Fish Ohio

By Jane Beathard

jbeathard@madison-press.com

Gov. John Kasich caught two wall­eye and a poten­tial new busi­ness for the state dur­ing the 34th Fish Ohio Day, held July 11 in Port Clinton.

The event is spon­sored annu­ally by the Ohio Divi­sion of Wildlife, Lake Erie Shores and Islands West and the Lake Erie Char­ter Boat Asso­ci­a­tion to pro­mote tourism in the region.

Kasich was on board Capt. Don “Buf­falo” Lowther’s Osprey Fish­ing Char­ters when he hooked the wall­eye and received a cell phone call from a com­pany look­ing to relo­cate in the Buck­eye State.

“We may have caught a com­pany,” Kasich joked at the post-fishing luncheon.

As the 2011 char­ter cap­tain of the year, Lowther played host to the gov­er­nor, other state offi­cials and Kasich’s spe­cial guest, for­mer U.S. Sen. George Voinovich.

James Zehringer, cen­ter, direc­tor of the Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources, cites coop­er­a­tive efforts to restore water qual­ity in Lake Erie dur­ing Fish Ohio Day on July 11. Zehringer is flanked by Dave Daniels, right, direc­tor of the Ohio Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture, and Scott Nally, direc­tor of the Ohio Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency.

The weather was bet­ter than the fish­ing for the 150 travel and out­door writ­ers, busi­ness lead­ers and state and local offi­cials who reg­is­tered for the event. They boarded an armada of 19 char­ter boats for a day of fun in Lake Erie’s West­ern Basin — dubbed by the late Gov. James Rhodes as the world’s “Wall­eye Capital.”

Fish Ohio Day pro­vided Kasich a plat­form for boost­ing Ohio’s $800 mil­lion sport fish­ing and $10 bil­lion tourism industries.

He said recently signed leg­is­la­tion (Sen­ate Bill 314) will add to the state’s tourism bud­get and help Ohio com­pete with Michi­gan for travel dollars.

“We have a new pro­gram to pro­mote Ohio tourism,” Kasich said.

Lake Erie water qual­ity and diver­sions were other top­ics on Kasich’s mind at Fish Ohio Day. He said lessons learned in con­trol­ling phos­pho­rus runoff and toxic blue-green algae into Grand Lake St. Marys will guide sim­i­lar efforts at Lake Erie.

“We told farm­ers (in north­west Ohio) they had to get with the pro­gram,” Kasich said. “We are com­mit­ted to clean­ing up the lake.”

Last year, Kasich bowed to pres­sure from envi­ron­men­tal and sportsmen’s groups, veto­ing leg­is­la­tion that allowed indus­tries and munic­i­pal­i­ties on the lake to siphon large amounts of its water from its depths.

“The ‘take’ was too great,” Kasich said.

He noted Ohio is also work­ing with other Lake Erie states and Canada to bet­ter man­age wall­eye pop­u­la­tions and allo­cate catch rates.

Cab­i­net direc­tors James Zehringer, Scott Nally and Dave Daniels were on hand to rein­force Kasich’s messages.

Zehringer, the direc­tor of nat­ural resources, said Ohio’s future is tied to Lake Erie.

“As Lake Erie goes, so goes the state,” Zehringer said.

Agri­cul­ture direc­tor Daniels promised a solu­tion to the algae prob­lems in both Grand Lake and Lake Erie.

“We’ll come up with a solu­tion to insure water qual­ity,” Daniels said.

Nally said his Ohio Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency is cur­rently part­ner­ing with Bat­telle, Wright State Uni­ver­sity, Hei­del­berg Uni­ver­sity, Stone Lab­o­ra­tory, the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey and some char­ter cap­tains to sam­ple water from Lake Erie and its tributaries.

A sam­pling net­work will mea­sure changes in water qual­ity as the state imple­ments clean-up prac­tices, Nally said.

Fish Ohio Day fes­tiv­i­ties ended with Kasich’s sig­na­ture on an exec­u­tive order that pro­hibits drilling for oil and gas in and under Lake Erie. A fed­eral ban on drilling is already in place.

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