Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
Anglers around Vermont cast their lines in hopes of catching their first walleye of the new season at the start of this month. You might not know that the critters on their hooks were likely the product of the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife’s extensive walleye breeding program.
“The fishery would be just about nonexistent if we didn’t step in and do what we’re doing,” said Chad Lambert, president of the Lake Champlain Walleye Association.
Lambert’s father grew up in the heyday of walleye fishing. He would catch 30-40 per day and keep the best 15, the legal limit at the time, his son said. But when Lambert was growing up, they’d be lucky to catch one an entire weekend.
“Back then, there was a lot of commercial fishing, overfishing, people catching too many, keeping too many. So, the fishery kind of got out-fished, and it just never really rebounded,” Lambert said.
The state started culturing walleye in 1992 — breeding them in captivity — in an attempt to raise the population and restore fisheries. The process has changed greatly over the years as biologists learn what methods produce the highest yield of fish. The present method is called intensive culture, and here is how it’s done:
It starts with electrofishing for the parent walleye. A team sets out in a boat and lowers long, octopus-looking prongs into the water. The prongs send out electric shocks that stun all fish in a 7-foot range. The stunned fish float to the surface, and the team uses nets to scoop them up and into a tank in the center of the boat.
Within minutes, large walleye fill up the tank like sardines in a can.
“We have a certain threshold we need to take to ensure the genetic diversity,” said state fisheries biologist Bernie Pientka.
Biologists choose walleye of various sizes and from multiple rivers. Twenty to 25 pairs are brought back to the Ed Weed Fish Culture Station in Grand Isle.
There, the uncomfortable process of spawning the walleye happens. Biologists squeeze out milt — fish semen — from the males and eggs from the females. They bend the fish into U-shapes and rub their bellies to squeeze the contents out. The gametes are collected in a barrel and swirled together to fertilize.
The fertilized eggs grow in large fiberglass tanks at the facility, and after 13-16 days, they hatch into fry, which grow into fingerlings, a few inches long. The tanks are pumped with algae to feed the fish until they’re ready to be brought to rivers and lakes.
The Lake Champlain Walleye Association, a nonprofit, works hand in hand with the Department of Fish and Wildlife to maintain the population. The organization raises funds to buy tanks for the eggs, and the department provides the facility and the expertise.
One of the experts in question is Kevin Kelsey, a fish culture specialist at Ed Weed who oversees much of the facility’s work. Raising walleye through intensive culture is a relatively new development, and Kelsey has been at the forefront.
“He literally slept with those fish in the early years,” Lambert said.
In the past, walleye were cultured in ponds. The environment was much harder to control, and the yield was far smaller. Walleye are prone to cannibalism, so growing them in a way where they keep to themselves is a challenge.
Over the years, Kelsey has experimented and improved the indoor intensive culture method to a point where Vermont is an example of the practice nationally.
“The survival rate’s just tenfold in there,” Lambert said. “They’re hardier, healthier, bigger, stronger fish.”
The efforts have led to almost 5 million walleye being stocked in Vermont’s waters since 2009, according to state data.
In most places in the state, anglers today can’t take more than three walleye per day each, and Lambert said it’s common for people to make that number. Although the walleye population has support from the state, it is still at risk from overfishing by people who do not respect the limit.
“My thinking is that it’s a natural resource that belongs to everybody,” said Tom Mason, a Vermonter who’s been fishing for 50 years and appreciates the resurgence of the walleye. “A person that goes in and cleans out a lake after half a year of ice fishing, and it’s dead three or four years afterwards, that’s not right.”