PORT CLINTON, Ohio (AP) -- Former Mayor Tom Brown made up his mind the minute he donned his walleye hat 11 years ago.
Port Clinton had long been known for its bountiful fishery, especially the plentiful and prized walleye.
It was time to cash in on the city's sterling reputation with anglers, who travel across the United States and beyond to reel in the tasty fish.
The city began its first New Year's Eve walleye drop at midnight that year, and what locals said for decades was official: Port Clinton is the Walleye Capital of the World.
There's just one problem. At least six other towns in the United States claim to be the walleye capital, too.
Baudette, Minn.; Garrison and Mobridge, S.D.; the Big and Little Bays de Noc near Escanaba; the Saginaw Bay along Bay City; and Umatilla, Ore., are advertised as capitals. And Brown might have swiped the title from the rest of Lake Erie, which Fred Snyder, Ohio State University Sea Grant extension specialist, said was known in the early '80s collectively as the capital.
Tourism officials in Baudette knocked two other Minnesota towns off the walleye wagon last year when they obtained a state trademark for the term. Then they applied for a federal trademark to definitively make Baudette and its Lake of the Woods the only capital.
In January, however, the Lake of the Woods Tourism Bureau abandoned its application for the trademark.
Still, Bureau Executive Director Denelle Cauble exclaimed, "Everybody knows the truth. Lake of the Woods is the walleye capital."
Snyder said Cauble's assertion is a kettle of fish.
"When you look at Lake Erie, there is no other body of water that produces the poundage per acre of walleye that Lake Erie does," Snyder said. "Tens of thousands of anglers come here to fish each year."
Michigan's capitals have plenty to brag about, too.
Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay walleye numbers have increased in recent years after excellent spawning classes from 2003 to 2005 and in 2007, said Jim Baker, fisheries unit manager for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Southern Lake Huron Fisheries Management Unit.
"We're very fortunate," Baker said. "We have a lot of fish in the pipeline at this point. Our catch of walleye can match to just about anybody's."
In the Upper Peninsula, the Big and Little Bays de Noc that feed into Lake Michigan and Green Bay draw some of the same major fishing tournaments as Port Clinton.
Print this story
E-mail this story
