Photo by Ron Sinfelt

Major events related to the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources' (DNR) walleye management plan should have a positive impact on the angling opportunities Mountain State anglers experience this year. The walleye outlook is a bright one.

Understanding what goes into the state's walleye management program should help anglers better appreciate the resource. One of the major components, one that gives the DNR better control over walleye stockings, was the opening of the Apple Grove Hatchery.

Going online in 2000, the Apple Grove facility now adds a great deal more stability to the stocking program. Prior to the building of the hatchery, the DNR had to acquire fish from outside sources. The new in-state rearing ponds provide the space to grow walleyes from fry stage to fingerling, the size of fish state biologists prefer to introduce to state waters.

Apple Grove also means the end of the saugeye program. Saugeyes, a walleye and sauger hybrid, were also stocked in many state waters. Like walleyes, saugeye stock came from out-of-state sources. Though the hybrid has many excellent qualities, now that the state has the means to raise its own walleyes, managers don't see a need to buy or (or trade for) saugeyes.

While the Apple Grove Hatchery furnishes the means to raise walleyes to fingerling size, the state doesn't have a lake with the proper nursery waters to serve as a means of obtaining walleye eggs. It's not practical to hold adult walleyes (in hatcheries) as brood stock, hence ripe males and egg-laden females are netted out of nursery waters each spring. Lacking appropriate nursery waters, the state obtains its young walleyes from other sources, such as the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's Linesville Hatchery. The rearing ponds at Apple Grove provide the means of raising the fish until the time of stocking.

How well an agency can manage the resources it's charged with has a lot to do with the quality of information available on that resource. In the case of walleyes and saugers, as well as other species of fish, a great deal will be learned from the tagging study currently underway on the Monongahela River.

Game fish collected from the state's portion of the Monongahela River (and the tailwaters of the Tygart Dam) are being tagged by DNR fisheries personnel in an effort to determine growth and harvest rates, plus the movement of fish being stocked. Anglers catching tagged fish, of which many are walleyes and saugers, are asked to respond to the survey by sending in the tag. Specific information relative to the tagging program is posted at public access sites along the river. Tagging will continue for some years to come. The data gleaned from the survey should assist fisheries managers in determining how fast the fish are growing, how much they move in different sections of the river, and at what rate they are taken (creeled) from the Mon.

Another interesting item relative to walleye management is the discovery of what state fisheries biologists believe to be a strain of walleye they call the "New River" strain. Walleyes occur naturally in the New River, and though not evident to the untrained eye, biologists feel there is a difference between the New River fish and a wild walleye taken from a lake environment such as Lake Erie. The biggest difference is in the size of the eggs. New River female walleyes tend to contain about twice the typical number of eggs.