Survey Shows Abundant Young Fish
By Brad Dokken, Grand Forks Herald, N.D.
Oct. 14–It’s too early to guarantee good fishing, but populations of young walleyes, yellow perch and white bass in Devils Lake are at their highest levels in several years, results from a fall Game and Fish Department survey show.
According to Randy Hiltner, northeastern district fisheries supervisor for Game and Fish in Devils Lake, the annual young-of-the-year fall gillnetting survey produced a stunning 101 fish per net.
That’s the highest cumulative catch since 1991, Hiltner said, and considerably higher than the 16-year average of 38 fish per net.
Two years ago, by comparison, the cumulative catch was 18 fish per net.
“There’s lots of baby fish in the system this fall,” Hiltner said.
About the survey
Game and Fish conducts the survey by setting gill nets at 37 sites from east to west. The nets are set in the same locations every year, Hiltner said, and left in the water overnight.
This year’s survey started Sept. 10 and took about a week and a half to complete, he said.
The catch was evenly distributed between the three main species, Hiltner said, along with a small percentage of crappies. The survey produced an average of 37 yellow perch per net, Hiltner said, the highest since 2001 and up from 19 last year and less than two in 2004.
The walleye catch also was the highest since 2001, while numbers of young white bass were at their highest levels since 1991, he said.
Despite the results, Hiltner said it’s too early to say the banner numbers will mean high populations of catchable-size fish in a few years.
“It doesn’t translate directly to a strong age-class, but if I had my druthers, I’d start out with a lot of little fish rather than a few little fish,” he said. “The potential is there down the road.”
Stocking questions
Game and Fish stocked Devils Lake with 1.7 million walleye fingerlings and 931,000 perch fingerlings this year, Hiltner said. Stocked fish were “marked” with oxytetracycline, a chemical that shows up in the ear bone when viewed under a microscope. Hiltner said 130 baby walleyes and 130 baby perch were sent to a lab Tuesday for analysis to determine the percentage of stocked vs. natural fish.
Results will be available in a couple of months.
“If it’s like several of our other samples in years when we have good young-of-the-year catch rates, the majority typically is from natural reproduction,” he said. “We certainly know that’s true for white bass, and we didn’t stock those.”
Hiltner said the high water levels in Devils Lake have flooded areas of sand and gravel, creating better spawning conditions than the mud that dominated shorelines when the lake was low.
That ups the odds for natural reproduction, he said.
The fall assessment doesn’t sample young northern pike, which by September are too large for the half-inch mesh fisheries crews use in the survey, Hiltner said. Other surveys and spring egg-taking efforts continue to show strong pike populations, he said.
“We have a pretty good idea that northern pike are thriving out here,” Hiltner said.
Game and Fish also sampled Stump Lake for young-of-the-year fish. That survey produced only five walleyes per net, despite a spring stocking of 790,000 fingerlings.
The nets did produce 40 perch per lift, however, and Game and Fish didn’t stock any perch in Stump Lake this year, Hiltner said.
Reach Dokken at 780-1148, (800) 477-6572 ext. 148, or bdokken@gfherald.com”>bdokken@gfherald.com.
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