Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Walleye Egg-take underway in Kansas.

I know there are some folks in the public setting that do not agree with what we do in this program, but they also don't understand where those WAE come from that they catch in lakes/res that have no natural reproduction.
At any Rate, we are underway! It is off to an incredibly SLOW start as in the 2 Res impoundments we collect eggs in the west half we have seen only 3 ripe females in an incredibly large compliment of nets. This is the latest start to spawn since 1987, yet water temps are only 1 deg below ave. for March 19.
I will be taking some pics throughout the process and if Admin has no issues, I will post those to try and "show" the story as I tell it.
I will also be an egg-runner on a few days taking eggs direct to hatchery after fertilization and water hardening. On day 6-8 I should be able to capture fry in hatch mode as well.
If Mods/Admin feel this is not relevant, please advise and I will not clutter with this, but I will try to make this as interesting as possible if nobody has opposition to this thread.
I also promise I WILL have my PondBoss shirt ON for all pics :-)

Dang, I can't wait to follow this. Awesome.

Just a question, for those that don't agree with what you do in this program.... what is it they don't agree with? Seems bizarre.

Maybe the use of nets to harvest eggs? I don't know ether.

I would be very interested in how they are hatched and knowing the process? When the young hatch how small are they what do they eat right away?

Cheers Don.

This egg collection and hatching process will be very educational for all readers.

Rod said he started harvesting eggs last week I think. We are in line to purchase fry for the little 300 acre pond. Should be ready he said in 3 to 4 weeks.

NEDOC, the public believes if we take eggs (No fish are killed-extremely rare to have a Mort) we are taking away production from the Lake. As you guys here all understand, a lower numbered year class is much stronger and healthy than one that has a gazillion fry hatching and run out of food, then recruitment is historically nearly non-existent.

On my watch list!

I imagine as a public fisheries biologist it'd be difficult to go out in public with people knowing who they are. Everyone wanting to offer advice with little knowledge. It would be frustrating.

It will be cool to learn about this process.

OK! First 5 days down, off to a REALLY slow start but without fail, once photo period reaches 12 hrs 15 min., it's game-on.. 39 degs or 50 degs it's very consistent every year with photo period.
Got some pics lined up here, will try to explain the process as it goes. There are many items I haven't got pics of that need to be a part of this but I'll be back at it in 2 days and try and get a completed, step-by-step shot of the entire process.

Pic #1 is water supply tank for continued flow inside of spawntoon. The reason for the elaborate filter systems is not for clear water but protection from Zebra mussels in this case.

A side shot of our fully enclosed 32ft Barge for stripping eggs in any weather conditions..

First 700 gal tank is Females from Trap nets..

This pic is of Females from gill nets-we use multi-filament nets with near 0% mortality.

Next pic here is 300 gal tank with males only

As we start the stripping process, the fish bellies are dried using towels to keep and potential mussel spores out of containers going to the hatchery. The bench is built with a fixture to hold one pan solid, filled near half with water so the second pan we strip eggs into "floats" so it can be spun to keep eggs uniform and evenly spread prior to fertilization.

Shaking those ovaries down!(also called "pillow talk"..

And finishing off a pan..

Next we start sorting out 3-5 males to assure good genetics as-in the strongest spermatozoa gets it done..

After fertilized, 1 qt of water is poured in and the eggs are stirred immediately with a turkey feather before handing off to the "egg stirrers". Each pan is stirred for 2 minutes and then 1 qt of fullers earth clay mix is poured in to remove adhesive membrane from eggs and stirred for 3 more minutes. At this point eggs are poured into fine screen vats where they set for 1 hour to water harden. During hardening, the cells begine to multiply at a rate that the egg is 5 times the size it was when stripped.
After 1 hr the eggs are lifted from the vats at a rate of 6qts of water hardened eggs (approx. 120,000/qt) into coolers containing 3 gal of water. Each is labeled and one of the guys loads and drives direct to 1 of 2 hatcheries, whichever has the room.
Last Thursday morn was the first day we had ripe females and took approx. 800,000 eggs. Yesterday we sent 2,280,000. within a few days we should be averaging 5-6 million a day for the next 2 weeks. I will get some other pics of all parts of the operation in a few days, it's hard to snap pics when every person has a specific job and really, there is little sit-still time until the last pan is fertilized. I hope by next Thursday I can get pics of fry hatching to add to the remainder of pics to come.

Pretty cool stuff! That's a lot of eggs. How many will hatch and survive?

Hatch...roughly 55%. Survive?? Estimate is 2% to year 1.

Interesting that you dry a portion of the fish with towels. Any problems seen later on with fungus, etc. on the areas where the "slime" was removed?

Interesting that you ask, Bill. We have a tank with a moderate mixture of salt for dipping them before release. This was a trick we picked up from the Nebraska boys last year. We have tried a tank with the salt mix but are going to a salt mix in a 5 gal bucket to literally dip and dump.
We've never seen anything show up as fungus, even in the past. We do mark a few fish with fin clips and find that we have a very high recatch rate.

Very few lakes in KS can support walleye reproduction. This is really the only way to maintain populations.

Some real fish squeezers at work! This is great stuff, thank you so much for posting!

Hello folks! We decided last night to NOT reset nets for Egg take today due to forecasted 50-60mph winds and the safety hazards that come with that, so I am getting a chance to update some of this today.
We had a very unique situation on Thursday that will go down in History for State agency fisheries as we set a NEW all-time High fertilized egg delivery from one impoundment-in ONE DAY.
To start with, picture-wise, I'll go with a view of our "Spawntoon" barge with a better look coming in to the work station...

Next pic here is the 1200 gallon FEMALE tank at sunrise on 3/28..

And 1 hr later, here's the "AFTER" with what made History..

I'll go on through this before telling the rest of the story on why this was as significant as it was. Next pic is my view as I stir the eggs for 45 seconds after fertilization. We had 2 of us doing this on Thursday.

After 45 seconds of this we follow with fullers earth-an abrasive clay-that removes the membrane (adhesive) that we need to remove to properly float the eggs in the hatchery.

The eggs are stirred for as close to 3 minutes with the fullers earth to complete the fertilization and adhesive removal, then the eggs are poured into the hardening vats..

These vats are continuously lifted and moved to flush the fullers earth and keep the eggs from sticking to the screen as we continue to add eggs. When all materials are removed from the egg baskets we allow the to set and harden for approx. 1 hour, then begin the process of loading into coolers 6qts/cooler.


I made the trip to the Milford Hatchery on Friday to deliver our take of 52 qts yesterday am. The first 2 pics are of the vats we filled on Thursday, 3/28 that set multiple records of a whopping 101 qts of fertilized eggs-Higher (by far) than any 1 day haul in the History of this program! I cannot begin to explain how proud I am to be a part of this crew.. The bottom row of both pics following are from 3/28 alone from my group.


Next pic is eggs from the 3 we pull from in Kansas with the bottom row in this pic being all from my groups Reservoir. If you'll notice in the vials, the color changes from bottom to top. Where the eggs are dark turning to a lighter color represents Healthy, fertile eggs.
Notice the difference of our eggs on the bottom row vs. the eggs color on the top row.

Next pic is a closeup of some new eggs installed for rolling..

5 day-old eggs...

Closeup of 6 day eggs starting to show some eyes and some spinal representation. Our fertility appears to be close to the 70% range which is better than average but of course the hatch will determine actual values..

As much as I had hoped to get fry pics yesterday, it didn't happen.. Things are still cool enough the hatchery chose to slow the hatch slightly instead of warming to enhance only to drop fry into colder water. We still have a week to go even though we have met our goal for the year. Extra hatch is always useable to trade with other states so getting some fry pics will still happen!
Thanks to all for following along!!!!

Snipe,

Thank you for the education, the super pictures, and what you do to help keep walleye fisheries rocking. Looking forward to some fry pictures.

Although I can understand both sides of this debate, those are great photos and documentation of all the time, effort and expense put into making fishing an enjoyable experience for so many. Great work and I am looking forward to seeing photos of the fry.

Excellent photo documentation for walleye egg collection and fertilization. Worthy of a photo story in PB magazine and for a powerpoint lecture to any college fisheries class. Great idea and photo documentation. You get A BIG thanks from the PBoss forum as a whole group!.

Very cool! Thanks for the pics and descriptions!