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| This is in regaurds also to the spawn, can a Walleye run a river downstream for a spawn? I know some lakes that only flow downstream so I was wondering if walleyes would still use them? |
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Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | river eyes - 9/20/2006 9:36 PM
This is in regaurds also to the spawn, can a Walleye run a river downstream for a spawn? I know some lakes that only flow downstream so I was wondering if walleyes would still use them?
River Eyes.
Even though I feel I had an adequate answer to your fall river question, I'm not real sure about this answer. But being nobody else has taken a stab at it, I'll add what I know and speculate about the rest. I will also submit this question to my DNR biologist bud for his assumptions and post his answer when I get it.
I'm guessing that if a Lake, reservoir or other body of land locked water has a river or stream flowing/running only out of it, and that water flowage posseses the right elements for productive spawning, that walleyes with the least bit of river strain gene in them, will move into it and do their thing during that spawning stage of their lives.
It does seem however to go agains't the nature of spawning as we've always thought of it. That being, the process of running upstream, spawning and then dropping back down and out to the main lake. But that thought process has always been hinged to the Salmon specie which needs and uses the river outward flowage to sense, locate, smell and detect their own natal rivers. Salmon have been around and basically unchanged since before the dinasours. I've both seen and heard of bass and pike species dropping down into rivers and/or streams to spwan when the flowages only run one way out. So I would say the answer is yes to your question.
Edited by walleye express 9/21/2006 10:43 AM
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| Tagging in various states has proven that some do migrate downstream and spawn.
On many bodies of water, walleyes do not use rivers at all.
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| I saw a chart from Ohio Sea Grant documenting tagged spawners and the recapture location of the tag. This chart showed a spawning female tagged in the Maumee River (Western Basin of Lake Erie) that (presumably) traveled back to and was caught in her home waters of Saginaw Bay. That's a long trip!
Tim |
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Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | Guest - 9/21/2006 12:04 PM
I saw a chart from Ohio Sea Grant documenting tagged spawners and the recapture location of the tag. This chart showed a spawning female tagged in the Maumee River (Western Basin of Lake Erie) that (presumably) traveled back to and was caught in her home waters of Saginaw Bay. That's a long trip!
Tim
I'll personally vouch for that one Tim, as we caught one in 2001 just East of Callahan reef, that had a copper/brass colored tag, and it was from Lake Erie area. Can't say rather that proves the up/down, down/up theory, but it's certainly longer and through several diferent bodies of water than I thought any walleye would travel for any reason. 
Edited by walleye express 9/21/2006 2:02 PM
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Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | Heres some interesting comments from my DNR buddy on this subject.
Yes. That can happen but it's fairly unusual. There is some thought that
that may go on in parts of the Black River that connects Black Lake and
Mullet Lake in the northern lower peninsula. The reason that it's
unusual, however has at least partly to do with the fact that the
natural life history of walleye would discourage that. By that I mean
that walleye fry that emerge from eggs laid in a river will wash
downstream (not up stream obviously). Thus they will end up in points
below the natal stream such that as they mature, they will likely be
getting only farther from the place that they hatch. Walleyes imprint to
their hatch location (like many fish do, although maybe not as strongly
as salmon or other salmonid species). They find natal streams or rivers
by smell. The water washes down stream of course. The whole phenomenon
just discourages the idea of spending their time between spawning in
lakes above the natal stream. In the case of Mullet and Black, the
reason walleyes there may be an exception is that the ones migrating
downstream for spawning are probably from the reach of river that are
upstream from the confluence. So really they just spent their time in
the neighboring lake and are really migrating downstream to be able to
go back upstream in the other river. This is mostly my guess. I'm not
sure if there has been any telemetry study done in these rivers for
walleye but this is what I have heard about it. |
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| MDNR told us walleye migrate into the Detroit River for the spawn from Lake Erie upstream, as well as from lake Huron, which would be downstream. |
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