walleye spawn

I have been keeping a few eaters latley and have had eggs and sperm in the fish is this a indications of a poor spawn? has any one else been finding this to be hapening to them?

I don’t have the answer for you but I’ve run across the same thing. Males still milting and sub-20″ females still full of spawn. It can’t be a good thing. Maybe fishsqzr will spot this post and provide some insight.

heres a quote from John Pitlo in earlier this year….

“I don’t think late springs are necessarily bad. When we have late spring, generally the warm-up in water temperatures is fairly rapid and uniform. When the daily increase in water temperature is .5 degree a day or better, we generally have great walleye reproduction. On the other hand, an early spring and water warming early usually results in a late season snow or cold rain or cold fronts which cool the water and keep the average daily increase in water temp. below 0.4 degree/day during the spawning and incubation period which results in poor reproduction. The colder temperatures slow the incubation period and eggs are subject to longer periods of predation, disease, and landing on unsuitable substrate”

ummmmm.. by this description and what your seeing Im afraid we may have had a VERY bad Spawn….

I have not examined any fish at all in our part of the river to determine if they are in the same condition that you describe. But – females with eggs at this late a date is much more alarming to me than some males that still may have milt – the males can hang on for quite a bit longer than the females. Has anyone notices over 20 inch females in the same condition? I would not really worry about smaller fish 15-17 inch fish that still had eggs – but if the heart of the spawning length (19-25 inches – in our part of the river – this length range accounts for 75% of the eggs that are produced) have eggs now – that is not good. It will be hard to get a good handle on this years reproduction until the state agencies do the fall night sampling in Lock and Dam tailwaters to determine young-of-the-year (YOY) abundance. Hope this helps some.

Fished next to a guy on Tuesday that was having one of those days most people dream of..he was glad to see me because his scale was not working..the one I weighed for him was 8.7..and he swears one he released was pushing 15#’s and full of spawn..another I watched him catch was over 9#’s and had spawn..I did not realize this was such a bad thing…the way of the river I suppose..last year was the best spawn on record for MANY years..so, unfortunately things balance themselves.

We had 4 female sauger in Prescott that were full of spawn. The males are almost done milting. Have not seen the same with the walleyes.

Had to clean 2 females in the 19″+ range that were bleeding because of unfortunate hook location this week. Both still held eggs – however, the eggs did not appear uniform – almost like a process of absorption back into their systems was underway. Is this possible?