Port Clinton, a small town on the shore of Lake Erie, calls itself the .
On New Year's Eve, it doesn鈥檛 host a ball drop. It lowers a to the ground.
At times in the summer, that icon, named Wylie the Walleye, is stationed in the middle of the town鈥檚 main drag, where passers-by can take selfies in front of its wide open mouth.
But it鈥檚 not the only walleye that attracts tourists to the region.
鈥淭he fishing industry over nine counties, we provide to the tourism industry about ,鈥� said Peg Van Vleet, better known as Captain Peg. 鈥淎nd that's 鈥榖鈥� on the billion.鈥�
Captain Peg is one of many fishing boat captains in Ohio鈥檚 nine Lake Erie-adjacent counties. She鈥檚 on the lake for 25 years, taking out tourists to fish. This summer, her business is booming, and that has a lot to do with walleye.
鈥淢ost of them that we're seeing right now are 18 to 20 inches,鈥� she said, 鈥渟o a couple-pound fish, pretty nice eaters.鈥�
Walleye in the present
Last year, the number of walleye harvested per hour on Lake Erie was the
And scientists say this year鈥檚 on track to be pretty good too; they predict Lake Erie鈥檚 adult walleye population will be among the .
For businesses like Captain Peg鈥檚, this is great news 鈥� nearly 90% of charter trips targeted walleye in 2020, according to a .
As the fish flourishes, so do those businesses. Between 2010 and 2020, revenue for Ohio鈥檚 Lake Erie charter industry increased by
Walleye in the past
But back in 2010, walleye weren鈥檛 doing so well.
Travis Hartman is the Lake Erie fisheries program administrator for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources鈥� Division of Wildlife. Every year, his team tries to estimate how many walleye are born in the lake.
鈥淭hrough the 鈥�90s and the early 2000s, we had poor hatches,鈥� Hartman said. 鈥淪ome of the year classes were less than 5 million fish from a 鈥榩oor year,鈥� where a good year might have 30 or 40 million or more from one year.鈥�
Hartman says the size of a hatch comes down to environmental conditions 鈥� things like the severity of winter, the timing of spring and the amount of plankton in the lake for baby walleye to eat.
鈥淚n the past I would have told you hard winters give us the best hatches,鈥� Hartman said. 鈥淚t seems like a lot of ice cover and late ice break up gives us the best opportunity for a big year class. But these past four or five years have broken that mold.鈥�
Instead, Hartman says scientists now think the size of a walleye hatch has more to do with water levels.
鈥淚f you think about it, we need nursery habitat for larval fish and potentially higher water gives us more shallow water nursery habitat,鈥� he said.
Water levels over the years. There are periods of high water, then low water, and that seems to correspond with the size of the walleye hatches, and therefore how many mature walleye are in the lake for years to come.
Walleye can live up to 25 years, so a single good hatch could have ramifications for the species鈥� population years down the line. Because there have been so many good hatches recently, fish researchers like Hartman expect walleye fishing in Lake Erie to be good for at least another decade.
But beyond that, it鈥檚 hard to guess how the fish will fare, because new variables are coming into play.
Walleye in the future
鈥淭here's a thousand factors influencing whether walleye do well or not,鈥� said Chris Winslow, another Lake Erie fish researcher and the director of the . 鈥淏ut then we're laying climate change over the top.鈥�
As the climate changes, Winslow says Lake Erie .
鈥淢y heart aches for our salty, shark-ridden coastal states, but they're preparing for unidirectional water levels,鈥� he said. 鈥淥urs is going to be up, down, up, down, up, down. I would argue it's much harder to adapt and have coastal resilience and stable ecosystems when it fluctuates rather than a unidirectional move.鈥�
At the same time, Lake Erie is warming. are up 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 鈥�70s, Winslow said, and is changing drastically from year to year too.
Combined, these factors introduce a new level of uncertainty about the future of walleye.
Scientists don鈥檛 know what all these changing variables will mean for the fish in the long run 鈥� they could prove remarkably resilient or the species could flounder like it did a decade ago.
But whatever happens to walleye will make big waves in Port Clinton, where the fish isn鈥檛 just a part of the ecosystem or even the economy: it鈥檚 an identity.
