04-22-2016, 06:50 PM
[quote SBennett]Anybody know the biggest walleye caught at Willard during the electroshocking process?[/quote]
[#0000FF]Got this back from Chris Penne...plus the attached pic of some of the walleye fry.
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I think the largest walleye netted this year would have been about 26 inches. Many of the females we netted appeared to be about between 20 and 22". Those are just my personal observations as we did not collect any measurements this year since we were just trying to get the process of netting, collection, and spawning down. Given that we now have a much better idea of what we are up against, I plan on using the next spawning effort as an opportunity to collect some additional data on our walleye population. In particular, next year I plan on collecting data on the average length and age of spawning males and females. This will give us even better info regarding age and growth of walleye in Willard as well as some information about how old spawning fish are and which year classes are contributing the most to reproduction. All information which should be useful in the future.
Yes, I've got a few updates and fresh news: I believe the second batch of 100% triploid walleye went into Red Fleet last week. This was a smaller batch of around 200,000 fry. Willard also received its first stocking of diploid (fertile) fry this week. I believe the number of fry stocked in Willard was around 610,000. I requested 500,000 fry for Willard this year, so we already met our needs for Willard which is good. You may recall from my reports that the 500,000 stocked last year was enough to produce a pretty good year class of fish, so hopefully we'll see similar results again this year. See attached for a pic of the Willard fry during their chemical marking bath. The marking process and stocking went very well, with fish looking healthy the whole time. The fry stocked were five days post hatch. There is a smaller batch of around 200,000 diploid fry that may be available soon, and if all goes well, my plan is to mark and stock those fish too. Those fish will put us well over the number I requested for Willard, but I would like to see what happens with the extra fish for a few reasons: 1) the more fish we mark and stock, the better data we may get for the current marking study and, 2) right now our wiper numbers way up, and I think ultimately we would like to see the walleye and wiper numbers about equal, so I'm going try to use those extra fish to get the walleye numbers up and let our wiper numbers come down a bit by stocking fewer wipers this year. Balancing our numbers may be a difficult task as sometimes mother nature has something different in mind, but hopefully our effort is one that most anglers will appreciate. There's obviously going to be some people that want more walleye than wiper or the other way around, but we're faced with the difficult task of balancing the desires of a diverse group of anglers, so we're going to try and make most people happy.
Chris
[inline "WALLEYE FRY.jpg"]
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[#0000FF]Got this back from Chris Penne...plus the attached pic of some of the walleye fry.
[/#0000FF]
I think the largest walleye netted this year would have been about 26 inches. Many of the females we netted appeared to be about between 20 and 22". Those are just my personal observations as we did not collect any measurements this year since we were just trying to get the process of netting, collection, and spawning down. Given that we now have a much better idea of what we are up against, I plan on using the next spawning effort as an opportunity to collect some additional data on our walleye population. In particular, next year I plan on collecting data on the average length and age of spawning males and females. This will give us even better info regarding age and growth of walleye in Willard as well as some information about how old spawning fish are and which year classes are contributing the most to reproduction. All information which should be useful in the future.
Yes, I've got a few updates and fresh news: I believe the second batch of 100% triploid walleye went into Red Fleet last week. This was a smaller batch of around 200,000 fry. Willard also received its first stocking of diploid (fertile) fry this week. I believe the number of fry stocked in Willard was around 610,000. I requested 500,000 fry for Willard this year, so we already met our needs for Willard which is good. You may recall from my reports that the 500,000 stocked last year was enough to produce a pretty good year class of fish, so hopefully we'll see similar results again this year. See attached for a pic of the Willard fry during their chemical marking bath. The marking process and stocking went very well, with fish looking healthy the whole time. The fry stocked were five days post hatch. There is a smaller batch of around 200,000 diploid fry that may be available soon, and if all goes well, my plan is to mark and stock those fish too. Those fish will put us well over the number I requested for Willard, but I would like to see what happens with the extra fish for a few reasons: 1) the more fish we mark and stock, the better data we may get for the current marking study and, 2) right now our wiper numbers way up, and I think ultimately we would like to see the walleye and wiper numbers about equal, so I'm going try to use those extra fish to get the walleye numbers up and let our wiper numbers come down a bit by stocking fewer wipers this year. Balancing our numbers may be a difficult task as sometimes mother nature has something different in mind, but hopefully our effort is one that most anglers will appreciate. There's obviously going to be some people that want more walleye than wiper or the other way around, but we're faced with the difficult task of balancing the desires of a diverse group of anglers, so we're going to try and make most people happy.
Chris
[inline "WALLEYE FRY.jpg"]
[signature]