After a missed year of spawning Walleye on Pool 9 in 2020 due to the pandemic, we were back in action this spring. A strange spring it was weather wise for us in Western Wisconsin. We put our nets in on April 5 and started spawning fish on April 6. An unseasonably warm spell following a cold snap had temperatures rise 10 degrees from 44 F to 54 F in only three days, peaking at 58 F a couple days later which blew right through the typical spawning temperatures (around 45-50 F). A cold snap brought temps back down into the mid 40’s the following week. The fish seemed to be confused as well.
We never saw the typical “bell curve” of spawning activity slowing rising to a peak before slowly falling off. Numbers of ‘ripe’ fish were inconsistent until falling to near zero by April 22 when we pulled our nets. We likely missed a few of the early spawners over Easter weekend with the significant warm up, but we were able to send millions of eggs to our partners, stock our ponds for production, and return hundreds of thousands of eggs and fry back to the river.
By: Nick Bloomfield