Walleyes for Tomorrow 2026

[pclark]

We started netting on Monday this week with the DNR taking the lead as they are surveying our entire chain. Due to water temps in different lakes some females had already spawned, some with green/hard (not ready yet) and others like the 30” 11lb in picture was full of eggs. Along with this one several in the 27” range were also netted along with some nice 18” males. We are off to a nice start and the weather has been very nice with water temps rising quickly into high 40’s.
View attachment 72253

 

[whitedust]

Do Native Americans have spearing rights on those lakes ?

 

[pclark]

Pete, they spear our chain every year, Lac Du Flambeau Tribe. We worked with the DNR this year as they were doing an all out survey of our chain and it was very educational. When Indians spear they typically mostly take male walleyes, reason why is the mating process, the males wait on the spawning beds for the females, when the female is ready it takes only 90 seconds for her to circle the spawning beds and drop her egs and then the males do their part. So, when the Indians spear, typically at night, what they see are a lot of males in the shallows and they take them for the most part because they are easy to spear. As you can see the females are much larger fish, this year in the 3 days of netting the conditions were almost perfect and it was very successful, over 4 million eggs were procured and are now in the incubator jars, with the water warming rapidly they should start grow quickly. Today we netted the largest one at 32", probably pushing 12lbs along with 9 or so in the 27"- 30" range, i would say in the 3 days we had 30 females over 27". The spawn is now over for this year, always an interesting week on the water, seeing fish that you would never see otherwise.