Fishing Lake Erie in the ’50s

Fishing’s big on Lake Erie, which has 2 percent of the water and 50 percent of the fish in the Great Lakes. The walleye this season are prolific. But in past decades fishing used to be even bigger. The Cleveland breakwalls teemed with anglers. And we’ve got the pictures to prove it. One big draw to the lake was the blue pike, a small subspecies of walleye which is now extinct, said Cleveland Metroparks aquatic biologist Mike Durkalec. “They were in very shallow water, near the shore. They were abundant. They could be caught by the barrel-load throughout the 1950s and ’60s.” Then, like now, yellow perch and catfish, were also big draws, he said… read more >