The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission announced that the 2023 creel limit for Lake Erie yellow perch will remain at 30 per day and the limit for walleye will stay at six per day.

The commission’s Lake Erie Research Unit evaluates the populations of those fish annually. Harvest reductions can be put into place if populations reach critically low levels.

On March 30, the Lake Erie Committee allotted to Pennsylvania a yellow perch total allowable catch (TAC) of 536,000 pounds, a 1% increase from 2022, and 2% below the long-term average of 546,768 pounds. The 2023 level includes a yellow perch TAC for Pennsylvania’s commercial trap net fishery of 100,000 pounds. Pennsylvania represents a small portion of the total yellow perch harvest. The harvest has averaged about 40,000 pounds over the last five years. In 2022, the Pennsylvania harvest was 64,405 pounds, or 1.9% of the 3.4 million pounds harvested lakewide.

Yellow perch and walleye populations in the lake are maintained only by natural reproduction. Walleye hatches have been record-setting over the last five years, but yellow perch hatches have been poor.

Based on an estimate of 93.6 million walleyes age 2 or older, the population has increased about 32% from 2022, and 52% of the walleyes will be 2 years old and average 13 inches. It takes three years for walleye in the lake to grow to the 15-inch minimum size limit.

The commission issues flexible creel limits based on the annual quotas established by the Lake Erie Committee, which consists of fisheries managers from Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Michigan, and Ontario, Canada.