Blue Walleye? - General Discussion Forum - General Discussion Forum

A former co-worker of mine takes an annual Canadian fly-in trip and the resort owner on this lake says that there are blue morphed walleyes that are different than the original, true blue walleyes. I wish I could remember the distinguishing detail but this guide claims he has true blues in his lake. He asked my co-worker and his buddies to not say anything of it in his lake though because although Canada considers them extinct, if one is verified to be alive the government will shut down the lake for protection of the species, thus ruining his resort/fly-in business.

An article published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press about 2-3 years ago also talked about finding blue walleyes in the boundary waters area. In certain areas, the blues are considered to be up to 1 out every 6 walleyes. But again, there was something in that article that also mentioned that these are not considered to be true blue walleyes, which are indeed regarded as their own specie.

If the numbers are growing and/or more people are releasing the fish they catch, I can only assume that these sightings will become more frequent. I would also suspect that regulations will be imposed regarding them if they’re considered a seperate specie and rare.

Below is the text from the Blue Walleye link I posted above. This comes from http://www.nativefish.org.

Quote:

The Blue Pike

Mike Gillis

PART 1: THE PAST

Blue Pike were once, during the first half of this century, probably the best tasting, and definitely most commercially harvested fish in the lower great lakes system. Chances were almost certain, that if you went to a local restaurant for a Friday fish fry, you would be served blue pike, not haddock.

I had the opportunity to sit down and have an interesting discussion with former Lake Ontario commercial fisherman Elton Jeffords of Youngstown, NY, and former game warden Kimpton Vosburg was the head game warden in this area from 1948 until 1979, and returned during the hunting seasons from \’83 to \’89. We talked a lot about blue pike, some of which I\’ll mention in this article, and several other subjects of interest in Niagara River fishing history, which I\’ll write about in a future article.

According to Elton, it wasn\’t uncommon to buy a thousand pounds of fish from hook and line fishermen in a day. With his gill nets, it was also not uncommon to catch this many fish. This size of the holes in the gill nets were carefully regulated and frequently checked by men, such as Vosburg, so that only a certain size range of fish could be kept, thus insuring the survival of a good spawning population of fish for future harvest, and giving the smaller fish a chance to grow bigger.

The last blue pike that Vosburg can recall being caught out of the Niagara was in 1955 on the day that Marilyn Bell swam from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Toronto for the Toronto Exposition. Of course, no one blames Marilyn Bell for the disappearance of the blue pike. However, several other reasons to blame do come up. Elton Jeffords believes that over-fishing by the hook and line fishermen and the use of illegal sized gill nets played a large role in finishing off the blue pike.

In the December issue of the Niagara Anglers News and Views, I discussed some of the history of the blue pike in our area, and some of the possible reasons for its demise from the lower Great Lakes. I mentioned that in recent years, there have been stories popping up about fishermen claiming to catch authentic blue pike in recent time. In the article I wrote about the follow-up of these stories being done by Dieter N. Busch of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and some substantial information which he has come up with. The following is a continuation of this story and some information about the \”blue pike suspect\” contributed to the USF&WS by NRAA member, Jerry Condren.

PART 2: THE PRESENT

Over the past few years, I\’ve been hearing occasional stories from fishermen of catching a blue pike while walleye fishing on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Knowing that the blue pike is considered to be extinct, these fishermen have let their catch go, believing that they may have caught something extremely rare, and it would be right to give it a chance to possibly spawn. Maybe one, or some of these were the real thing. I\’ve always had a slight glimmer of hope that maybe, out there in the depths, there may still survive some blue pike. Whenever I mention this around any more-experienced local fishermen, my hopes are quickly lessened by doubt, or is it reality.

According to former commercial fisherman Elton Jeffords and former game warden Kimpton Vosburg, both men of vast experience in handling blue pike, walleye can easily be mistaken for blue pike. Habitat and water conditions, as well as scale shedding can make a walleye look almost just a blue pike. The main way that they used to use to differentiate between the two types of fish was they would lift up the second dorsal fin, and if there were any yellow spots there, it was a yellow pike (walleye), not a blue.

Recently, I read an article in THE BUFFALO NEWS about Dieter N. Busch, Chief Biologist at the Lower Great Lakes Fishery Resources Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Amherst. Dieter has been investigating reports of alleged blue pike being caught in several places in Ontario, Canada and some reports of blue pike in Minnesota.

In the article, it was mentioned that they are having a difficult time getting DNA samples for the testing and using for identification purposes from actual blue pike. It seems that the formaldehyde used in preserving the original actual blue pike, which he has access to, destroys the DNA in those specimens. The only source of actual blue pike DNA which they have, according to the article, is attained by scraping the dried mucous from the backs of the scales of old dried out specimens.

Upon reading this, I immediately recalled hearing about an actual frozen blue pike caught and kept for the past twenty years by NRAA member, Jerry Condren of Youngstown, NY. Outdoor columnist, Ken Sprenger also wrote about this in his column in the Tonawanda News in March, 1993. I called Dieter Busch up, and told him about this fish. He said that he would just love to have that fish in his possession. I called Jerry Condren up and he said that he would be happy to donate his fish for such an important purpose. Thanks for your generous donation, Jerry! Jerry told me that he caught the fish in Georgian Bay, about a mile west of the French River. Jerry, who had extensive experience catching blue pike years ago, immediately recognized the 15 inch fish as a blue pike and decided to keep it. On the way back to the states from his fishing trip, Jerry ran into an Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Officer who wanted to check his catch. Upon seeing the fish, he commented that it was the first blue pike that he had seen in a long time. That was back in 1976.

I took the fish back to my house where I took pictures of it, being careful to keep it out of the reach of my Labrador Retriever. After all, I didn\’t want to follow him around with a baggie for two days collecting DNA samples.

I took the fish up the USFWS in Amherst where I was greeted by Dieter Busch and outdoor columnist Ken Sprenger. We took the fish back into the lab to examine it. Of course, being frozen for twenty years can take a toll on the condition of a fish specimen. The eyes of the blue pike are proportionately larger than those of the walleye. The eyes of this fish looked proportionately larger. Dieter Busch said that the specimen looked \”very interesting\”, of course, drawing from his scientific objectivity, and said that presently, we mush refer to it as a \”blue-pike suspect\”. Further testing will be required.

So that\’s where the situation with \”the fish\” presently stands. I\’ll most certainly keep you readers informed about any new developments.

PART THREE: THE FUTURE

The present situation with \”the fish\” (that is, the blue pike suspect donated by Jerry) as of this printing, is that it has been determined to be a viable specimen. What this means is that the DNA of the fish has not been damaged during its many years of being frozen, and thus the further analysis may now continue in order to determine if the fish is the real thing. So far, the evidence looks encouraging, but a you can imagine, since this isn\’t the OJ trial, this takes time because of the nature of this particular DNA determination, and cost restraints. In recent years, there have been severe funding cuts to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, so worthy programs such as this must suffer. DNA analysis is expensive. I asked Dieter if the Niagara River Anglers Association could be of any help. He said that the best thing that our members could do would be to write to their federal government officials and urge them to restore some of these funds.

There have been reports of blue pike suspects being caught coming from many places. Recently, Dieter gave a talk about this subject at the meeting of the Southtowns Walleye Association. There were several fishermen there who told of having caught blue pike out of Lake Erie. Of course, as I wrote in our last issue, walleye can easily be mistaken for blue pike. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, we will be able to get Dieter to come up to one of our membership meetings to give a similar talk about this subject. He did express an interest in doing so. Dieter reports of many blue pike suspects being caught in several other places such as up in Ontario, the Spanish River, some lakes in Minnesota, and even in Belgium. Possibly, some of the immigrants of the last century sent some of these fish back to their homelands.

What will the US Fish and Wildlife Service do if some authentic blue pike are found?

The reason for all this DNA testing is to eventually set up a DNA profile of authentic blue pike in order to insure that fish caught are really the authentic thing. As you can imagine, all of this will have to be done under some very tight controls. So, if a real breeding pair of blue pike are found, I\’m sure that they will probably be handled something like plutonium, or maybe the Ebola virus, in order to avoid any injury to our contamination of the specimens.

Could we of the NRAA raise and stock them? There are many bridges to cross and along road to travel before that question can be seriously answered. For one thing, there is no documentation of blue pike being bred, raised and stocked, such as we do with the walleye, under controlled conditions. At least none that I\’m aware of. Blue pike were known to spawn in deeper water than the walleye do. This fact helped commercial fishermen, such as Elton Jeffords, know where to get the better catches.

We are now only in the middle of this story. It is somewhat of a suspense story. The future could be either extremely rewarding, or disappointing. I am optimistic, some are pessimistic. Scientists, such as those of USF&W are objective and realistic, that\’s where the true substance of this story will come from. But still, I am optimistic that someday the NRAA will have a big wooden sign constructed that says, \”NRAABLUE PIKE REARING PONDS\”.