Ohio’s outdoor trailblazers: Peg VanVleet hooks kids on fishing

This is a new series of stories that will appear in every other issue of Ohio Outdoor News focusing on an outdoor personality in Ohio. If you have an idea of someone you think would make a good profile, email mmoore@outdoornews.com.

Medway, Ohio — Peg VanVleet never stood a chance of not being a fisherman.

“My parents were fishers and both set of grandparents were fishers,” said the retired Lake Erie charter fishing captain. “And, my one grandmother was a professional fish cutter. So, as soon as I was old enough to hold a knife I was learning how to cut fish. I just stood across the table from her and mimicked what she did.”

VanVleet, a native of Montgomery County, Ohio, was a charter captain for 25 years before hanging it up a couple of years ago.

“My thought on that was I wanted to share my love of the lake with people who aren’t fortunate enough as I am to be able to have a boat yet still want to come up to the lake to go fishing,” she said.

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Funny thing is, VanVleet didn’t start chartering until she was 40 years old. She began Blue Sky Charters, and she still first mates on those charter boats at times.

VanVleet is close with Gov. Mike DeWine, the two of them going back a ways to the Dayton area when DeWine was a county prosecutor and VanVleet was in high school.

DeWine remarked upon VanVleet’s retirement two years ago that “she may be retiring, but she’ll never lay down her fishing pole.”

“There couldn’t be a better comment about me,” she said.

VanVleet is actually working on her third “career” now. Before the charter business came about, she worked for 25 years as a facilities manager for Dayton Power and Light.

After Dayton Power and Light, VanVleet went out on her own doing facilities management, including a stint on a job in Florida.

“But, wherever I was, if there was water I was fishing,” she said.

“I had always been fishing up on Lake Erie and I said in my late 40s that I needed to share my love for the lake,” VanVleet said.

Plus, she’s still contracting with energy companies when she’s not on the water fishing.

VanVleet is a member of the governor’s Waterway and Safety Committee, vice president of the Lake Erie Charter Boat Association, and she’s also the Ohio director for the Great Lakes Fisheries Sports Commission.

In short, VanVleet remains in tune with the happenings on Lake Erie, both on and off the water.

As we do at the end of all of these interviews, Ohio Outdoor News asked VanVleet what drives her passion for the outdoors.

“My parents instilled my passion and my passion is still there for the outdoors and advocating for Lake Erie,” she said. “And, hooking kids on fishing. That’s been one of my driving goals all along. My mantra is that if you hook one kid on fishing that’s one less kid out on the streets.”

VanVleet’s home is on Crystal Lake in Medway, where she still donates time and money to the lake’s kids fishing tournament.

“My passion is just making sure people understand that you’ve got to take care of (Lake Erie),” she said. “Because our lake and our ecosystem is not going to be here if we don’t take care of it.”