The Ohio Division of Wildlife provided their preliminary results of the
2007 walleye and perch surveys. Remember that these are not final
results; data from Ontario's trawling has to be factored in, and the
word is that Ontario's numbers are a bit lower.
The Division's Mark Turner characterized the 2007 walleye hatch as a bit
below the long-term average, but still providing about 8.5 million young
walleye to the population. He cautioned that this number would
likely be lowered when Ontario data becomes available, since the
Canadians are seeing lower numbers, describing the hatch as slightly
smaller than but similar to the 2001 hatch.
Mr. Turner added that while the yellow perch hatch was not huge, it was
still better than any hatch in the last decade except for the jumbo
hatch of 2003.
Graphs comparing the 2007 walleye and perch hatches are attached below.
Mr. Turner noted that yellow perch fingerling abundance was greatest
around the islands but lower as the Division of Wildlife's survey boat
sampled further east and further west. This might account for some
of the relatively abundant lookng catches that were seen in the earlier
Stone Lab trawls.

