dead gobies

[hunter]

was down to port dover on sat walked out on the pier alot of dead gobies laying dead in the water what caused this maybe we could do the whole lake

 

[shorefisher]

It's probably people catching them and killing them throwing them back in dead so.its not such an eye sore.

 

[Jwalsh]

I noticed this too...it looked like a gobie graveyard! Noticed a couple catfish too

 

[bassaholic]

Too bad for the catfish there fun to catch but the only good gobie is a dead one!!

 

[Chromeseeker]

Let not one of those scurvy vermin swim away. Females spawn multiple times per year so we need to kill as many as we catch.

Tight lines folks

 

[LadyInRed]

Its best to dispose of dead ones in the garbage. Don't throw them back in as they are toxic due to eating the zebra mussels. If larger fish or birds eat them, those toxins move up the food chain.

 

[Johny2]

Wouldn't be the first fish dieoff,I recall 1999 or 2000 smallmouth were floating dead from botulism poisoning all over the eastern basin. Zebra mussels pick up the bacteria from filtering bottom sediment then gobys eat mussels and the toxic chain begins. That's what the biologists blamed the last big kill on.

 

[twodogs]

The perch we are catching out on the main lake are spewing out all kinds of gobies. Does this mean th perch are toxic to eat?

 

[Johny2]

Guideline to eating sportfish mentions not to eat the organs of greatlakes fish but fillets or muscle of the fish are ok within certain weight,length of the fish also the weight of the person is factored in.An american uniniversity study of erie says merc levels are increasing first time in 20years,that's what I read.

 

[LadyInRed]

I was on the pier today and noticed that there are a lot of dead gobies, far too many for throwbacks. Some other dead small fish but mostly gobies. Gobies are like the cockroaches of the lake, what could kill them?

 

[Johny2]

Story has it,gobys arrived via an ocean ships takin in ballast water from the caspian sea,then dumped in the great lakes by accident.zebra mussels and quagga mussels showed up at the same time hmm. 1990 was the year that erie perch in my opinion had a blessing,more forage base,from goby introduction. Perch were small an not worth fishing for,before the gobys showed up,after the 1980s.