walleye stocking!

[big bad buck buster]

ive been a little miffed about the miss management of the fishery in this province.... i found a 2010 stocking report and looked at the number of walleye stocked last year 27.7 million lots right! rainbow brook brown and cutthroat trout combined only 2.1 million fish.... we should have lots of walleye in the province.... out of that 27.7 million. 2.9 million are released back into primrose lake to replenish the stock they took out....good! the other 24.8 all go into lac la biche.... kinda weird right. since so many lakes are lacking walleye population. but its ok cuz you can go to lac la biche and keep a few of the 24 million...nope! you cant keep a walleye out of lac la biche.. if anyone has any idea why they do this i would like to know.

[fishpro]

It's because walleye are able to reproduce naturally in lakes, so stocking is not necessary. C&R will work to bring back populations eventually.

The reason so many ponds are stocked with trout it's the cheapest way to appease the catch and keep crowd, ie. many people just want to catch something and keep it. Raising trout in hatcheries costs about 10% of what raising walleye does. I do not know the reason for the cost difference, but have been informed of this by people who work in the field.

With all species, trout included, if fish are capable of reproducing, SRD will rarely stock. Instead, they use regulations to allow more fish to reach maturity and keep the populations wild.

[duffy4]

Trout are stocked as fingerlings or larger up to "catchable" size. Thay all have a fairly good chance at survival.

Walleye are stocked as "eyed eggs" or fry as a rule. The chances of them surviving are really low.

So for example (not real statistical data but example numbers out of the air)

You stock 100 trout fingerlings and 75 or 80 might be around in the lake next year.

You stock 1000 walleye fry and 75 or 80 may be around in the lake next year.




From what I know of the Lac La Biche stocking, There are heaps of preditors and competition in the lake so in order to "Kick start" the return of Walleye they have to really stock it heavey to hope for enough survivors to make a difference.


Why not grow the walleye up bigger before stocking them? $$$$$$$$$ and some place to put them and time.

[CeeZee]

So is there commercial fisherman on LLB then? Cuz if there was then it would look like fisheries is putting fish in the nets for them.

[duffy4]

So is there commercial fisherman on LLB then? Cuz if there was then it would look like fisheries is putting fish in the nets for them.

Think about this...You can put a large mesh net (4 inch or 5 inch) in a lake and catch BIG (3 to 6 lb.)white-fish in it. Yet all the small walleye in the lake would swim right through that net.

[IHUNT]

Think about this...You can put a large mesh net (4 inch or 5 inch) in a lake and catch BIG (3 to 6 lb.)white-fish in it. Yet all the small walleye in the lake would swim right through that net.

Thats not true! Ive been setting ntes with 6 inch mesh and cought lots of walley in the 6 to 8 inch range. Im sure there is alot that do swim through but all the walleye i catch are cought throught the mouth witch tells me that they tend to swim with there mouths open.

[highwood]

Lac La Biche used to be a terrific walleye fishery until everyone kicked the **** out of the Owl River during spawning time. Since the potential of a good walleye fishery does exist there, perhaps SRD is heavily stocking to try to re-establish this fishery in the hopes of returning to the glory days....good luck. As an aside, lakes in this area are certainly not lacking in walleye population. Many of them are indeed polluted with walleye...

[TyreeUM]

Why not grow the walleye up bigger before stocking them? $$$$$$$$$ and some place to put them and time.

THey are highly predatory and growing them in raceways and recirculating tanks is difficult.

[kreator]

Funny you mention it. I have been catching walleye on LLB quite regularly, including a 7 pounder this past week. Lots on the camera, too. I talked to a fish cop who checked me a few days ago and he said, depending on the spawning this year, they plan on opening it up for a limit of one (not a tag system, either) next year.

That being said, word has gotten out and so have the nets. I watched the same group of people take hundreds of walleye from a net multiple times this past week. How this is legal is beyond me. There is no netting in bay the walleye are supposed to stage in before heading up the Owl River, but you can bet the nets are set up in their path to get there.

[Rosaire1]

I was out there last weekend and caught a couple nice ones, took a picture and threw em back. About 2pm 5 trucks came on and went to a site about 200 meters away and pulled two nets out. I could honestly say they had about 100 walleye in them and they looked like they were all between 2 - 5 lbs. After re-setting the nets they had a beer and a few laughs at us and about 5 other fisherman in the area, and left. Why bother stocking this or any lake if the rules are not the same for everyone? It's disgusting. I'm sick of it.

[bobalong]

Walleye stocking cost money, and it is pretty clear over the past 10 years that there is no long term commitment for this government to stock walleye or any other species either, with the exception of trout. IMO there should be no netting allowed on any stocked lakes, only lakes with self sustaining populations.

[lund17]

ive been a little miffed about the miss management of the fishery in this province.... i found a 2010 stocking report and looked at the number of walleye stocked last year 27.7 million lots right! rainbow brook brown and cutthroat trout combined only 2.1 million fish.... we should have lots of walleye in the province.... out of that 27.7 million. 2.9 million are released back into primrose lake to replenish the stock they took out....good! the other 24.8 all go into lac la biche.... kinda weird right. since so many lakes are lacking walleye population. but its ok cuz you can go to lac la biche and keep a few of the 24 million...nope! you cant keep a walleye out of lac la biche.. if anyone has any idea why they do this i would like to know.

Lac La Biche is in a different watershed area than most other walleye lakes in the province, therefore the walleye that are harvested and used to hatch new eggs must stay in the same watershed. SRD has done testing and has determine that walleye from different watershed's have different genetics. If they were to introduce a new walleye with different genetics than you run the risk of wiping out the native walleye in the area. SRD did have a walleye stocking program 30+ years ago but with funding cuts was phased out. Unfortunely alot of that information and experience was lost and now SRD are having to start all over to figure it out, which is expensive.

Trout are stocked as fingerlings or larger up to "catchable" size. Thay all have a fairly good chance at survival. Walleye are stocked as "eyed eggs" or fry as a rule. The chances of them surviving are really low.

So for example (not real statistical data but example numbers out of the air)

You stock 100 trout fingerlings and 75 or 80 might be around in the lake next year.

You stock 1000 walleye fry and 75 or 80 may be around in the lake next year.


This is another reason why it is so expensive for a walleye hatchery program.

There was some talk a year ago about a second hatchery that SRD had years ago in the western part of province, starting it up and starting to stock lakes but the problem was in finding a lake that had an abundance of walleye in and they could use it to harvest the walleye. This second hatchery would be able to stock most of the lakes in the province.

SRD has done pretty amazing stuff with their current walleye hatchery program and is very interesting to see the amount of work that has gone into it.

[big bad buck buster]

thanks for the replys! i did not know that they were neting fish in lac la biche... hummm.. a guess all im trying to say is there were 15 times more walleye stocked last year then trout... at a higher cost and released into one lake?? why?.. i grew up in the cold lake area and we never had any trouble finding walleye i never knew lac la biche fishey was so bad.. perhaps a slot size is in order to keep some breeding stock.

[Kim473]

They have been putting eyes in that lake for about 5 years now. Millions every year.
I wish they would start putting perch in the lakes again. Why would they stop that in the first place? Seems to me that srd has there head up there donkey.

[-JR-]

I might be wrong ,but was the cold lake hatchery was shut down for a few years and has just reopened ,not sure of this but i thank walleye are being rasised there. Sandy out of St paul is managing it last I heard .