Interesting info on Willard walleye

[wiperhunter2]

I've been emailing Chris Penne, with questions about this years walleye spawn and this is some of the info I've received:
 From what Taylor (our reservoir biologist) has told me, we've already stocked our quota of 2.5 million walleye fry for Willard.  We're going to take a couple hundred thousand more from this last spawn and stock those as well.  We were also getting those extra eggs yesterday to make up for some poor hatching and survival of the triploid fish that are raised for other parts of the state to fingerling size.  So we needed a few more eggs for those triploid fingerling fish.  I haven't heard yet whether our hatchery staff spawned everything we gave them yesterday or whether they just took what was needed for the late run Willard fry and triploid needs and then put the rest of the fish back without spawning them -this time of year we're all running a lot of different directions trying to keep up with spring fieldwork, stocking coordination meetings and more.  We're communicating well, that's just not something I needed to know so I'm not aware of it yet.  To my knowledge, if they did spawn everything we gave them, those extra fish could go to other waters such as Yuba, DMAD, etc.
Taylor has also said Willard may be getting an extra load of 3" fingerling walleye this summer.  This is the first year the Logan Hatchery is raising walleye fingerlings and they are looking to do a full tank/batch of fish to really test their capabilities, so while these fingerlings may be excess to our needs, they're going to see how they do raising them and we'll take what they give us.  It's uncertain whether the 3" walleye fingerlings will do well in Willard as they may be stocked in the heat of summer and may be a bit behind on size compared to the fish that were stocked as fry and have been growing in the reservoir.  Since this is the Logan Hatchery's first time raising them, there could be kinks and setbacks, so we'll see how many we get when summer rolls around and how those fish do.
Chris

[SkunkedAgain]

Thanks Curt for the update, interesting update... Does this mean the Logan hatchery has finished the June sucker work and will do something more valuable to the states fisherman now? Oops did I say that out loud..... Be nice to get some real value out of their work... I wonder where they are raising the fish at that hatchery now, the construction of the wider road has wiped out a lot of their older runs.... I was afraid they were shutting that hatchery down, so was glad to hear they are still using it... Later Jeff

[MrShane]

Thanks Curt for the update, interesting update... Does this mean the Logan hatchery has finished the June sucker work and will do something more valuable to the states fisherman now?  Oops did I say that out loud..... Be nice to get some real value out of their work...  I wonder where they are raising the fish at that hatchery now, the construction of the wider road has wiped out a lot of their older runs.... I was afraid they were shutting that hatchery down, so was glad to hear they are still using it... Later Jeff

June Sucker is a ‘dead fish swimming’.
Mother Nature is trying to finish it off but we just won’t let Her.
Hats off to Logan hatchery for raising probably the most desired fish in Utah (for me at least)!

[wiperhunter2]

So here is the whole email exchange between Chris Penne and myself, start reading from the bottom up:

Logan Hatchery has done some expansion.  They still raise trout and some of the threatened and sensitive species, such as June Sucker and Green Sucker, but they are branching out into some other species such as walleye and I believe some tiger muskie.  The expansion allowed them to improve an area where they use recirculated water to achieve some warmer temperatures needed for the walleye and muskie. We don't plan on marking the fingerlings this year, so we won't be able to tell the difference between the fry and fingerlings with any certainty.  We're going to keep our eye out for an increase in young walleye in the nets and also look for differences in the lengths (fish stocked as fry are usually larger), but that's about it.  Because of some recent federal restrictions on what chemicals can be used to mark fish, it's become pretty costly and time consuming to mark fish.  Some of this is understandable as the previous chemicals used to mark fish, such as oxytetracyclene, are antibiotics as well and the rationale is to not overuse those.  Anyway, I could go on for a while about marking, but basically, the fry stocking has at Willard has been very successful so I don't see any good reason in the short term to change approaches.  Fishery managers always look to use the smallest fish that can be successfully and effectively stocked, so if we can get good results with the fry, that seems to be the best option - that means less time and expense feeding and caring for fish in the hatchery, less things to go wrong if something does happen in the hatchery, and usually faster growth in the reservoir as food is often more plentiful.  Further, if we save money by effectively using the fry, we can put those savings toward raising more fish for more programs.  Right now the walleye population in Echo appears to be doing well (not too big, not too small), so there aren't currently any plans to resume the stocking of triploid walleye in Echo. 

Well that is some interesting info, I did not realise that was a hatchery in Logan. Did it use to be for trout and was converted for raise walleye or is this a new hatchery? It will be interesting to see if those 3 inch eyes do better or worse than the fry but how will you tell the difference? Are you guys still stocking triploids in Echo? Thanks Chris

Good question.  From what Taylor (our reservoir biologist) has told me, we've already stocked our quota of 2.5 million walleye fry for Willard.  We're going to take a couple hundred thousand more from this last spawn and stock those as well.  We were also getting those extra eggs yesterday to make up for some poor hatching and survival of the triploid fish that are raised for other parts of the state to fingerling size.  So we needed a few more eggs for those triploid fingerling fish.  I haven't heard yet whether our hatchery staff spawned everything we gave them yesterday or whether they just took what was needed for the late run Willard fry and triploid needs and then put the rest of the fish back without spawning them -this time of year we're all running a lot of different directions trying to keep up with spring fieldwork, stocking coordination meetings and more.  We're communicating well, that's just not something I needed to know so I'm not aware of it yet.  To my knowledge, if they did spawn everything we gave them, those extra fish could go to other waters such as Yuba, DMAD, etc.

Taylor has also said Willard may be getting an extra load of 3" fingerling walleye this summer.  This is the first year the Logan Hatchery is raising walleye fingerlings and they are looking to do a full tank/batch of fish to really test their capabilities, so while these fingerlings may be excess to our needs, they're going to see how they do raising them and we'll take what they give us.  It's uncertain whether the 3" walleye fingerlings will do well in Willard as they may be stocked in the heat of summer and may be a bit behind on size compared to the fish that were stocked as fry and have been growing in the reservoir.  Since this is the Logan Hatchery's first time raising them, there could be kinks and setbacks, so we'll see how many we get when summer rolls around and how those fish do.


That's what I was wondering, if there were still female eyes that were not ripe yet. So what do you do when you get extra eggs like this and what are the overall number that you guys are stocking this year in Willard?

Yes, we did.  I wasn't out there for that netting, but I heard it went well.  We set a smaller number of nets and got more ripe walleye than we needed and were even releasing fish that were excess to our needs towards the end.  From what I remember, we gave the hatchery staff around 30 pairs of ripe fish that were ready to give eggs and milt.  There were female walleye in the nets that were still green (i.e. - not ready to give eggs) as well, so the spawn is still going for a little while longer. 


I heard for one of my friends, that was fishing at Willard today, that you guys did that last netting day today. How was it for numbers

Very few, especially when the water is colder.  We can see a bit more mortality as the water warms up.  I worked the nets two of the days this year and saw 2 or 3 per day that didn't make it.  That was after emptying about eight 400-foot long nets each day.  Multiply that by 4 days and 2 boats and that would put it around 16 to 24 fish that didn't make it.  Those that don't make it get fileted and donated to either the food pantry/shelter or wildlife rehab center.  Where they go depends on how fresh the fish is. 
That's awesome, sounds like a good year for the netting. We are picking up few smaller eyes, up to 15" but with these warmer temps I'm guessing it will turn on soon. On average, how many eyes dies while netting? Curt

Yeah, we met the quotas we had last on Monday, April 31.  Even so, we're likely going to do a smaller collection and spawn sometime next week in order to get some late run fish just to spread out the egg take a little further.  It's not every year that we get such good weather like we did a few weeks ago, so we met our desired quotas in just four days of netting. 
 Hey Chris, I heard from a Willard regular, that you guys reached your quota or maybe even exceeded it on the eyes. Any truth to that statement?  

The female walleye are averaging around 60K eggs per fish, so that would 
Thanks Chris, sounds like the netting is going well, for only being at it for three days. How many eyes are milked to get that many eggs, 2.9 million?
Thanks for reaching out.  Today was my first day out helping Taylor run the walleye nets, and yes things are going pretty well with the calm and mild weather this week.  Next week might be tough with the current forecast for rain much of the week and winds that will probably come along with it.  I can't speak to how many fish have been netted each day, but I can say the numbers are favorable.  If anything, we may have a few less fish in the nets year because of some changes we've made to the size of mesh we use to catch fish. We had too many males in our nets last year and it was slowing us down, so we increased the size of the mesh we use in about half our nets in order to selectively avoid some of the smaller males and see if we could catch a few more large females. So far that seems to be working.

About half the females we've been collecting have been ripe and spilling eggs, which means the peak spawn is still yet to come.  We've had a mix of large females and then we've got some younger and smaller ones that are starting to show up this year as well.  I didn't hear a 30" fish was caught, but can say we have seen some fish in the high 20" range.  We need about 5.1 million eggs to meet our quota for getting fry back into Willard and as of early this morning, we were sitting around 2.9 million eggs, so we're over half way there in these first three days of netting.  The hatchery folks at the dock said they were also on track today to finish making all the sterile walleye needed for other waters statewide as well.  Since it's looking like we only need another day or two of netting to reach our quota, we're going to halt netting for the rest of the week and see if we can get a good day next week and a good day the week after.  The reason for spacing the remaining egg take days out is to make sure we don't take all the eggs from the early part of the spawn.  The stocked fish have done really well over the years and there are often years where they make up a majority of a year class.  If we were to continually stock fish from the early part of the spawn, the concern is that would make it so that the majority of the walleye population in Willard would also spawn early, which is what has happened in some Pacific salmon stocks.  In some ways that could be good, but it really puts all our eggs in one basket so to speak, where a bad weather week could mean we aren't able to catch most of the fish we need. So by spreading out our egg take during the length of the spawn, we are making sure we keep the walleye spawning over a broad period of time, and thereby spreading out our opportunities to get fish. 

Hey Chris, hope all is well. I was out on Willard yesterday and saw your guys going out to pick up the walleye nets. I heard from some Willard regulars that they did really good on Monday, so the spawn is in high gear from what they said but I wanted to contact you and find out what you know. I heard that first day there was almost 180 caught, if that is true, is that a high number for the first day? Is there a certain number that they try a get before they say that's enough? Also I heard that a really big one was caught, around 30", is that true and if it is, isn't that really big for Willard? Thanks for any help with my questions.

[MrShane]

So here is the whole email exchange between Chris Penne and myself, start reading from the bottom up:

Logan Hatchery has done some expansion.  They still raise trout and some of the threatened and sensitive species, such as June Sucker and Green Sucker, but they are branching out into some other species such as walleye and I believe some tiger muskie.  The expansion allowed them to improve an area where they use recirculated water to achieve some warmer temperatures needed for the walleye and muskie. We don't plan on marking the fingerlings this year, so we won't be able to tell the difference between the fry and fingerlings with any certainty.  We're going to keep our eye out for an increase in young walleye in the nets and also look for differences in the lengths (fish stocked as fry are usually larger), but that's about it.  Because of some recent federal restrictions on what chemicals can be used to mark fish, it's become pretty costly and time consuming to mark fish.  Some of this is understandable as the previous chemicals used to mark fish, such as oxytetracyclene, are antibiotics as well and the rationale is to not overuse those.  Anyway, I could go on for a while about marking, but basically, the fry stocking has at Willard has been very successful so I don't see any good reason in the short term to change approaches.  Fishery managers always look to use the smallest fish that can be successfully and effectively stocked, so if we can get good results with the fry, that seems to be the best option - that means less time and expense feeding and caring for fish in the hatchery, less things to go wrong if something does happen in the hatchery, and usually faster growth in the reservoir as food is often more plentiful.  Further, if we save money by effectively using the fry, we can put those savings toward raising more fish for more programs.  Right now the walleye population in Echo appears to be doing well (not too big, not too small), so there aren't currently any plans to resume the stocking of triploid walleye in Echo. 

Well that is some interesting info, I did not realise that was a hatchery in Logan. Did it use to be for trout and was converted for raise walleye or is this a new hatchery? It will be interesting to see if those 3 inch eyes do better or worse than the fry but how will you tell the difference? Are you guys still stocking triploids in Echo? Thanks Chris

Good question.  From what Taylor (our reservoir biologist) has told me, we've already stocked our quota of 2.5 million walleye fry for Willard.  We're going to take a couple hundred thousand more from this last spawn and stock those as well.  We were also getting those extra eggs yesterday to make up for some poor hatching and survival of the triploid fish that are raised for other parts of the state to fingerling size.  So we needed a few more eggs for those triploid fingerling fish.  I haven't heard yet whether our hatchery staff spawned everything we gave them yesterday or whether they just took what was needed for the late run Willard fry and triploid needs and then put the rest of the fish back without spawning them -this time of year we're all running a lot of different directions trying to keep up with spring fieldwork, stocking coordination meetings and more.  We're communicating well, that's just not something I needed to know so I'm not aware of it yet.  To my knowledge, if they did spawn everything we gave them, those extra fish could go to other waters such as Yuba, DMAD, etc.

Taylor has also said Willard may be getting an extra load of 3" fingerling walleye this summer.  This is the first year the Logan Hatchery is raising walleye fingerlings and they are looking to do a full tank/batch of fish to really test their capabilities, so while these fingerlings may be excess to our needs, they're going to see how they do raising them and we'll take what they give us.  It's uncertain whether the 3" walleye fingerlings will do well in Willard as they may be stocked in the heat of summer and may be a bit behind on size compared to the fish that were stocked as fry and have been growing in the reservoir.  Since this is the Logan Hatchery's first time raising them, there could be kinks and setbacks, so we'll see how many we get when summer rolls around and how those fish do.


That's what I was wondering, if there were still female eyes that were not ripe yet. So what do you do when you get extra eggs like this and what are the overall number that you guys are stocking this year in Willard?

Yes, we did.  I wasn't out there for that netting, but I heard it went well.  We set a smaller number of nets and got more ripe walleye than we needed and were even releasing fish that were excess to our needs towards the end.  From what I remember, we gave the hatchery staff around 30 pairs of ripe fish that were ready to give eggs and milt.  There were female walleye in the nets that were still green (i.e. - not ready to give eggs) as well, so the spawn is still going for a little while longer. 


I heard for one of my friends, that was fishing at Willard today, that you guys did that last netting day today. How was it for numbers

Very few, especially when the water is colder.  We can see a bit more mortality as the water warms up.  I worked the nets two of the days this year and saw 2 or 3 per day that didn't make it.  That was after emptying about eight 400-foot long nets each day.  Multiply that by 4 days and 2 boats and that would put it around 16 to 24 fish that didn't make it.  Those that don't make it get fileted and donated to either the food pantry/shelter or wildlife rehab center.  Where they go depends on how fresh the fish is. 
That's awesome, sounds like a good year for the netting. We are picking up few smaller eyes, up to 15" but with these warmer temps I'm guessing it will turn on soon. On average, how many eyes dies while netting? Curt

Yeah, we met the quotas we had last on Monday, April 31.  Even so, we're likely going to do a smaller collection and spawn sometime next week in order to get some late run fish just to spread out the egg take a little further.  It's not every year that we get such good weather like we did a few weeks ago, so we met our desired quotas in just four days of netting. 
 Hey Chris, I heard from a Willard regular, that you guys reached your quota or maybe even exceeded it on the eyes. Any truth to that statement?  

The female walleye are averaging around 60K eggs per fish, so that would 
Thanks Chris, sounds like the netting is going well, for only being at it for three days. How many eyes are milked to get that many eggs, 2.9 million?
Thanks for reaching out.  Today was my first day out helping Taylor run the walleye nets, and yes things are going pretty well with the calm and mild weather this week.  Next week might be tough with the current forecast for rain much of the week and winds that will probably come along with it.  I can't speak to how many fish have been netted each day, but I can say the numbers are favorable.  If anything, we may have a few less fish in the nets year because of some changes we've made to the size of mesh we use to catch fish. We had too many males in our nets last year and it was slowing us down, so we increased the size of the mesh we use in about half our nets in order to selectively avoid some of the smaller males and see if we could catch a few more large females. So far that seems to be working.

About half the females we've been collecting have been ripe and spilling eggs, which means the peak spawn is still yet to come.  We've had a mix of large females and then we've got some younger and smaller ones that are starting to show up this year as well.  I didn't hear a 30" fish was caught, but can say we have seen some fish in the high 20" range.  We need about 5.1 million eggs to meet our quota for getting fry back into Willard and as of early this morning, we were sitting around 2.9 million eggs, so we're over half way there in these first three days of netting.  The hatchery folks at the dock said they were also on track today to finish making all the sterile walleye needed for other waters statewide as well.  Since it's looking like we only need another day or two of netting to reach our quota, we're going to halt netting for the rest of the week and see if we can get a good day next week and a good day the week after.  The reason for spacing the remaining egg take days out is to make sure we don't take all the eggs from the early part of the spawn.  The stocked fish have done really well over the years and there are often years where they make up a majority of a year class.  If we were to continually stock fish from the early part of the spawn, the concern is that would make it so that the majority of the walleye population in Willard would also spawn early, which is what has happened in some Pacific salmon stocks.  In some ways that could be good, but it really puts all our eggs in one basket so to speak, where a bad weather week could mean we aren't able to catch most of the fish we need. So by spreading out our egg take during the length of the spawn, we are making sure we keep the walleye spawning over a broad period of time, and thereby spreading out our opportunities to get fish. 

Hey Chris, hope all is well. I was out on Willard yesterday and saw your guys going out to pick up the walleye nets. I heard from some Willard regulars that they did really good on Monday, so the spawn is in high gear from what they said but I wanted to contact you and find out what you know. I heard that first day there was almost 180 caught, if that is true, is that a high number for the first day? Is there a certain number that they try a get before they say that's enough? Also I heard that a really big one was caught, around 30", is that true and if it is, isn't that really big for Willard? Thanks for any help with my questions.

Very cool information Curt.
Thanks for communicating/posting!

[SkunkedAgain]

I agree, thanks for sharing that Curt... good, fun info to review... Later J

[wiperhunter2]

I agree, thanks for sharing that Curt... good, fun info to review...  Later J

Jeff, when you ask above, I hope some of this info about the Logan hatchery is what you were asking about.

[SkunkedAgain]

That was very interesting, I was afraid they were shutting down the hatchery since the road work looks like it will take out some of the runs that were by the road, but sounds like there must be a lot more to the hatchery than I knew was there.. Be fun to take my cub scouts in for a tour... That's how I get to find out things I want to know about, is say it's for the cub scouts... Seen some cool stuff the last few years doing this calling... Anyway thanks for asking Chris about the hatchery that is really fun to learn about... I'd like to see if they would put the extra eyes in Cutler to help up the numbers out there... Be fun if you could actually catch an eye if you wanted to rather than the accidental hook ups every five years... Thanks again Curt, appreciate that... Jeff

[wiperhunter2]

My last question to Chris was asking if they had plans to keep stocking triploids in Echo and his answer was no, they are done stocking sterile eyes in Echo.