I have fished Willard since the mid 70’s and have watched the fish populations and general ecology change. I don’t know if I know all the answers but I have some observations.
**First of all, it is not fair to accuse DWR of mismanaging the lake. You have no idea all of the failed experiements they tried to get a suitable forage species to take hold in that lake. They kept spending money for tons of minnow fry, dumping them in the lake and watching them disappear. They were trying to find something to feed the crappies, walleyes and cats. **
As Flycasting pointed out, until the gizzard shad took hold, the food chain was pretty much a closed cycle. Bluegills, green sunfish and small crappies fed the bigger fish…and of course young carp provided good forage for a couple or three months each year. Once walleyes and catfish got large enough, they fed on larger crappies and sunfish, and they really put on the size.
Until gizzard shad exploded and began vacuuming up all the zooplankton necessary to feed young crappies and sunfish, there was a tremendous fishery for the panfish. Since then the spiny ray tykes have had a tough time making a living. And, with wipers in the water, any crappies or sunfish that get big enough become food for wipers too. They get it from all sides.
It used to be difficult to catch walleyes under 24". The limit used to be two over 20 inches and an evening’s fishing would often produce ten to twenty fish…but only two keepers. The rest would be too large.
**Same with catfish. The average size for channel cats used to be about what the larger ones run today…two to three pounds. On any serious cat trip, during the day, I could count on hanging at least a couple over 5 pounds, and got many up to ten pounds during daylight hours. After dark it was a rare night that there wasn’t at least one fish over ten, and sometimes several between ten and fifteen. **
The smaller sizes today are a function of several factors. The biggie right now is that there were several years of lower water levels (drought) which made poor spawning for most of the species in the lake…especially the forage species. Cats also need rocks or cover in which to spawn. If the water does not go well up into the rocks, the cats cannot lay their eggs in protected areas and the carp slurp them up as fast as they are laid.
Cats and walleyes have both had to adapt to the new ecosystem of the lake. You can really see it with the walleyes. They used to be night raiders, along the shorelines, chasing crappies and sunfish. Now they hang at middepth, in the middle of the lake, and move with the schools of shad, just like the wipers and just like their Great Lakes ancestors. They are not getting as large and they are “lean and mean”. They have to chase down the fast travelling shad and that means they expend more energy per calorie ingested.
**Catfish are also becoming “sight feeders” and are regularly caught on lures being trolled fast for wipers. Many anglers who think they know catfish are suprised when they catch cats near the surface in deep water. Again, if the cats have to work harder for their groceries, there will not be as many big fat cats. **
There ARE some large catfish left in Willard, but not nearly as many proportionately as in the past. And, because there are more anglers fishing for cats, and keeping all they catch, there are fewer that reach five pounds and then grow even larger. Because a large cat is a trophy from Willard these days, everybody thinks they have to take them home to show off. That removes a potential biggun and impacts the gene pool for bigger fish.
**I also have the theory that the gizzard shad are actually very beneficial to the BIG cats, and not good for the fishermen. Because of the vast numbers of shad in the lake, there is also a lot of natural mortality…for all the normal reasons. That means that on a daily basis, there are a bunch of dead shad fluttering down to the bottom. Wipers prefer live ones. So do walleyes. That leaves all that yummy dead shad for the catfish. And, since dead adult shad can be well over a foot long, the little ones can’t eat them. But, the bigguns can, and if they are always full of abundant free chow, why should they bother with a wimpy worm or a small minnow or piece of carp meat? **
Fishing is always a matter of numbers of fish, available food, number of anglers, knowledge and luck. If you are in the right place at the right time, with the right offering, you can still catch a big cat. Probably not many, but still worth staying optimistic.