Lakes see surge in Walleye fishing

Lakes see surge in Walleye fishing


By Bob Frye TRIBUNE-REVIEW OUTDOORS EDITOR
Sunday, May 10, 2009

Pennsylvania's trout stocking program is like a ticker-tape parade, a huge event with floats and giant balloons and color guards and hoopla galore.
Its walleye stocking program? It's a one-man band. A couple of high steps, a fancy hat, the crash of a symbol here and there, but nothing that generates a lot of fanfare.
Take last week, for example. Well over two dozen vehicles followed the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's stocking truck to Linn Run, even though it was carrying just 300 trout for the stream, said waterways conservation officer Ron Evancho.
When similar stocking trucks visit places such as Lake Arthur in Butler County, Keystone Lake in Armstrong and Donegal Lake in Westmoreland in March and June to release some of the more than more than four million walleyes to be stocked this year, though, there will usually be nary an angler to be seen.
The size of the fish seems to be what makes the difference. The majority of trout are released as adults measuring 11 inches long or bigger. Walleyes are released as fry or fingerlings, or fish no more than about three inches long.
"We're not stocking legal-sized fish, so we don't get the attention the trout program does," said Larry Hines, manager of the commission's hatchery in Linesville, which produces nearly half a million walleye each year for release in the western half of the state.
"We're a lot more under the radar."
The program is important, though, said Bob Lorantas, warmwater unit leader for the Fish and Boat Commission.
Walleyes are native to Western Pennsylvania, having once thrived naturally in the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela river drainages, and in lakes in the region. Alterations to many of those lakes in particular, though — in the form of lost habitat due to human activities — have limited their ability to reproduce walleyes.
"Spawning habitat in particular may be lacking," Lorantas said. "The stocking that we do in those waters is meant to assist in maintaining and sustaining those fisheries for the benefit of anglers."
There's certainly a loyal walleye following in the state. Walleyes typically rank in the top three or four target species, and when the season on them opened May 2, Keystone Lake, for example, saw a surge in activity.
"Oh yeah, there were a lot of boats on the lake," said Pam Warr of Keystone Bait and Tackle in Shelocta. "Now, I don't know how they did. Walleye guys tend to be very hush-hush about what they're catching. But there were a lot of boats out."
Generating those fish is very hands-on work. At Linesville, for example, crews net spawning walleye from a sanctuary, manually strip their eggs fish by fish, and coat them with a disinfectant by stirring them in five-gallon buckets using a turkey feather.
Maybe half of all those fish, or a little more, live through their first year in a lake, Lorantas said. That's similar to the fate of wild populations.
But the payoff can be good fishing for a species that's generally rated the best when it comes to table fare. Lorantas, an Elizabeth area native, even plans to get out after them soon.
"Your call has inspired me to wet a line for walleye later this week," he said.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pitt.../s_624157.html