Flowage Walleye Growth Study
We just completed a growth analysis of walleye on the Chippewa Flowage. I had a batch of spines from the spring of 2016 and another from the fall of 2016. We focused on walleye between 14-17 inches to get a feel for how quickly they are getting to the minimum length limit (15”). Overall, growth looked good. Walleye still get to 15 inches in about the same amount of time as they did a few years ago. Most are hitting 15 between age 4 and 5. Of course there is variation on this, some are faster and some are slower growers. But there is no indication of a systematic problem with growth.
There was an interesting pattern that we started to unearth, I’ll need to explore it a little more before I would put too much stock in it but here’s the hypothesis: The natural born fish seem to grow faster than the stocked fish, particularly those from the Big Chip Fish fest years. This is kind of what we expect, natural born fish are better suited for the lake they are born in and almost always perform better when it comes to both growth and survival. There are no serious implications here, I don’t think we’ve messed up the genetics of the lake or anything like that. But it does reinforce our strategy of getting the fish to reproduce on their own whenever possible and using stocking as a last resort.
My recommendation at this time will be to stick with the current walleye regulations that include the 15” minimum length limit. I understand that it was a point of frustration for people to be catching a lot of small fish this summer, but that speaks to how strong the 2014-2016 year classes are. Now that we know they are still growing at a good rate we simply need to step back and let them get to legal size. Other than the 2016 class, the 2014 class is our strongest in the lake right now and it comprises most of the fish that people were catching between 14-15 inches this year. All signs point to a lot of those fish being legal sized very early next summer, many might be there already. I stopped getting calls about people catching only short walleye around September. I have had no complaints throughout the fall. Interested to know if that’s been the case for resorts or not?
That’s all for now, but I’ll have some Musky Hunt stuff coming soon. Also interesting.
