Sorry, I got an alert from Google and when I first went there, no need to have user name password. Anyway, here’s the story.
Quote:
LAKE OF THE WOODS: Survey documents big sauger hatch
By Brad Dokken, Herald Staff Writer
Published Sunday, October 21, 2007
Anglers fishing Lake of the Woods this winter shouldn’t be surprised if they encounter an abundance of bait-stealing saugers too small to keep.
According to Tom Heinrich, large lake specialist for the Department of Natural Resources in Baudette, Minn., sauger catches were well above the 10-year average during the annual fall population assessment on Lake of the Woods.
The DNR conducts the survey every September, setting gill nets at 13 sites along the Minnesota portion of the lake.
Heinrich said the nets this year averaged about 20 saugers per lift, compared with a long-term average of 12. About half of those fish were 7½- to 9-inch saugers from a banner hatch in 2006.
“Last year, we predicted there was a really strong year-class coming up, and that seems to be borne out now,” Heinrich said. “There’s going to be a lot of those little bait stealers running around, but I think in about two years, there’s going to be a real abundance of those keeper-size fish.”
A smaller cousin to the walleye, sauger traditionally have been the bread-and-butter fish of Lake of the Woods’ booming ice fishing industry.
Walleyes: Average
Walleyes also continue to do well, Heinrich said, but numbers are about average compared with the past 10 years.
This fall’s survey produced slightly more than 14 walleyes per lift, Heinrich said. That compares with a long-term average of about 16 per lift, and as many as 20 walleyes per net in the early 2000s, a period of unusually high abundance.
“We had a whole long series of strong year-classes, which is very unusual,” Heinrich said. “What we’re looking at right now is a much more normal population.”
Red Lake, by comparison, has averaged between 30 and 40 walleyes per lift since the DNR and Red Lake Band launched a recovery program that included massive stocking campaigns in 1999, 2001 and 2003. Officials in state and tribal waters say that average is on track to hold this year, as well.
Heinrich said Lake of the Woods continues to hold walleyes in a variety of size classes. This year’s survey produced walleyes up to about 30 inches, he said, and spring electrofishing on the Rainy River also yielded strong numbers of trophy-size walleyes.
That also was reflected in summer fishing success, Heinrich said.
“The quality is still there,” he said. “There was a pile of those big fish caught.”
Hands-down, though, the big fish of this year’s survey was the 73-inch sturgeon that showed up in a net near Pine Island. The fall survey gear normally is too small for sturgeon, Heinrich said, but this particular fish managed to catch one of its fins in the mesh.
DNR personnel didn’t weigh the sturgeon, which was unharmed, before releasing it, but Heinrich estimates it weighed somewhere between 105 and 120 pounds.
The fall gill-netting survey isn’t very effective at sampling northern pike, but the last spring pike assessment two years ago showed a stable population, Heinrich said. The DNR implemented a 30- to 40-inch protected slot in 1996, and surveys now show a higher percentage of pike in the 40-inch class or slightly larger, Heinrich said.
On the downside, the behemoth 45- to 46-inch northerns – always rare – are even more uncommon today. That’s not unusual with length-based regulations, Heinrich said, because anglers are more apt to keep fish larger than the top end of the protected slot.
The DNR plans to sample pike on a five-year rotation.
Meanwhile, Heinrich said, a strong perch hatch could mean more natural forage – and tougher fishing – this winter. The walleye hatch in 2007 looks to be about average, he said.
Reach Dokken at 780-1148, (800) 477-6572 ext. 148, or [email protected]”>[email protected].
