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Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | E-mailed my DNR bud this morning to get his general thoughts on what effect (if any) this extended winter might have on the walleyes sucess and/or spawing cycle this spring in my area.
Hey Bud.
Have you ever studied, seen or read any overviews concerning seasonal weather patterns, run-off, spring water temperatures or anything else as it relates to walleye or other species spawning schedules and/or successes? With this winter hanging on so long, the deep snow Pac and the cold temps, I'm wondering just how far back the spawn could be pushed this year. Dan.
Yes Dan, this has been studied and we’ve been talking about it lately too. Cold temperatures and late ice out will delay spawning but only for so long. Day/sunshine length is also a cue to trigger spawning and walleyes and other species won’t hold off forever. In the UP they’ve been documented to spawn even under the ice. The problem is that when we get that initial big flush/flood event, that it can smoother and dislodge eggs and lead to a poor overall spawning success. It’s much better if that occurs before the main part of the spawning (as it does most years). The other big threat to a successful spawn is if we get a late spring snow storm and freezing period. A gradual warm-up is much better for a successful spawn.
Hard telling how this will play out. Normally peak walleye spawning in our area is the last week or March or first week of April. Seems hard to imagine we’ll even have any open river systems by the last week of March the way things are going right now. Generally my best hunch is that this is not shaping up to be very good spawning conditions for our walleyes, but then again they can surprise us. While this winter has been unusually tough, it’s more like the winters we grew up with than the warm pseudo winters of recent years. My point is that walleyes evolved with these sort of periodic conditions so they might just do fine. Again, I think it has lots to do with how things warm up as opposed to when, unless the when is really way out there.
Edited by walleye express 3/4/2014 11:17 AM
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