Couldn't keep the hooks in the water, often had a hookup before the bail was closed. 62' of water pretty much straight north out of the harbor. Went back out early Saturday morning to the same spot, started a little slow, but then got going again around 7:30am. Had our 3 person limit by 10:00 am. All real nice fish, with a good mix of big ones in the 12"-14" range. Used emerald shiners off of crappie rigs.

Went out for walleyes Saturday out of Conneaut Harbor. Was our first time out on the water, and our shakedown cruise. ODNR watercraft was at the public ramp and got a vessel safety inspection. Long week for us, so got a late start, fished 9:30 am until 4 pm. Surface water temps were around 60F, warm sunny day, lake mostly flat. We got skunked, caught 1 sheepshead. Fished anywhere from 58-71 feet of water. Marked the most fish in ~64 feet of water, suspended anywhere from 30-50 feet. Also marked some fish on the bottom, but guess they were sheepshead based upon the one we caught. Varied presentations from stealth to aggressive, ranged speeds from 1-2mph (GPS). Ran a variety of worm harnesses, spoons, and crankbaits. Trolled all directions versus surface conditions. Couldn't get a bite. Didn't see anyone else out there catch anything either. I have heard reports of people catching fish, and limiting out. Based upon everything seen and heard so far, need to get out in the morning before the fish go negative. Most reports I've read had everyone catching fish coming off the water as we were going out. Seems the daytime bite hasn't started yet.

Very cool. Hopefully they have some success in re-establishing ciscos and natually spawning Atlantics. If populations of Cisco come back in Lake Huron and Lake Ontario then we might also see some success in getting them back in Lake Erie.

If the cyanobacteria/toxic algae got into the 2 reservoirs on the Scioto in Columbus, Oh that provide drinking water for the city we might actually see some real moves at the state level to address agricultural pollution and finally fix/moernize all our serer systems.

Good. Hopefully this goes somewhere, but I won't hold my breath...

Fished a day and a half over the weekend. Put out of Padanaram launch both days and fished the north half of the lake. We drifted jigs with minnows or worms. Saturday was blue skys but low wind. Caught 4 walleye, 4 keeper perch, 2 crappie, and 2 big bluegills. No consisten location/structure for the walleyes, but more often than not in 10-12 feet of water. Sunday was overcast and a nice wind picking up to heavy wind by noon. Caught 1 walleye, 4 perch, and 5 big crappie. Caught the biggest crappie between the islands south of padanaram (two 14 inchers and two 12 inchers) when the wind was really blowing. We were drifting really fast, practically trolling speeds.

Hopefully the Mi DNR will have success with their proposed plan to stock Atlantics (as far south as Oscada if I remember correctly). I'd make an annual trip up for a mixed bag fishery that featured atlantics.

There are no 'kinks' to work out in wind power generation, it's been around for quite a while. The midwest has wind farms all over the place, they are up in the rocky mountains from California to Alberta, heck there is a 504 MW wind farm out in the North Sea. There are no engineering obstacles to overcome, no major efficiency technologies on the verge of development. There is an overabundance of power on the regional grid in both base and peak load generation. All an Erie wind farm would be is another unneeded peak load source among the glut of other wind farms that haven't been able to compete with other sources on the PJM and MISO grids. And wind generation can only be peak load generation as it will never be able to meet the legal/regulatory requirements in regards to reliability in order to be considered base load generation.

You got it, the power is needed so badly onshore that First Energy is shutting down 4 real power plants along the shore of Lake Erie. They are not worth upgrading do to the overabundance of power on the regional grid.

Even without the aesthetic impact, impact to migratory birds, power cables littering the lake floor, abandoned turbines in 30 years, etc. I don't see how they can justify 'giving away' public real estate in the lakes to private power companies. Especially when there are so many companies that made investments installing wind turbines on land throughout western Ohio, Indiana (& Illinois?) who will now be a a competitive disadvantage because they did the right thing and actually bought (or rented) real estate.

Although still more dams on the river, hopefully this will over the long term improve the steelhead fishing on the river as well as the native species.

I've never used the Wilderness rods, but I do use the TDRs and I primarily walleye fish. The TDRs work just fine for me. I have some MH that I use for my big dipsey divers, but once they trip the rod is too stiff to leave much fun in bringing in the fish, to stiff for walleye. I think you would be better off with a Medium action.

Luhr Jensen Krocodiles were my most productive this last year, got both walleye and steelhead on them. That said michigan stingers, moonshine, williams, and the blue fox pixies all are pretty standard for me as well. I've also picked up some Yecks this winter, so we'll see how they perform this year.

Glad to see the author included the XKCD link, was the first thing I thought of when I saw the article title.

Hopefully the people at the OSU extension, OARDC, or some clever ag engineers can come up with some schemes to control runoff during/after rain events in the fertilizing season. If an economical way can be developed to control or recollect the nutrient laden water coming off fields prior to the fertilizer becoming fixed in the soil, I think you can then get widespread cooperation from farmers. Farmers who I assume don't want to effectively flush their fertilizer money into the lakes.

This is good to see. This is the area where I grew up and did a lot of fishing. On a related note the branches of the Chagrin River they talk about is one of the few areas in the state where they have successfully re-established the native strain of brook trout. Hopefully these projects help improve habitat not only for them and our other native fisheries, but our steelhead fishery as well.

Jason, Give Snug Harbor Bait & Tackle (in Conneaut) a call, (440) 593-3755. They have a prerecorded fishing report they do daily, or you can talk to the guys and they can tell you what they are biting on in the river and on the breakwall.

In general I am a supporter of utilizing wind and solar, but am against putting them in the lakes. I think it’s wrong to allow these companies to monopolize a portion of the lake for their sole use and profit. The lakes are a shared resource that we as citizens, taxpayers, and/or sportsmen have spent a great deal of time and resources to maintain, preserve, and protect. Even if it were allowed, is LEEDCo going to set aside money for maintenance and cleanup or have they only secured funding to install their experiment? When those laminated wood turbine blades are damaged by high winds or lightning are they going to go collect all their waste from the lake, or just leave it for the rest of us to deal with? Have they set aside money and developed mitigation plans for removal after the turbines have reached the end of their 20-30 year lifespan? Or are they just planning on leaving their waste in our lake. Are they intending to offload the removal on taxpayers, sportsmen, and conservationists, like was done with so many other locations along the lakes. It seems a shame that they want to stick these in our lake while there are so many abandoned/unused industrial properties along Ohio’s north shore. It also is a shame that they seem to want to bypass potential opportunities to partner with power companies like First Energy, who are shutting down 4 lakeside powerplants (more or less). They could find a way to utilize these properties and tie into the existing transmission networks at the locations, and possibly reuse some of the substation equipment. Ultimately we should be pushing for wise use of our land and water resources, not just sticking these facilities into the lake just so these groups and companies can avoid having to purchase real estate for their electric generation facilities and reap greater profits no matter who they victimize. The situation is the epitome of doing it cheap rather than doing it right.

To look at it from the other side of the coin, in the last 35 years we have only used 4wd for towing once, wether for boats or the farm. And that one time there was knee deep snow and had to pull a gravity wagon full of corn home, so 6000-7000 lbs, needed to use the 4wd to get going.

Think of it from the another point of view. The FEMA employees are not the ones doing the actual work of restoration. They are there to coordinate and make sure contractors/workers get paid. the people fixing power lines, etc. pretty much all stayed through the noreaster. So why would we want people like the FEMA employees to remain in those particular locations during the storm. Why would we want to take on that kind of financial liability for little or no benefit. When the noreaster came in the plan should have been to get everyone out of the area and harms way who wasn't absolutely necessary. Then they return a couple of days later, no big deal and no loss.

Hopefully they will see some returns/reproductive success with the Lake Trout they are releasing in the Western Basin.