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| Looking forward to some warmer weather and the effect on fishing that it will have. Lots of new stuff sticking out of the water so be careful as the water level drops and things start to show themselves. White bass and walleye from Winneconne to New London and every where in between should be the order of the day for the next 10 days or so. |
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Member
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Location: Manitowoc, WI | Doc,
When do the walleye fry hatch? Just wondering how the water levels are at the spawning grounds at what everyone feels will be this year's outcome? Good or bad? |
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| Jerry, I was wondering the same thing. I posted the same question on another web site and the only decent response I got back was there was plenty of water for the females to get in and lay their eggs. Not sure if the fry had enough water to get back out into the river however. My opinion is that it will be an average hatch at best. We did get one nice rain where it might have been in time. It'll be interesting to see the the trawling results will be this fall. However, IMO, if we do have one bad year, it's not going to be a terrible thing. |
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| its not looking too terrible, the fry should be in the river and back to the lakes by now or close too it, the 21 day period should be complete, We won't have any certainty untill November when the trawling takes place. Even as an average year it loked to be ok IMHO.
Good Luck
Tyee |
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Member
Posts: 2567
Location: Manitowoc, WI | I think an average year would be just fine, given the good to great years we've had over the last 5 years. |
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| IMHO. There was obviously plenty of water in the marshes. The water got pretty warm back there and I thought the fry were in danger but then the cool off may have helped. Not sure we got the flushing effect a good rain provides and also not sure we got as many females in the marshes as we would have had it not got so warm so fast. I am sure the flooded byou's around Fremont had good numbers of fish that dropped and returned in days this year and that plenty of fish spawned on shorelines and in Winnebago. The early commers (ones that come under the ice and staged last fall) and resident fish are what made up the largest percentage of the fish that spawned in the Wolf River marshes. (again IMHO) Also the water was warm enough in the marshes that the process of hatching would have been running on the short side of the "normal time period", I beleive Kendall told me in the boat as little as 10 - 14 days from the day we were shocking. (4/8/05) If the cold weather put a damper on that then everything could be different. Heck the water got down to 49 degrees, but I'm sure was still warm enough for the fry in the marshes.
Actually, having spent another year in the shocking boat and seeing with my own eyes just how improvements made over the years provide water to the marshes even as the water levels drop, I'm confident that what was born here this year did well. Not sure what the survival rate is for fry hatched in other situations and it would only be a guess as to what percentage of fish go up the Wolf on an average year, good year or this year. Guess we'll know in August when they look for young of the year, (and other) walleye in the big lake.
Personally, I'm more worried about the food chain then the walleye population.
Edited by Joel "Doc" Kunz 5/4/2005 11:07 AM
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Location: Oshkosh, Wisconsin | Your last sentence (concern about the food chain) has been my concern for a couple of years now. However, EVERY fish I have cleaned in recent years has been in very good shape. While I haven't seen the any kind of long term data on forage in 'bago, I have not heard of any drop in the forage population (I try to look at the report the dnr prints on walleye, perch, drum, trout perch, et.al they generate from trawling data). See if you can beg, borrow, or steal your way onto the trawler this summer if you haven't done that yet. I think you'll be amazed at the amount of food in the system. |
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Location: Appleton wi | Doc thanks for your humble opinion. I was alittle worried since it was kinda a weird year for the walleye run. thanks again |
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| What are do you guys mean by concern about the food chain? I am not aware of the issue. |
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Posts: 874
Location: Neenah, WI | By most accounts there are more Walleyes in the system than ever before. If the forage base doesn't keep up with the demand we could see a lot of undernourished fish in the future. |
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The warm up and fishing