The Finley~~~ Walleye

[Al Agnew]

Some of your pictures are definitely channel cats, a couple of them could be blues. The last picture in the bunch is definitely a channel. Look at the anal fin. The outer edges of a blue's anal fin is a more or less straight line, the outer edge of a channel's is rounded. If the anal fin is rounded it's a channel. Bigger male channels are often grayish blue in color and have few or no spots. I used to catch a lot of them on Big River when I was a kid and I was sure they were blue catfish because of the blueish color and lack of spots, but once I learned to look at the anal fins, I found out they were always channels.

The whole walleye thing is interesting. It's true that the native river strain walleye of the White and tribs were always uncommon and reproduced slowly, and once the lakes were built they suffered greatly. They need river riffles to spawn, and the riffles have to be pretty big and strong-flowing. When the lakes were first built the river strain fish trapped in them grew big and did well for a while, but gradually dwindled due to lack of spawning success in what was left of the rivers above the lakes. MO and AR both stocked lake strain walleye to replenish the disappearing populations, but the lake strain fish just didn't grow as big. Chances are that any really big walleye (over 12 pounds or so) that is now caught in the White River system is a survivor of the old river strain fish (or at least has some river strain genetics--it's possible that some of the lake strain walleye will still migrate up the rivers to spawn, along with the few river strain fish that might be left).

Which begs the question...where are these James River walleye coming from? Lake strain fish that are migrating up the rivers? Remnant river strain populations that have always been there but are now for some reason doing better?

A couple years ago I caught a nice walleye, about 25 inches, on Big River not far below Bonne Terre. I grew up on Big River and have fished that section for more than 40 years, and that's the first walleye I ever caught there. As far as I knew, walleye never got up above the dam at Morse Mill, 40 miles or more downstream. An MDC biologist told me he shocked several walleye from the same spot the autumn before--and he'd never heard of them being in that area before. One little school that happened to move up that far and liked it there? Will they spread?

[smallmouthjoe]

I couldn't find anything on line about determining between lake strain and our native strain. Do you know the difference, I mean besides size?

[mhall02]

Anal fin is very distinctly different that that of a channel (i.e. not rounded). Go to the bottom of this link:

http://www.mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2006/06/40.htm

[thefinleyassasin]

ok so then they were channels. I always thought the bigger channels retained their silver grey color. I dont know the difference in say color or looks but i have some old timers around i'll try and drum up some information from them if they dont have sometimers yet. ALSO YESTERDAY I SAW THE BIGGEST BASS I HAVE EVER SEEN IN THE WILD. A COUPLE GUYS IN A FLATBOTTOM BOAT LANDED A 6-7 POUIND FISH THEY GUESS THIS LARGE MOUTH BASE COULD HAVE FIT A GRAPE FRUIT IN ITS MOUTH. IT WAS WICKED HUGE. THEY WERE USING PLASTICE WORMS UP ABOVE THE RIVERDALE HYDRO PLANT CRAZY BIG FISH. Im not sure that this bass was of their guesses weight but it was a monster they said they planned on mounting it. Oh also the flatheads must have had a realy good spawn this last year or the year befor been catchiing loads of small flatheads about 8-10 inches long. And man do they have some jaw pressure.

[rangerman]

I've targeted walleye on the James river arm both in the spring and summer. There are some good ones caught on the James River arm by the guys fishing strictly walleyes. We've caught some up to 8 pounds and lost one that was 12+ at the boat. *!it happens!

In the spring near the lower end of the James, we have found holes that you could catch anywhere from 3 or 4 to up to a dozen eyes all in one spot.

They are there, you just have to strictly fish for them which is kind of hard when the whites are running.