For Once Anderson Hits the Nail on the Head

[maplelakeduckslayer]

And to not see that hooking mortailty killed enough large fish in 2002 to stabilize the baitfish situation for a few years after. It's not rocket science. Hmm, tons of large fish being caught at never before seen rates, lots of those large fish dying from hooking mortality...2003 baitfish populations in good shape.

It's either complete incompetency, or they caved to political pressure to pass regulations to protect mille lacs' reputation as a large size walleye factory.

[Fish Felon]

The issues facing the lake are much different than 2002 or any other previous scenario. We keep trying to manage the lake from the top down when we should be looking at it from the bottom up.

Spiny water fleas decimate zooplankton, every lake they've hit has seen them consume 40% to 60% of the foundation of the food chain. Mille Lacs is no different. There are types of plankton decimated to the point they're basically extinct in the lake; they don't even show up in the surveys.

Zebes didn't explode in the lake until 2011. In 2014 the DNR estimated the total poundage of walleyes in the lake at 2 million, a record low. That's still a lot of biomass, and the main fish biomass in the lake.

Which pales in comparison to the 2 BILLION pounds of zebra mussels estimated.

They didn't originate out of thin air. Neither did the spiny water fleas. They're made out of the same matter as every other living organism. The materials needed to grow and exist was consumed by them to do so. What'd it offset?

These are brand new problems, which we're really just beginning to see the effects and implications of.

Invasives typically "boom" in new environments and expand rapidly without any checks or balances and then level off and actually decrease before settling in at the true carrying capacity. Zebes have done that, and probably still are doing that. They've declined since peaking in 2012 but they're still at extremely high density levels and will most likely cover the 35% of the lake substrate (bottom) hard enough for them to cling to from here on out. Will it be in levels documented at over 7,000 per square foot? Nope, but they'll still be covering the same spots, just not packed as tightly as they've matured and choked themselves out some. Spiny water fleas have started to be consumed by first year perch and ciscoe. They will probably balance out some as well. Their hit to the food chain could be offset by increasingly becoming apart of it.

Even under the best case scenarios for the impact from those two invasives, the lake will never be able to support the biomass levels of walleye it once did because it will never support the smaller levels of life needed to sustain it that it once did.

How much of the zooplankton from previous levels was excess? Could be just a tiny fraction, could be a lot....we have no idea at this point. How much is actually needed at the foundation of the food chain to support a lake healthy enough to allow for historical walleye harvest? We're about to find out.

The 2015 fall walleye assessment didn't release the gill net survey for walleyes. Going off the 2014 survey that was released right away of just under 10 for walleyes (pretty good actually) I'm guessing it's extremely high. The 2013 year class was fast growing and members of it started showing up in the gill nets fall of 2014, a rarity. A year later when they theoretically all would have not been able to swim through should have caused the counts to jump dramatically.

So why no walleye fishing this year with a lake chalk full of fIsh?

The DNR is freaked out by the low and decreasing levels of breeding walleyes, females in particular. The last big year class was hammered repeatedly by specifically being targeted under the slots and a lake that's never had an issue producing large year classes (even if later consumed before adulthood), might not have the breeding stock for that capacity.

The DNR is trying to protect the 2013 year class until the females reach spawning maturity; 2019. This will be a huge mistake. The 2013 year class is historic, enormous and bigger than any previous documented year class.

Most good walleye lakes rarely produce back to back above average year classes. By the time a big year class is fingerlings the next year class is newly hatched fry and perfect forage for them. Typically a good lake will have members present from several strong year classes; such as 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015, for example. They kind of keep each other in check, and a have a similar age structure, in similar numbers percentage wise that's been documented time and time again on healthy walleye lakes.

A year class like 2013 would never happen naturally. Think of the Red Lake crappie explosion but with walleyes.

The lake can't support all of them. No lake could. They're at a size and age where they're eating machines, consuming more pound for pound than they will at any other time in their life.

They're going to consume all the available forage and starve.

This realization will become widespread by opener next year.

Too late to do anything. What can you do with a lake full of skinny walleyes and no forage? Try to catch them all before they die?

If they were smart they'd try to cut the 2013 year class in half this summer to stay ahead of the inevitable. The absolute last thing you want is to deplete your forage beyond a level it can bounce back from with a large population of walleyes present in the lake at the same time. It's pretty hard to manage a healthy walleye population when they have nothing to eat.


Maybe that's what the hatchery is for?!

[get-n-birdy]

The really ignorant part is they need to do exactly opposite of what they think. They think less poundage coming off the lake will cure something. It's like thinking more taco bell and coffee will fix gut rot and butt pee by keeping more food in the intestinal track. Best thing they could do would be to open the lake up to keeping 6 over 23"es.

[deet]

FF are you a glutton for info or have friends in fisheries or just a really good bullchitter?