It’s been a crazy roller coaster ride over the last several days at the walleye spawning operation on Fort Peck Reservoir! Windy and cold one day, calm and sunny the next. Thankfully, we’ve been on the warmer side of things recently and walleye are back cruising the shallows as water temperatures increased to around 47F as of today.
Numbers of walleye captured in trap nets have been gradually increasing since the last update. A large portion of the female walleye have been ripe and ready to release their eggs. Because of this, we’ve managed to hold two more egg-takes. We managed to collect 8.7 million eggs on Sunday (4/21) and approximately 6 million more on Tuesday (4/23).
These two egg collection efforts pushed our egg total to approximately 53.5 million eggs for the season. If these temperatures continue to hold and/or warm slightly, we should continue to see good numbers of walleye in spawning mode. This means there is a chance we could meet our goal of 60-70 million eggs towards the end of this week.
Feature photo: FWP Aquatic Education Coordinator Jessi Gudgel with a green female walleye getting transported to the holding pens.
