Muskegon River-MDNR Electrofishing

[Pineisland]

FYI-

On Monday, March 31, from approximately 10am-2pm, the DNR shocking boat will be on the Muskegon River, doing a domestic trout survey, and checking the status of the Walleye. Two stretches of the river will be shocked, Henning to Newaygo PAS beginning around 10 am, and Croton-Pine a couple hours later. If you prefer not to fish in the area of the shocking survey, please take note.

The walleye egg take is planned this year on two dates, April 2 and April 9. On those days, the river will be worked fairly hard from Croton to Pine Street. Very little of the river will be left undisturbed between approximately 9am-2pm in this stretch. The Pine St. access site will be the location of the egg take, as well as sampling for the VHS virus.

More info will be posted here after checking the status of the walleye on Monday .

[Walleye Express]

I'm very curious about this egg take plan. They stopped all the egg taking over here on this side of the state because they said there was no safe place to hatch them due to the VHS virus. That they were not going to take a chance on infecting any hatcheries with it.

[Treblemaker]

Thanks for the update Tom. I do know the entire program was suspended last year so they could confirm that walleye eggs and hatch lings could be disinfected and VHS free prior to releasing them statewide. Many of the procedures to disinfect eggs have been documented on cold water species like salmon and trout, but had never been tested on warm water species like walleye from my conversations. Hopefully this news will mean the return of DNR walleye plants for 2008! Please let us know what we can expect for this year.

[Walleye Express]

E-mailed my DNR bud and heres his answer.

The decision was made to go ahead and collect walleye spawn this year except on the Tittabawassee River. This is because Lake Michigan (Muskegon R. and Little Bay de Noc egg sources) is still designated just as a "surveillance area for VHS" while all of Lake Huron is confirmed with VHS. They will be applying some egg disinfection procedures to the eggs collected and they think between those procedures and the precaution of limiting the take to L. Michigan waters that the remaining risk is minimal. My understanding is that because L. Michigan strain eggs are being collected, that no walleye stocking in Lake Huron will occur (due to genetic considerations) but since we have suspended walleye stocking on Saginaw Bay any ways, there are not many Lake Huron stocking sites left any how. I think some of the L. Michigan fry will be reared in ponds in the Lake Huron watershed and some of those fingerlings will be used for inland planting. So the plan for 2008, as I understand it, is a sort of work-around intended to keep things moving as best as possible.

[Pineisland]

A very careful beginning to learn what is needed to maintain VHS free stocks.

Every fish used for spawning will be sacrificed and tested. The sources were tested a month ago and verified VHS free before the egg take begins. The eggs will be tested, the 3 day old fry will be tested coming out of the hatchery, and the fingerlings will be tested again in the ponds before stocking.

This will make it much tougher to do at normal production numbers, hence a limited trial run this year. Hopefully what we learn or confirm during this process will allow us to get back to normal production numbers in the near future.

Many of our walleye fisheries consist of as many as 15 or more year classes of fish, so a missing year or two in the mix often is never even noticed.

E-mailed my DNR bud and heres his answer.

The decision was made to go ahead and collect walleye spawn this year except on the Tittabawassee River. This is because Lake Michigan (Muskegon R. and Little Bay de Noc egg sources) is still designated just as a "surveillance area for VHS" while all of Lake Huron is confirmed with VHS. They will be applying some egg disinfection procedures to the eggs collected and they think between those procedures and the precaution of limiting the take to L. Michigan waters that the remaining risk is minimal. My understanding is that because L. Michigan strain eggs are being collected, that no walleye stocking in Lake Huron will occur (due to genetic considerations) but since we have suspended walleye stocking on Saginaw Bay any ways, there are not many Lake Huron stocking sites left any how. I think some of the L. Michigan fry will be reared in ponds in the Lake Huron watershed and some of those fingerlings will be used for inland planting. So the plan for 2008, as I understand it, is a sort of work-around intended to keep things moving as best as possible.