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Gillnetting Operations Play Major Role In Stocking Lakes Not Just Locally But Statewide

April 08, 2024 Steve Schwaller

(Orleans)– As we reported late last week, annual gillnetting operations on the Iowa Great Lakes are getting underway.

Mike Hawkins, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says they set a goal each year for the number of eggs to collect. He says that’s around 100 million this year. Hawkins explains how that number is determined…

“We have wildlife biologists like myself across the state of Iowa that manage several counties and we have resources within those that we do manage for walleye populations. Those managers back in December will put together our fish stocking requests for not just for walleyes but a number of other species that we stock in Iowa. All of those requests are based on research we’ve done on optimal stocking rates and size of fish, quantity of fish, and then the hatchery system works to fulfill all of those requests. Of course we typically will request more fish than we can produce and so there’s a prioritization process that has to happen as well.”

The public is once again invited to stop by the fish hatchery in Orleans to view the operation.

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