Recently some nice crappies have been caught on Fox Lake in deep water with minnows, according to Bill’s Bait in Jackson. Otherwise local fishing has been slow.

Record gill-net catch in Spirit Lake

The fishing prospects for walleyes at Spirit Lake in 2013 should be excellent after a record catch of adult walleyes during the 2009 gill-netting season.

Donna Muhm, manager of the Spirit Lake Fish Hatchery, said in a press release this week the 2001 walleye class was the majority of fish collected for their eggs. The 2001 class passed through a slow growth period to a period where growth has exploded, thanks in part to a huge yellow perch population in the lake. The offspring of the perch were the main forage for these walleyes that led to their rapid growth and into the 17 to 22-inch protected restriction.

The protected slot regulation added in 2007 is working as intended because it caused anglers remove smaller fish from Spirit Lake which increased the food and growth rate of the remaining walleyes, said Mike Hawkins, fisheries management biologist for the Spirit Lake district.

“This is the highest brood stock density in Spirit Lake that we have seen in 50 years and we are still seeing good growth rate even with these densities,” Hawkins said. “Even when these fish move out of the special slot, which could happen later this year, we don’t expect a whole lot of harvest because our research has shown that anglers fishing these brood stock lakes see these fish as high value. They are likely to release these fish and harvest fish under the slot.”

The gill-netting conditions were nearly ideal; there was a nice warming trend and the winds were calm. The collection began on April 10 with three crews netting on East Okoboji Lake and three crews netting on Spirit Lake. Crews would collect fish twice each night. By April 12, all six crews were netting on Spirit Lake, and collected a record 746 adult walleyes that night alone. The following night, the crews set a new record of 814 adults.

“We had so many fish that were ready to spawn,” Muhm said. Hatchery staff striped 200 females on April 13, followed by 300, then 340 on April 15. Staff continued to strip fish through April 17, when the hatchery was full at 1,130 quarts of eggs. “We typically don’t take that many, but we wanted to this year as a precaution to make sure we had enough fry to fill our requests,” Muhm said.

The gill-netting netting crews are now gone, but the hatchery work is hitting its peak. The hatchery will be staffed 24 hours a day until the last egg is hatched, including muskies, which runs into the middle of May.

Ideally, the eggs will begin hatching in 18 to 24 days after fertilization, but the time frame is water temperature dependant. Warmer water leads to shorter hatching time. A good portion of the huge 2009 year class will be stocked in the walleye collection lakes including Clear Lake, Storm Lake as well as back in Spirit Lake, and will be approaching angler acceptable size in 2013.

“A huge investment of research has made monitoring and managing this walleye population possible, from collecting age and growth data, compiling creel surveys, evaluating stocking size and survival, and computer modeling of population dynamics,” Muhm said. “The results are that we are seeing some of the best fishing this area has ever seen.”