Early, large algae blooms on Lake Erie a concern

Outdoors Notebook: Lake Erie anglers and Ohio fisheries experts are concerned about massive blooms of blue-green algae all around Western Lake Erie in recent days.

Lake Erie anglers and Ohio fisheries experts are concerned about massive blooms of blue-green  algae all around Western Lake Erie in recent days.

While fishing last week on the east side of Middle Bass Island, Lake Erie’s waters were clear, and the fish were biting. We headed to a good walleye area west of North Bass Island, and caught a few walleye. When we returned just a couple of hours later, thousands of acres of surface water from the Bass Islands to Kelleys Island were coated with a thick soup of green algae.

The algae blooms have arrived earlier than usual and are covering more of Lake Erie than in decades. Most blame the algae blooms on phosphorous used to fertilize crops. It washes from farm fields into the Lake Erie tributaries and eventually Lake Erie, fueling the algae blooms. When algae dies, it consumes oxygen from the water as it sinks to the lake bottom.

This week, low oxygen levels were recorded off shallow Maumee Bay, a new development. The oxygen-starved waters caused by dying algae are usually found in deeper central Lake Erie, creating what is called a “dead zone.”

Unlike other forms of algae, blue-green algae, or microcystis, won’t nourish tiny zooplankton, vital nourishment for recently hatched walleye, yellow perch and smallmouth bass.

There is a difference in the phosphorous flowing into Lake Erie today.

“The total amount of phosphorous is not increasing,” said Jeff Tyson, head of Lake Erie fisheries management for the Ohio Division of Wildlife. “The phosphorous we’re seeing today is highly bio-available, which means it is taken up immediately by algae.

“The bloom this year is amazing and disconcerting. There is nothing in the short term that can be done. It will take long-term management strategies and major changes in farming practices.”

The scary part, says Tyson, is that when algae blooms were this bad in the 1960s, Lake Erie walleye production was very poor.

Tyson’s crews have been finding fair numbers of 1- to 2-inch walleye from this year’s spring hatch around the Bass Islands, but few elsewhere. The fisheries biologists won’t have a handle on the overall quality of the 2010 hatch until August, when young-of-the-year walleye reach 3 to 4 inches in length and can be collected in trawl nets.

Walleye fishermen primarily are catching Lake Erie fish hatched in 2003 and 2007. The 2003 hatch was spectacular, while the 2007 hatch was average.

Early bird hunting: The Canada geese, mourning dove, teal and woodcock hunting seasons were approved by the Ohio Wildlife Council at its monthly meeting on Wednesday evening in Columbus.

The early goose season is Sept. 1-15; dove hunting is open Sept. 1-Oct. 24 and Dec. 6-21; early teal hunting is Sept. 4-19; and woodcock hunting is allowed Oct. 9-Nov. 22.
Seasons also were approved for lightly hunted rails and moorhens (Sept. 1-Nov. 9) and snipe (Sept. 1-Nov. 28 and Dec. 6-23).

Hunting seasons for other migratory birds should be approved at the Aug. 11 council meeting using U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines. It is expected the council will give duck hunters a 60-day duck season beginning in mid-October.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: degan@plaind.com, 216-999-5158