St Joe shocked

Walleye count down, poor years projected 

Thu, Nov 7, 2002 
By Javier Serna 
Truth Staff 

MISHAWAKA -- As we slowly motored forward under the darkness of a dwindling dusk, more and more residents walked out to their riverfront backyards to get a closer look. Night moves: State biologists scan the waters for walleye above the Twin Brank Dam in Mishawaka. They return every fall with electro-shocking equipement to survey the fish they stocked in the spring. x But the deafening buzz from a generator sitting on thebottom of the government -issued boat muted the inquisitive words of the curious. We had to look odd, what with flood lights and two wire rings hanging off the front end of the boat and hovering over the water. Neil Ledet just steered forward, ignoring their moving mouths, as two laborers from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources stood on the gated bow of the boat, waiting patiently with fish nets in hand for signs of the proper life. While inquiring minds wanted to know what on liquid earth we were doing, Ledet wanted to know where the walleye were. Every fall, the DNR returns to the river with electro-shocking equipment to see how its spring stocking of tiny walleye fingerlings is doing. This year, the signs weren't great. Above the Twin Branch Dam, usually the best spot, biologists collected only 37 walleye, the worst count since they began the program in 1995. Last June, 35,000 were stocked above the Johnson Street dam and more than 75,000 were stocked below the dam, said Ledet, a fisheries biologist. More are stocked below because much of these wandering fish make their way down to the Twin Branch Dam. It could be worse. "All we need is seven per hour for a fishery," said Ledet, noting that the 37 fish were collected over two hours. In the first hour, fish of all present species popped to the surface as a DC current traveled through the water. DNR laborer Robert Ackerson waited as hundreds of fish darted and floated from out of the depths. Fish of all sizes -- from panfish the size of fishing lures to carp the size of small torpedoes -- exposed themselves.
Hundreds of them. But few were walleyes. Every once in a while, Ackerson would see the telltale white streak on the back of a walleye's tail and scoop it up. "Sometimes their gills flare out," Ackerson said, as a the red, gill was exposed on a smallmouth bass, which also display the same traits when shocked. Ackerson started in on the fish, but then realized it wasn't a walleye. "Man, I didn't think we were going to get any," said Ledet, glancing at the tub at the center of the boat with 17 walleyes sloshing around after the first hour. The biologists took scale samples from each fish and a few measurements before releasing them.

 

Only about a mile of the river was covered, and there's 12 miles between the two dams. "It's a quick and dirty sampling," said Ledet. "It provides an initial index of
survival." And the reality is that only a fraction of those thousands of walleye survive to the seven or so inches these walleyes averaged. They weren't much longer than an inch at stock time, so many fell prey to bass and other predators, including walleye. "People don't think these grow pretty fast," said Ledet, noting that when they were stocked, it took 4,000 to make up a pound. Now, months later, eight juvenile walleyes is all it takes to make a pound. "If they all survived, oh jeeze," said Ledet. One thing that was going against this year's fingerlings is that they were smaller than normal. In past years, 800-1,000 have made up a pound at stock time. Ledet added that plankton counts were down this year because of a cold spring, meaning less food for the baby walleye to eat. "When the food is not there, they're starving to death, " said Ledet. The DNR stocks them every year because very little natural reproduction is believed to occur. They prefer fist-sized rocks as spawning beds, but little of this habitat remains on the St. Joe. In the spring-time, the adult walleye above the Twin Branch Dam will move upstream to the Johnson Street Dam to spawn. Walleye are native to the river, but the advent of dams stopped their migration to and from Lake Michigan. Industrial waste and other forms of pollution also hampered their existence. 

"We didn't realize what we were doing to (the river)," Ledet said. One of the better
spring shockings was last year in this same one-mile stretch above the Twin Branch.
Ledet counted 182 walleye. "It gives us a quick snapshot of survival," said Ledet.
But this year's snapshot wasn't what biologists and anglers wanted to see. These fish won't reach a catchable size for a couple of years, but the future doesn't look bright. "It's going to be a lot poorer than the last five years," said Ledet. 

Contact Javier Serna at jserna@etruth.com.  

 

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