What's with Walleyes?

?

From July 15, 1993 (update #17)

Are zebra mussels contributing to the decline of the walleye, or aren't they? It depends on who you talk to. Carl Baker, supervisor of the Lake Erie Fisheries Research Unit of the Ohio Division of Wildlife, predicts a record walleye harvest for western Lake Erie, which has been a zebra mussel stronghold since 1989. In fact, Baker says the Division of Wildlife may increase the daily bag limit for walleye in 1994 because so many walleye were produced in 1990 and 1991. But according to Ontario Ministry of the Environment's Ron Griffiths, the walleye may disappear from Lake St. Clair, located just upriver from western Lake Erie, due to zebra mussel infestations. The first confirmed sighting of a zebra mussel in North America occurred in Lake St. Clair in 1988. According to a story in Minnesota Sea Grant's newsletter, The Seiche, Griffiths says "the walleye remaining in Lake St. Clair are spawning, but young walleye aredisappearing once they reach the lake. If you like walleye fishing in Lake St. Clair, you better do it in the next two or three years, because that will be the end of the breeding stock.".

ID: 19930715-9.

The Zebra Mussel Update was a 4- to 8-page quarterly national newsletter published by the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute from May 1990 through May 1997. The ZMU documented the spread of the zebra mussel -- an exotic nuisance mussel -- through North America's freshwater environments, especially the Great Lakes, and on efforts to control it.