Fort Peck Walleye Spawn

[Nemont]

Every year the Montana FWP asks for volunteers to assist them with the annaul walleye spawn. Since Fort Peck has low natural walleye reproduction the population is augmented with hatchery reared fry and fingerlings. On Sunday my son and I spend the day helping with this project.

They place nets like this in the lake and we boated up to them to check out what was in them.

If there were ripe females we placed them in tank to hold them.

They were then placed on this boat to transport them back to the spawning station as soon as possible.

There were some big walleyes out there.

Once the ripe females were at the spawning station they are place in another holding pen.

Then they are stripped of their eggs.

Then Fertilized

Then the fertlized eggs are place in "cradles" for transport to the hatchery.

 

[Nemont]

For those interested in waterfowl production there were lots of paired up geese around watching us.

Including this pair that picked out a high place to nest. Should be a fun first flight for the little ones.

Some of the country side

 

[ELKCHSR]

Thats really cool Nemont...

Looks like it would be a very fun day of 'fishing'

 

[Tom]

That's great! Did you eat the walleye egg soup?

What's the story there? Oh, transported to the hatchery, that's what it was about, good.

Way to go, good work!

 

[Bambistew]

Cool pictures, thanks for sharing.

What do they do with the transplanted fish? Mostly back into the lake?