collapsed walleye fishery...

[bulletbob]

I understand this is a NJ forum, but I also know some NJ guys here do fish NY and Pa waters as well for various species... Since moving away from my very beloved salt water fishing in 1991, I adapted by learning how to fish for what was available locally... First and foremost on that list was Walleye, and I had a good fishery for several years in the susquehanna river.. They were there in cool water months mostly.. Oct through ice in, and then for a few weeks in May early June after the closed season for their spawn, which closes in March and opens in May...It was always there for me, and I always caught fish.. Then about 2008-2010, I noticed I caught less of them every year... Went from say 4 to 8 fish on a good November 3 hours late afternoon to evening session, to 1 or 2 fish every 2 sessions.. Then one fish every 5 casting sessions.. Then 2 or 3 an entire season, until now when I caught 1 walleye all last year, and 1 all of this year... No one has answers why these fish just vanished... SMB are still here, as are Cats, Muskies, Carp etc... NY DEC doesn't seem very interested at all.. After me bugging them for years they finally did a survey on the abundance of fish in the river in fall of 2022.. They said "yep" we didn't see many Walleyes in the river.. very few in fact, but hey the few we did see were good sized.. I guess that was supposed to make me feel better.. They won't do anything anywhere, unless its trout or salmon related, and ONLY in tourist zones[Great Lakes/Fingers/Catskills streams].... The Flathead catfish which eat everything have now made it into the NY section of the river, so I'm sure that isn't helping, but these fish have been in a steep decline for 15 years, long before Flatheads were even close to NY.... It has really affected my fishing life not having my main species, especially since the only FW fish I eat besides Perch and Sunnies is Walleye.... I really thought the NYS DEC would have at least a few theories on how a once thriving fishery could totally collapse, but not a peep, and when asked said , "yeah theres just not many in there".. I was hoping they could do better, but I guess not... anyway, maybe some guys here would like to speculate, or have seen something similar in other fresh water fisheries... Breaks my heart, but not much I can do really- other than discuss it..... bob