Spawn

Went out yesterday with my dad and a good friend of mine. With the high sun and low winds, fishing was slow for us. We did mangage to pull 10 off of the mud working various flats.
Half came rigging and the other half pulling blades. No surprise, but our best luck was working just off the edge of the flats. 27 down to 33 FOW.
We caught 1-19 incher that my buddy decided to keep for the frying pan.

He told me when he carved it up that it was still full of eggs…???
Anybody else experience this at all this year?

Not with walleyes I haven’t found any, but the smallies are loaded with eggs yet.

I caught a 23″ up there this weekend that was dropping eggs in the boat. Thought it was kind of weird too.

I was up in the Pine River/Backus area last weekend and the Crappie were still spawning. Water surface temp was 64*-65*? They’re a good month behind. Caught a hog Walleye (PB @ 29.5″)
and she was fat with eggs too. Very strange year. Saw many schools of Bass as well in the shallows and they seemed to be in pre-spawn mode.

Seems as though some fish, for whatever reason, never actually spawned this year. If they were out on the mud, it probably ain’t gonna happen.

What happens to the eggs/milt in those fish who don’t spawn? Do they get….dropped out at some point? Nocturnal emission?

Not all female walleyes will spawn due to various factors like poor spawning conditions or the condition of the fish itself (lack of food, poor water habitat, injury, disease etc…). Many will slowly absorb their own eggs. This can be seen by the size of the eggs when you fillet it – the eggs will be smaller compared to when they spawn. I’m guessing with this year’s late ice conditions and cool water temps this spring, spawning conditions were not ideal.