07-02-2010, 06:34 AM
I'll check back to see if you can find it. I can easily see how they might have found a strain of walleye that they were not expecting in a body of water. They could have taken eggs and milt from two different strains when they were raising hatchery stock. Or they could have taken fish from a body of water that had two different strains of walleye and thought that there was only one strain in the water where they obtained the brood stock. I'm still not seeing any indication that the strains are developing in current time. Everything suggests 12,000 years to as much as 1.5 million years ago.
It does confirm the concept that some strains are predetermined to spawn in different conditions, and possibly different times. Timing of the spawn can have consequences for the offspring. Some may be hatched too late to utilize an abundant forage. Some may be too mature to feed on zooplankton when it starts to bloom. Some strains appear to be more likely to eat insects and others to eat forage fish. If you had two strains in a body of water, and one utilized fingerling perch while the other was eating mayfly larvae, you would have to use different techniques to catch each of the strains. If you were used to throwing cranks to catch walleyes in a body of water where they eat minnows and then went to another body of water (or even a different part of the same body of water) you may find walleyes that were eating insects, and not interested in your lures.
Either way, walleyes don't belong in Red Fleet. They are marginal in most of the waters where they are now. You can't manage the unmanageable. Most species developed certain traits over millions of years, in fairly specific habitats. Some thrive when they are first placed in a new environment. The walleyes in Red Fleet are growing nicely, for now. They will eat themselves out of house and home. There is no good way to provide enough food for them though. If you plant forage fish, they will either eat all of them, get big and spawn some more. Which will only mean more hungry mouths to feed and not enough food. Or the forage that you plant will eat the zooplankton that the young walleyes need to grow. Red Fleet reservoir ain't exactly like any of the places where walleyes originally come from.
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It does confirm the concept that some strains are predetermined to spawn in different conditions, and possibly different times. Timing of the spawn can have consequences for the offspring. Some may be hatched too late to utilize an abundant forage. Some may be too mature to feed on zooplankton when it starts to bloom. Some strains appear to be more likely to eat insects and others to eat forage fish. If you had two strains in a body of water, and one utilized fingerling perch while the other was eating mayfly larvae, you would have to use different techniques to catch each of the strains. If you were used to throwing cranks to catch walleyes in a body of water where they eat minnows and then went to another body of water (or even a different part of the same body of water) you may find walleyes that were eating insects, and not interested in your lures.
Either way, walleyes don't belong in Red Fleet. They are marginal in most of the waters where they are now. You can't manage the unmanageable. Most species developed certain traits over millions of years, in fairly specific habitats. Some thrive when they are first placed in a new environment. The walleyes in Red Fleet are growing nicely, for now. They will eat themselves out of house and home. There is no good way to provide enough food for them though. If you plant forage fish, they will either eat all of them, get big and spawn some more. Which will only mean more hungry mouths to feed and not enough food. Or the forage that you plant will eat the zooplankton that the young walleyes need to grow. Red Fleet reservoir ain't exactly like any of the places where walleyes originally come from.
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