By Steve Weisman
Outdoor Editor
Wow! Can Mother Nature ever throw things off. Just look at the late ice, the short ice fishing season and the early ice out! Then the warm weather faked out our trees, and they started to bud…wham, the freezing weather returned.
Then last week, I talked about the northern pike fyke netting that began at the end of March and it took until April 9 to finally get finished! Geez!
Well, here are the results of that long-extended process. A total of 254 adult northern pike were collected in those 10 days and were transported to the Spirit Lake Hatchery.
The broodstock produced more than 1.3 million eggs which are currently being incubated in special jars that allow fresh water to flow over the eggs, supplying oxygen.
Walleyes go quickly
Finally, the weather began to straighten out on Monday night, and did things ever go in a hurry! By Thursday morning, all the walleyes had been collected. In visiting with Kim Hawkins, Spirit Lake Hatchery Manager on Thursday morning, “Things went really fast. In just two and a half nights the crews were done.”
Here are the results of each night’s gill netting. Most amazing the seining was completed using only two crews. A total of 585 females were caught, along with 277 males. That’s 862 walleyes in basically two nights!
Talk about nice fish! I spent some time watching Hawkins and her crew check out each female and inject the females that were still green to move the ripening process around. Lots and lots and lots of 5+ pound walleyes. They were definitely fat and healthy footballs. With only the short time needed, all the walleyes came from Big Spirit Lake. After the spawning process is completed and the adult fish have recuperated, they will then be returned to Big Spirit Lake.
In addition to the Spirit Lake Hatchery, eggs are collected at Clear Lake, Storm Lake and Lake Rathbun. Nearly 200,000,000 walleye eggs were collected, which should be more than enough to meet the statewide request of 140,000,000 walleye fry.
Once the walleye eggs have hatched out, many of the fry end up being stocked in lakes and inland rivers across the state. The number and location is determined by fisheries biologists who manage waters in several counties and based on research determine their fish stocking requests several months before the gill netting takes place.
The Spirit Lake Hatchery is open to the public. With the walleye gill netting done, however, hours will be going back to normal hours.
(photo by Steve Weisman) Spirit Lake Hatchery Manager Kim Hawkins injects a green female at the hatchery last Thursday morning.
(photo by Wendy Sander) Jacob Miller and Karen Osterkamp with two 8+ pound walleyes.
(photo by Wendy Sander) Greg Harson works on stripping eggs from a ripe female.
