We had a very good day at the hatchery and on Geneva Lake today. The rain had passed earlier in the morning so we were good that way, although it was very foggy on the lake and it was a slow travel to the netting area.
We filled up the remainder of the jars today with 1,125,000 eggs from walleyes in the 22” to 25” range. The male to female ratio was around 1 to 1 and the males have been getting more scarce the last 2 days. We have a full hatchery as of this morning with 6,220,000 eggs collected and incubating. We stripped eggs from just under 60 females and around 90 males were used for fertilization. We tried to use 2 males per female when available. It took 6 net nights with 6 fyke nets to get what we needed to fill 18 jars, with 2 jars devoted to hospital jars for a total of 20 jars utilized.
The netting crew will go out tomorrow morning to remove the nets from the lake and begin cleaning them. We need people on Saturday morning to stretch out the nets and power wash them and begin mending. This will be done at Geneva Lake Bait and Tackle on HWY 67 just south of where HWY 50 crosses 67 in Williams Bay (top of the hill). 8 am start time and work until early afternoon or so. Stay and help for as long as you can-an hour or 2 devoted is appreciated.
Now the incubation period is the focus with egg care and hatchery maintenance checks the daily and evening routine. I will send updates every few days now until fry hatch, then more often as we run thru that period.
Congratulations to those who helped during the last 6 days for filling the hatchery with eggs-not as easy to do by being more size selective and turning back very large fish with enough eggs in them to fill a jar per fish. Now we have eggs from 7 fish in 2 jars some days. A great job done by everyone!!
P.S. Check the Chicago Sun Times for Walleyes For Tomorrow Walworth Co. story. It is a very well done article. I think it was published 4-19, or 4-20.
Brian H. Simon
Walworth Co. Chapter Chairman
Walleyes For Tomorrow
