what up with the small walleye?

[Ray Duve]

Went out the the Saginaw river the last two days and caught a ton of walleye.About 60 fish between myself and a friend but of all the fish only 4 keepers and the biggest being just a little over six pounds.I havent fished walleye on ice for the last seven years but sure rememeber fish being quite a bit larger than what I have been catching.Anyone have any idea what the deal is with all the small ones?

[Reel Fishn]

Those are our future, great to see isn't it!! The smaller fish usually make their way in first with the bigger females to follow. The smaller fish are more aggressive also, I know we used to only catch nice fish 4 to 8 lbers but think of how great our fishing will be in the next 5 yrs!!!

Mark

[adam bomb]

although the smaller males come first and are followed by the bigger females, there are allot more small fish then there used to be. the massive numbers of small fish are due to the explosion of natural reproduction weve had in the last 2-3 years. now, there are a ton more walleyes in the system and the overall size has gone down since you last fished 7 years ago.

this past summer we boated 1500+ walleye of which 800+ were legal sized fish. on average, the the legal size fish caught was 15"-18". the bigger fish that we caught weighed much less than a fish of the same length did 5 years ago. for instance, we caught a notable amount of 28"-29" walleyes that weighed in at just over 6 lbs during the summer months, where as they used to weigh, 7-8 lbs. they have big heads and skinny bodies. seeing these skinny fish is disturbing, it makes me wonder if we're gonna have enough forage in the system to sustain all the fish that we have now? only time will tell?

more evidence of the overall size decrease is showing up in tournament winning weights. our fishery has gone from one that took a 40 lb basket to win, down to 30 lbs, and now 20-25 lb winning wieghts. some will say there were bigger weights caught, and i have to agree, but they were few and far between this past summer.

in a nutshell, the overall size is down IMHO, because we have high numbers of walleye and low numbers of alewives and smelt. their decline has directly been corallated to the size decrease in our walleye population. without stable numbers of these forage in our sytem im not sure we'll ever acheive the high numbers of big fish we had from days gone by.:sad:

[Ralph Smith]

I think all the walleye are taking care of the forage available to them. Those nice suculent scaless gobies! Since they both hang near bottom seems like a good fit. The numbers seem to be way down on those little buggers compared to a few years ago.:confused:

[chamookman]

I have to agree with Adam. I think things are WAY out of whack. Been hearing the "wait till next year" thing (conserning sm. fish) for 10 years now. Myself, I'm tired of catching dinks (Bay and River), and am worried about the future of Our fishery. With all the invasive crap coming in on the sea ballast, We're in SERIOUS TROUBLE. Bob

[woodie slayer]

i think the DNR stopped planting saginaw bay again for a couple years.they are planting inland lakes instead..need to let the forage fish re-poppulate too..either that or drop the size limit to 13 inches.
maybe that's where the perch went??????/

[mrblugil]

I can remember when the walleys were first found in the river system an guys wouldn't even get off their bucket if someone threw a 10#er on the ice,because of all the big walleyes caught here they changed the Master Angler awards,you could drive along the river in the evening an see big fish flopping all over on the ice,those days are gone for sure,I wonder if they still use the rearing ponds,can't remember reading anything about them for quite some time.:) :fish:

[olddog413]

I have heard that the DRN claims there is significant natural reproduction right now. So all the fingerlings from the rearing ponds are going to inland lakes for the next few years. I also know way back when they started planting, they planted river strain walleye, then some years back they went to a reef strain for a few years. Now for the past couple of years they went back to the river strain. That could account in part for some of the down years weve seen.I've been at this since the beginning, seen the hog days, seen the lean days. I believe it is encouraging to see all these juvenile fish. While we may not ever see the old days again, in a couple of years our frying pans should be full of good eaters. I have always thrown back the hogs anyways.

[walleyeman2006]

i havent caught a skinny fish except for post spawn....everything has been fat....yes there are a lot more small fish but with the extraordinary amount of feed for them it shouldnt be a problem......the population of shiners is extrmely high and gizard shad the main foarage of walleye seems to have rebounded very well too.....just look in the top five feet of the water colomn in the saginaw river...ive seen vast schools of shad and shiners in every river and marina ive fished this fall and winter.........................................sma ll fish are usually more agressive then big ones..........it will take time to get back up to a 5 pound average but if each year class has good reporduction we never will see that average again that happened do to stocking....and a fairly low population compaired to the actual carrying capacity of saginaw bay..id be happy with a 3 pound average witch i do think is realistic and will come within the next 3 years

[Bulletproof]

Yes the river is choked with shad, which is promising.

However, the entire bay watershed isn't.

There is definitely some carrying capacity issues going on with this balance of walleye vs. forage. Unfortunately, I feel the walleyes are on the losing side.

I have been WAITING the last 4+ years for these 10-13 inch fish to become of legal size or better and have yet to see any significant growth. Keep in mind that I do understand that there are many, many keepers and trophies around, but these young yearling classes are not demonstrating typical growth curves for walleyes. Give it another year or 2, give it another year or 2 has been the consistent mantra that I have heard from a multitude of folks.

Does anyone have any good links to some hard scientific data or studies concerning what appears to be a growing problem here in the Saginaw Bay?

[JimDandy]

You could always look at the deq or dnr's website for info. This is where i find all stocking of lakes, invasive species and health of our fish population information.

[olddog413]

Are we really to believe that these are the very same fish we are catching for the last few years ? I think not. On my Marcum, larger fish are occasionally showing up, usually just above the juveniles. I believe , as with perch, these juveniles are more aggresive, and just out quick the bigger fish to our baits. Then along comes days when all fish caught are of nice size, they are fresh runs in my opinion, running in thier year class, and a school of good sized eyes will drive the runts right out of thier way. Febuary will bring new schools in ,and it's my experience that one needs to follow it up and down the river when you find one.They are very nomadic.That same school you find at Indy bridge one day, could very well be miles upriver the next day or two.

[adam bomb]

there are still big fish in our system, just not the numbers that we once produced. i agree, walleyes school by year class. theyll be together, but seperate in a large school. meaning 1-2 lb fish together, 3-4 lb fish together, etc...although this is the case, the overall size and numbers of bigger fish is definitely down because you dont run into schools of bigger fish as often as you once did. if we did, this discussion wouldnt be going on.;)...there should be good numbers of 1-3 lb walleyes(our sub-legals from the past 3 years) in the river right now, but they dont seem to be showing up in anglers creels all too often lately. their numbers were just as high. where are all those fish???...its not too early for them to be in the river.

...and to add to the skinny fish, i didnt mean that all the fish that i caught in the 28-30" length were all skinny, but a notable amount. they looked similar to post spawn fish, but that surely isnt the case in july and august....its malnutrition. this wasnt just fish of that length, but 24-25" fish as well...these walleyes were mostly caught in deep water around the augres area. so, it is evdient that the massive schools of forage(alewives and smelt) that inhabit the open water are not there like they once were.

their decline has made our salmon fishery quite meek compared to what it once was on this side of the state. our walleye size seems to be following suit. lets hope the walleye numbers dont do the same.

[walleyeman2006]

things are different now....when we had the bigger fish they were in general planted fish....no where near the number of fish that are being added by natural reproduct now according to the dnr....this is a new thing for the ecology of saginaw bay to deal with and will take time maybe there will eventually be a need to take a few of the 13 and 14 inch fish that seems like it could help at the moment but all it will take is a few bad reporductive years mixed in unless we continue to have these high natural reproduction rates year after year.
.
.yes adam i can see skiny fish coming out of the deep water but i really dont think it will happen next year,,,,,,,,,,,the shad and shiners have been thick enough to walk on all winter in every harbor ive been too on huron ,,,never seen bait fish this thick