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Stocking walleye

34K views 115 replies 30 participants last post by  c. j. stone 
johnboy " not all fish float when dead."

FWIW,,,
So many of 'your' (everybody's) pond questions, can simply be answered with the purchase of a SNORKEL, MASK & FINS! ;>)

My Sportsman Club now owns about 1500+- acres with 4 large 100-250 acre stocked strip lakes,,, plus 3 small, deep 'ponds'.

I snorkeled there, most of my life,,, I probably covered every sq ft in 3 of those lakes.
Some of my observations;
We/ the club would stock thousands of white bass for summer time fishing , & 2 months later they would all be gone. I would dive down & find them all over the bottom, DEAD. We're STILL not totally sure why. maybe Heat?
Pond/ lake building?
#1 mistake.?
In the beginning, the strip pits were totally void of weeds & structure. So The board decided to plant aqua grasses. Oooops WRONG TYPE OF GRASS!?
It didn't take many years for the crystal clear water to allow those 'grasses' to choke the WHOLE LAKE! Those healthy sun-soaked grasses grew all the way down to the bottom,,,, 33' DEEP!
Now, we couldn't bottom fish at all! We couldn't even cast! heck,,,, we couldn't even get a boat through the surface crap/ carpets in mid-summer! (lol,,, like fishing Mosquito AFTER a bass contest!!!;>)
& We had so many cattails choking the shallow 20 acre flats,,,, back by our overflow, that the lake would over-fill causing dock issues. The water elevation kept getting higher & higher each year.
#2 mistake? Then came $$$$$ Chemicals. Trying to slow those weeds down. NOPE, that didn't work! Just 'Throwing the money away'! Years & Years of treatment didn't put a dent in them!
#3 ??? Next came the OVER stocking of amurs,,,,, (hey Gary, was it 500 or 1000!!?)
THEY WORKED AWESOME! But, THEY ATE EVERYTHING!
The last time I dove down deep, I couldn't find a SPECK of grass! & NOT 1 CATTAIL ANYWHERE!
#4,,,, Now, in order to MAKE SOME STRUCTURE, THE 'BOARD' decided to drop trees into the lake!? WHAT!??? (Another one I completely disagree with,,, I would NEVER place anything in the water that decomposes). These strip pits already have 3'-4' THICK BLACK DECAYING MUCK ALL ACROSS THE BOTTOM! There use to be thousands of crabs, millions of snails & hundreds of clams,,,, there WAS zillions of baby minnows swimming around in schools.
#5 ??? Now, the board wants the members to completely RID the lake of those amurs. (Many 4'ers. are being caught & SHOT) I shake my head at that decision too.
I say,,,, keep tabs on the amount being caught, & re-place SOME per acre of water, in the other smaller weed-choked quarries.

Well,,,,,, On & On,,,,
I posted this whole mess story so some of you POND/ LAKE BUILDERS have some different view points of what to do,,,,,, & WHAT CAN GO WRONG.

BTW,,,, some of the walleye that were stocked years ago,,,, they ARE reproducing. :>)
Great post. I think that the moral of the story, and the predominant issue with many people (on this website, internet, facebook, ect) is that they are not biologists and do not understand biology, let along fisheries biology.
As a rule of thumb on many of my posts I provide information, but shy away from advice when dealing with biological issues. Being a fisheries biologist was my second career choice ( settled on teaching Language arts). I am very well versed on Biology and my LA background helps me retain information from very complex texts. This being said I AM NOT A BIOLOGIST! It is beyond me how someone can spout an opinion as fact and make a decision or suggestion based on ZERO scientific information. I will step down off my soap box now. Still waiting for those eyes to show up in this thread!

Side note, the white bass that had died in the previous post may have died from either a lack of oxygen (hypoxia) in the summer ( they have higher oxygen needs than many other fish) and they are nearly continuously moving and eating. A lake of that size also may not have supported enough open water food sources. White bass are not equipped to hunt in the shallows as ambush predators.
 
From what I gather here, is that you can stock a lake all you want. But until that lake has the proper balance of oxygen, vegetation, cover, forage, etc...then a return rate may be more likely to occur.

"If you build it, they will come."
That is correct! The problem is what is proper and what is not and how you know these things. Use the KISS method and most people will be ok. measure oxygen levels and water temps in the late summer and use them as a baseline for what can survive and what can not. Largemouth, sometimes small mouth, cat fish, sunfish and crappie usually make it.
 
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