Evening Report

[Phil Lilley]

That's a real nice fish. I'm wondering - do walleyes reproduce successfully, much, in Bull Shoals? I've read that they're a native fish that the old timers used to call "trout", so I guess there were a few of them in the streams before the lakes were built. I never caught one until they started to be stocked in the lakes, though.

With all the tagged ones I've caught out of B.S., I was under the impression that it's a put-and-take fishery of almost all hatchery fish. Do enough of them reproduce naturally here for it to make any difference whether females with eggs are kept or not?

I think so. MDC protects them up in Swan during their spawn.

[Mike Worley]

The Twin Lakes Walleye club took a field trip to the MDC hatchery where the walleyes that were collected from BSL near Powersite dam this year are spawned. We were told by the hatchery spokesman during his presentation that some years the walleye reproduction in BSL has been made up of 80% natural reproduction. So I don't think that the walleye population in BSL is a put & take thing. I found the hatchery trip to be quite informative. BTW MDC did collect a 14#+ female this year but she was well past her prime and did not survive the spawn. The hatchery personnel said females in the 2-8 pound range are the best producers and after that are generally not successful in spawning so if you catch a 8 pounder and want to keep it I don't think you are hurting the spawn. BTW I fished on the lower end of BSL yesterday and stayed after dark to see if the walleyes were still on the points spawning. We saw very few walleyes last night where we saw probably saw 200 last week we did see a female that looked like she was really beaten up. I think that maybe the really warm weather we had with 50 MPH wind over the weekend may have gotten them spawned so maybe the bite will get going soon.