Big South Fork walleye run

[cmac]

Can anyone tell me when the walleye run starts on the BSF. I am trying to take a ten year old with me for his first walleye trip in a canoe.

You can contact me vie email if you dont want to post on hear. [email protected]

Thanks

[SSKY]

Joe B states that the walleye in Cland that are stocked in the lake are Lake spawners and therefore do not use the river to spawn on the shoals, so there must be none there. And there is no river structure that a native genetic walleye could spawn on. We know that is not true as the lake strain walleye also make a run up the river to spawn. Now that i have my little rant out of the way, the lake strain do have a spawning run up the river but it is very hard to time when they will be there with water conditions and depth of the river and the danger of the river up that far. If you can hit it right it would be good , can you predict the conditions No.Summer time canoe trip, if that is what you want to do for smallmouths would be a better option and there would also be some walleye there.

[JoeB]

When the hell did you hear me state anything remotely resembling that????? Are you prescribing yourself drugs Scott????

[SSKY]

I thought that you were in favor of the lake spawners and would not even care. Thanks though, for playing on the discussion board.Why do the fish that are stocked have to make a run to spawn in the same place that the native fish did it? I do not get that.I would think the native fish would also be smart enough to do the same thing, as it would be where they came from.So If we have the same pattern for the fish to run up the river to spawn and if they have to be supported by stocking there "as far as I can tell" is no reason not to use the native fish and DNA.Tell me if I am wrong, i was told its not a money thing?

[JoeB]

OK, You are wrong.

[birdstrike]

A report I found indicates that the walleye are not imprinted with their spawn site, as say a salmon would be. The fish that have the instinct to spawn in moving water will often test several areas before committing to one. When conditions are right they will move up the Cumberland, Laurel, and/or BSF in numbers. If the conditions aren't right in one or more of these rivers, they will go up another one. The BSF being the only river to have a fairly consistent run.

There seems to be but a small percentage of fish that even bother trying to spawn at all. Many will tend to stay in their "home range" even if it does not include spawning grounds. The males being more likely to show up in the spawning area (sounds just like the bars I used to go to).

Some more fun facts... these numbers from a Canadian lake which one might consider ideal conditions for walleye. "...the average female drops 175,000 eggs on a rocky bottom, 43,750 eggs will hatch, 43 of them will survive to fingerling, and 3.2 of them will make it to catchable size."

One of the problems with the river spawners is their likelihood of getting caught by a fishermen. When these fish show up in a small area in good numbers (the good ol' days), the word gets out. The fish that have the instinct to find a current, get nabbed and removed from the gene pool.

So for SSKY, if the lake is stocked with entirely native fish, do we regulate fishing in the spawning areas? Give 'em a fighting chance? Would you support a ban on all walleye fishing in the BSF, Cumberland, Laurel, and Rockcastle Rivers or the entire Cumberland watershed, Feb-April?

[SSKY]

I would still believe that the over fishing that occured at the spawning sites with no regulation at that time time doomed that fishery to fail. The state at that time time tried to put a hatchery there but did not regulate the fishery and the continued taking of the spawners occured until there was not enough to sustain the population from a small area (many years ago). Yes I would think that at that time(many years ago) if there were regulations to stop the fishing for all of the spawners the native fish would still be here just like the sauger. They still have not been given a chance to do so,and if the native genes were stocked and they had the protection on the last breeding grounds they might actually do it.It has not been disproven and not tried. If there is no benefit to try for the native walleye, there is no need to try to restore the rockcastle river strain,what is that for?? and why is it being done?

[SSKY]

Thanks NM

[birdstrike]

Here a link to a story that give reference to KYDFW's plan for the native walleye...

www.nkyflyfishers.org//Docs/Jan%202004.pdf

"This discovery led Fisheries Director Benjy Kinman to make native walleye restoration a top priority... Kinman said the intention is to flood the walleye genepool wherever native fish are stocked. Eventually,through time and repeated stockings, native fish will take over those rivers. The goal of Kentucky’s native walleye program is that one day, anglers across Kentucky will have the opportunity to catch a fish once thought extinct. "

I too would support a ban on walleye fishing durring the spawn.

[SSKY]

That web site adress will not come up. None the less I still belive that if the spawning sites were protected in the first place and continued many years ago the native fish could have done the job and would still be here. We still have seasons for turkey, deer, and forest rats to protect their spawning season. Would a potective season for native walleye up the river at the time that they spawned would have worked, I do not know but it was not tried at that time and the fishery got blasted by catch and keep from the historical records. Birdstrike, there is a good article in an old Ky Afield that gives a little info.