Yet state lawmakers’ efforts to pass a bill crowning the walleye as Ohio’s official state fish – inspired by Nexstar’s WCMH’s viewers and readers – floundered in the General Assembly last week.

“We have our battles with football with Michigan-Ohio,” Rep. Lisa Sobecki (D-Toledo) told fellow legislators in February. “We need to get over the battle of what should we have our state fish to be named. And I think it’s very clear that it needs to be the walleye.”