Walleye

[Hog Wally]

Can anyone explain why MDC doesn't try stocking walleye in the meramec ?

[mic]

Did you ask them?

[Hog Wally]

I was told (not enough interest)

[Mitch f]

There are so many walleye and Sauger in the Mississippi seems like they would find their way up if they wanted to be there.

[Smalliebigs]

see ya

[Flyguide7]

Well I for one is interested. I just started fishing the Meramec last year and was delighted when I caught my first walleye last year which was about three pounds. I would love to see the fishery developed to its full potential. If enough of us lobbied the MDR perhaps they would respond with a plant of 100,000 fingerlings.

[Flyguide7]

There are so many walleye and Sauger in the Mississippi seems like they would find their way up if they wanted to be there.

Mitch, are there a lot of walleyes in this part of the Mississippi? I know there are some saugers but I did not think there were walleyes. I have only lived in the area for a couple of years and have never fished the big muddy.

[Hog Wally]

Could you imagine if they put some stfrancois river strain walleye in her.

[Mitch f]

Mitch, are there a lot of walleyes in this part of the Mississippi? I know there are some saugers but I did not think there were walleyes. I have only lived in the area for a couple of years and have never fished the big muddy.

Yes, there are more saugers than walleyes, but you can get both in abundance below the chain of rocks bridge area or below Winfield dam.

[Al Agnew]

Well...there are lots of reasons. One, why do you think the fishery isn't at its true potential right now? Walleye are native to the Meramec, have no barriers to movement on it, and have pretty decent habitat. They are probably at their "natural" population levels. Fact is that there aren't very many Ozark rivers that have large populations of walleye, and never have been but for a very few special cases, so apparently there is something in the habitat that precludes them from reaching the kind of abundance they have in some places.

Two...it costs a lot of effort (and money) to raise native walleye to a size where they have a chance to survive stocking. It took them a long time to figure out how to make it even close to cost effective to raise Ozark river strain walleye just to stock in the St. Francis. The St. Francis was a unique situation, where walleye had historically been present and had grown to huge sizes, but had apparently completely died out.

Three...they can't stock lake strain walleye in the Meramec because there is simply no place for them to spawn. They aren't adapted to a free-flowing river system. So although lake strain are available and cost effective, it would be a waste to stock them. It would either be a put and take fishery or they'd just migrate forever looking for suitable habitat, and disappear.

I don't know about whether stocking Ozark river strain walleye would have some unintended consequences that we can't foresee. Probably not, but both MDC and Arkansas have learned some hard lessons about stocking non-native strain walleye. The walleye in the Meramec are apparently not the same strain as the south-flowing stream natives, since they never seem to reach the sizes that strain is capable of reaching.

What I suspect, as an interested layman and not a biologist, is that stocking lake strain walleye would be totally worthless except as a short term put and take type fishing situation, stocking Ozark river strain might boost top end size of walleye in the Meramec but would not increase the numbers much, if at all.