24 fish at 4 pounds -unfortunately we see this a lot.

That’s an average of 2.6 ounces per fish

Good morning Lake Erie nation, we gotta talk.

First let me reference the rules for the each basin of Lake Erie, please refer to the Ohio fishing regulations, pages 6, and 7.

West zone- 30 perch no size limit.

Central zone – 10 Perch no size limit

East zone – 30 Perch no size limit.

No size limit? Come on guys, that doesn’t mean keep every single dinky little minnow fish size perch that you catch.
It is very difficult to fillet a 5 inch perch, you get paper thin thumb size  fillets.

At our Lakeside shop we have a machine that scales the Perch, fish that small just get eaten or they fall through the gears into the gut bucket catcher.

Now none of us like more and more and more rules and regulations imposed on us, however if we wipe out the future of our fish population  by keeping all these year-old fingerling perch they will eventually impose a size  limit. Trust me they monitor size and catch totals though tout the year.

Ask any old timer about the high walleye limits back in the day, people caught and kept so many fish that they severely restricted size and catch limits.

Geez at one point back in the day  we  completely wiped out the regional Sturgeon population .

In closing, you guys do a great jobin  conservation of our fishing and hunting wildlife. Just don’t get over excited, sort through those dinky fish, it’s better to have 10 nice keepers than 30 fingerlings

Have fun, be safe, good luck Fishing