Skinny Walleyes at Sherman

All of the walleyes that we have caught at Sherman this summer have been SKINNY at best. What is your take on this? I realize that they are always a little thinner and lack the color of those fish in Merritt, Calamus or even Sherman’s neighbor lake Davis.

What is the cause of the lack of bait fish? Could it be the pull down for the reclamation projects?

Its not a lot of fun catching starving fish!!!!!

dj

Definitely not the first time I’ve heard this about this year’s fishing up there. I hope it’s not the start of something real bad, that’s for sure.

I heard thru grapevines yesterday, that it was thought that because of the cold winter, that gizzard shad and alewife kills were big throughout the state. I guess Elwood was stocked in the last day or two with alewife and gizzard shad.
Flatwalter, you are right though, the eyes we boated this last wkend were skinny, as were the whites. Sherm

I have not seen any balls of baitfish yet this year. That is a lot different that what the last couple of years have been like. Skinny, light colored fish, that are 12″-17″ long.

The big ones must be on food somewhere ’cause they sure aren’t hunting with the shorts

Zach
The big fish are skinny too. This weekend I caught a 29 1/4″ walleye at Sherman that weighed 8# 8oz. On Monday we caught a 27″ walleye at Davis that weighed 8# 6oz. Something just is not right.
dj

I emailed a G & P biologist today to see what his thoughts are on the situation. I’ll post his reply when I recieve it.
I’m going to guess the shad were pretty much eaten up early in the season. The post spawn fish caught at the State Farm tournament were very fat and a short three weeks later most of the fish being caught were very skinny. There’s an incredible number of walleyes in there right now and they sure do eat their fair amount of shad. Hopefully the shad can get established again soon so they don’t eat up a couple year classes of their own young as well as the other game fish.

Ben

I have heard that the G&PC are raising emerald shinners to put in some lakes. Have you heard anything about this?

The shad run up to the bubble at Davis is not as large either this year. Had thought of getting some shad later for bait at Sherman; frozen of course.

good fishin’
dj

Went fishing Saturday night at Sherman. We caught a lot of walleye and a few white bass. The fish were skinny, but we also would have schools of shad come up under the lights. The shad were small though, not even an inch long mostly.

The 1 inch shad are probably this years hatch. Good to hear you seen a bunch of them.

I like what you heard Jorg. I do know those walleye up there love shiners.

I’ll let you all know what I find out from the G&P tomorrow. Hopefully!

Got a report yesterday of a guy that saw two large schools of small shad at the surface at dusk. It sounds like there are at least a few bait fish around.

Great news guys; haven’t been to the cabin this week; too many honey do’s. Thanks for the input.

Good fishin’
jorg

Here’s the responce I recieved from Daryl Bauer with the Nebraska Game and Parks.

Quote:

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May and June are always the best months for walleye fishing in Nebraska reservoirs because we have post-spawn, hungry fish then, and the young-of-the-year (YOY) baitfish, gizzard shad especially, are not yet present. I expect to see some “skinny” hungry walleyes 3 weeks after the spawn every year. The young-of-the-year shad should just be starting to show up now. I suspect the shad hatch may be a little behind schedule. One of our biologists fished Sherman last week and said he saw LOTS of schools of very small shad, an inch or less, so I think they are on their way.

I know why you are concerned though. Shad, especially small shad, will always die-off during the winter, but we have evidence that what really knocks the shad numbers down during the winter are actually winters where we do not get ice cover until late in the winter. Once you get ice cover it stabilizes conditions. When there is not ice cover until late, the water keeps mixing and cooling and that really knocks the shad back. Last winter was a winter like that, and you know better than I do that we had some of the best walleye fishing through the ice last winter that I can ever remember, on several reservoirs around the state. I believe that might have been because the numbers of small shad were depleted by the time we finally got ice cover.

Actually the “ideal” shad population is one where most of the shad die every winter. You only need a handful of survivors to produce all the YOY shad you need. If you have a lot of shad that survive the winter, that tends to suppress the production of YOY shad the next year. Since gizzard shad grow so darned fast, you need that production of YOY each year so that there are appropriate-size prey for most of the predators to eat.

On reservoirs far enough north and west that gizzard shad have a hard time surviving the winter, we have stocked a few adult shad on an annual basis, and those few adult shad will produce all the YOY needed. We typically stock shad adults like that in Lake Minatare annually. We typically help Colorado and Wyoming with some shad collections for some of their walleye waters every year. We have never had to do that at Sherman. We did do that this year at Elwood, but that was mostly because we believed the low water levels there had resulted in less prey fish there.

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Thanks Ben

Thanks for doing the leg work on this Ben and thanks to Daryl for the explanation. But they are still really skinny.

See ya on the water.
jorg

Thanks to both Ben and Daryl!

Layne Monroe

I was there on Sunday the 8th and I was catching walleye that were in balls of bait fish. Not alot of bait fish but they were BAIT FISH!!!!

The bait was a little better than an inch last weekend so they are growing quick

The walleye are looking better. They are not fat by any means but they are starting to put some weight on

I was up there yesterday the only eyes I seen were belly up I counted a half dozen 18 plus. Not a pretty sight.

I didn’t see any on Sunday Where were they at??

That’s scary ………. I haven’t heard of anything like that. More info, please.

jorg

my dad caught a 24″ and it was a solid 4 lbs for sure, i wouldn’t say it was fat but it looked healthy

The 26″ and the other keepers that I caught were healthy looking too thats why I am so troubled by this

With the hot weather there is always some fish that won’t handle the stress. I would definately keep your eyes peeled for large numbers of dead fish but a few here and there shouldn’t hurt the fishery at all. There seemed to be some walleyes still up really shallow a few weeks ago. The temps in those shallow waters may have low enough Oxygen levels that it caused a few fish too much stress. Walleyes are very sensitve to O2 levels when water temps get close to 80. With the water level continuing to drop the majority of the shallow water fish will move out to deeper water to chase shad real soon. That’s when the trolling bite should get HOT.

I was on the west side about 3/4 the way to muddy point.I didnt see any thing eles and was pretty much all over the lake.

Thanks Jon I will keep my eyes open while there this weekend

Fished for white bass yesterday am, and did not see any eyes floating belly up. Did catch 10 white bass though. They just are not staying up very long, so it was tough to stay with them and left when the wind came up. Sherm