With what little experience I had with walleye in cages, it does not work very well. The individuals in the cage kept trying to eat the similar sized siblings. IMO this is why. Walleye are primarily fish eaters (piscivors and similar to those in the pike family and quite canibalistic) while other fish including basses are more omnivorous not so canibalisic and will readily live together in cages and learn to eat introduced foods. I hope I am wrong in this so someone can be successful at growing WE in cages to teach me how to do it. :-)))). Your best method would be to keep the cage full or crowded with small edible fish. Two hurdles with this method are: A. the mesh would have to be small enough to contain small feeder fish and small mesh cages tend to clog fast with filamentous algae. B. manually cleaning cages is stressful on the contained fish and walleye are water quality sensitive. Big losses are likely to occur.
IF you want larger sized WE stockers I suggest you stock them a 2"-3" fingerlings, grow them in a small drainable pond that is full of feeder fish such as minnows, shiners, YOY perch, and/or baby bluegills. Use method similar to that described by Mark Cornwell in the Jan-Feb 2013 PBoss magazine article "Walleye Stocking Guidelines". Then when they are 10"-14" long move them to the main pond. Large sized YOY WE really nice 7"-11" fish have been available for me grown from somewhere in SD - probably in winter kill prarie ponds. It may be an option for n8ly to get some on the truck's way to Ohio in the fall. Dr Dave may know of the source. I can probably find out the name of the source if needed.
IMO if you want large RES in the main pond, do what we do to get other large panfish stockers- grow them in cages then move pellet trained adults into the main pond. This way the adult, actively growing redears are not depending on mollusks for food. Redears, as you all know, are notorious for being hard to pellet train so be prepared for that challenge. Get that perfected and teach us how to do it successfully - :-)))))
Last edited by Bill Cody; 02/02/13 12:20 PM.
