Gillnetting Operations About To Kick Into High Gear
Gillnetting Operations About To Kick Into High Gear
April 01, 2022Steve Schwaller
(Orleans)– Gillnetting season is getting underway on the Iowa Great Lakes. Mike Hawkins, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources tells KUOO news they’ve already started the process for northern pike. He says the operations for walleye and muskies will likely start in another week or so…
“Our average start-up date for gillnetting for walleye and musky is April 8th and it looks like we’re going to be kind of right on track for that this year unless the weather really throws us a curve ball. And so we’ll be collecting walleyes. I know Kim is preparing for a good season. I think there will be somewhere around 100 million walleye eggs collected annually then they hatch a fairly large percentage of those off and then the muskie as well, a much lower number of muskie than we need for sustaining those populations. But those walleyes, those walleye fry and fingerlings go all over the state for stocking interior rivers and other lakes where natural reproduction is pretty limited for that species.”
And for the first time in two years, the fish hatchery in Orleans will be open to the public during the process. It had been closed previously due to the pandemic. Hawkins says visitors will notice some big changes in the facility…
“The incubation system for all of the eggs has been moved to a recirculation system, it will no longer use lake water, and that recirculation system will help fight some bacterial problems, some dissolved gas issues, fungal infections, and most importantly it keeps us free of zebra mussels in that part of the process so that we can stock fish from the facility without fear of spreading aquatic invasive species. So that is a really big change. There’s going to be quite a difference when you walk into the hatching facility this year.”
We’ll have additional details on some of the changes in upcoming newscasts.
