ORIGINAL: loby

Spillway fisherpeople,

Please think about throwing back a few of the female walleye. I love to catch walleye also, but just take a minute to think about all the eggs she is carrying. Yes, I know that the natural reproduction in Pymy is almost non existant but taking home limits of egg filled walleye does not help the situation! My point is this.......If you are one of the many, anglers that ****/complain about the walleye population in Pymy, & that nobody cares or is doing anything to try to improve it, take a second to think about those big females your about to fillet!! I love Pymy & all the other local lakes and have released many fish and you know what?....it makes me feel good! I know that a lot of local well known anglers share my thoughts because I have discussed it with them!

Good fishin' to ya!

Loby

 
 
Yeah, but Loby, there is EXTREMELY LOW natural reproduction of 'eyes in Pymy.  Due in part to the siltation over the years destroying suitable spawning habitat and predation of hatchlings by the dreaded Alewife.
 
The recruitment of YOY 'eyes has been terrible for the last 3 or 4 years.  You seldom if ever catch an 8 to 14" 'eye anymore.  The stocked fish are not making it to maturity. 

Now that i read everything. Storm is right, whens the last time you've seen the non legal walleyes come up out of that lake? for those walleye to spawn you need clear water. its to dirty and if any eggs did make it its such a low amount that they are just getting eaten, dying, just like the billions of fry they put in. The fish warden even said it himself. not to say hes right but they have a semi sort of better idea of whats going on that just me or you. just think of all the eggs dumped around the spillway with all the carp to slurp them up. thousands of carp vs eggs that arent moving. time and time agian we're always gonna get the guy who thinks that walleye can spawn in great numbers in that lake. pymy turned into a put in take out. pymys big thats the only thing thats good for it. not all the walleys in that lake go to the spillway or cuaseway a small fraction do. they're not gonna travel from the all the way down south to the north to "spawn"

ORIGINAL: treesparrow

If they trap netted most of the carp out of that lake it would be a great fishing lake. The lake can only suport so many fish and the carp change the whole ecology of the lake. Ask any limnologist!

                                                                                       If you are interested in getting first hand information on the condition of Pymatuning lake stop at the Linesville hatchery (the annual open house is April 5th stop & take time to talk to them)

Just got back.  I'd say it will be a while before the Linesville launch will be getting used.  Still a lot of ice.  But a lot of the other launches are ice free.  Not my style of fishing shoulder to shoulder at the spillway, but it still amazes me how big the walleye are that they get.  Erie size.  Was cold last night.  Hats of to those guys that were fishing last night. 

i have to admit ive never been good at "book learnin'" and without the help of the internet i would have no idea what a limnologist is. however, there was never a problem with carp and walleye coexisting as that spillway and carp have been there for a very long time and up until recent years the lake was polluted with walleye. could be wrong, but i believe there are MANY carp that get netted out of the lake each year. i would buy more into the idea of alewives, however, if the fisheries biologists are so smart and if everybody knows that alewives and walleye fry/eggs dont get along, why would they stock alewives? pymy WAS the best put/take walleye lake in the state. if the PFBC has no idea what has happened and has no idea what is happening to the millions of fry/fingerlings(whatever they claim to be stocking), maybe they need new fisheries biologists? havent they had many years to figure out the problem? maybe for some reason theyre NOT stocking what they SAY theyre stocking. does anybody actually SEE millions of WALLEYE fry getting dumped into pymy? maybe the PFBC screwed up and are not saying what happened. no, i have no proof to question the amount of fish they say theyre stocking, and have no proof that they screwed up, and have no idea why they wouldnt do what they say they do. however, doesnt it seem FISHY that after all these years they STILL cant figure out the problem??????

commander i see what you are saying about things of that nature but i cant see them quite lying to us about what they stock in the lake. For the most part i pretty much do consider those fry to disapear...look at what the lake has in it to eat them up besides shad, the panfish in that lake is pretty high, now size may lack in great numbers but a 4 inch crappy could eat alot of those too... I wasnt trying to say the carp are the eaters, but im sure they eat alot of the eggs since they are bottom dwellers.not like they'd hatch anyway if they did we'd see small walleye being caught somewhere. theres some good eating.

slowtroller, the alewifes WERE stocked.  i had a discussion on-line with a biologist from linesville and he told me they were stocked in 89 (i believe).  he said that they do not show up in the nets (maybe too small?) and the fish commission doesn't feel they have an impact on the eye population.  not sure if i buy his statements.  i am searching my old e-mails trying to find the exchange i had between them and myself.  if i can find, i will post.

stormy, what you posted is what i have read for years.  i believe you are dead-on.  i bet i have waded for hundreds of miles on that lake i what i feel through my feet has changed.  i have been on gravel flats that over the year has become soft.....silt.  eggs drop into the silt, are covered and may never become fertilized.  since this became an issue, stockings of fry intensified, but alewifes found the delicious.  i just wonder that if there had remained a base of 15-17 inch fish in the lake if they could have turned the tables on the alewifes.
 
a couple of years ago on walleye central, a n.y. biologist talked of a lake in upstate new  york that was stocked with alwifes.  within a short time, no walleyes existed in this lake. 

may go up after church today to watch the circus.  still cannot get over that insanity and how many years it has been going on.

commander, you dun good.  your post was okay.  and alewifes were stocked and slow, i am from the 60s.  the info is there for all if you chose to dig for it.

no, he never said.  he at first said they weren't (the fisheries biologist i talked to) and then he got back to me and said that he checked back in the records and saw that they were.  i think i got the year right.  i would imagine that they were stocked to provide additional forage for the larger gamefish.  the alewife isn't a native specie.  i believe that they are an anadromous fish. 
 
also, i am not blaming the commish for blowing this.  they probably tried to make a fishery better and it backfired.  i don't think there was any intent on destroying the walleye population, would make no sense.  the problem now is how to fix it, or can it be fixed? 

ORIGINAL: rapala11

he at first said they weren't (the fisheries biologist i talked to) and then he got back to me and said that he checked back in the records and saw that they were.   

 
 
 
thats funny stuff. as if he's never been asked that question, that he had to check back in his records.

is it walleye season in pa or just pym

I fished Pymy Thursday with my son Bulllifter we got 11,19-25 inches,released the 4 big females,I don't know why? The local boys will have them in the freezer by today,the locals really pound the spillway,they fish it 24-7,its a tough place to fish.I spent about 4 hours taking to a Pa.fish warden.Pa. will stock 4 million eye fry,and 600,000 fingerling eyes this year and they do muskies too,there are many problems with the lake,siltation,carp,alewives.The spillway is never going to close down,its been going on forever,I did it since 72,only back then I would catch 40 eyes a day,with maybe 3 or 4 keepers,do you know how much revenue they get there,$240.00 for fishing the wrong side of the wire,$135.00 for a snagged eye its a gold mine.I've caught plenty and snagged plenty,just release the ones that are snagged and you'll be ok. We only go there 2 or 3 times a year during the run and keep about 24 total fish for the year out of Pymy.One local told me he had 200 eyes already this year,really what do you do with that many? Some facts,Ohio will also stock eyes also,no they don't net the carp out any more,they don't stock any panfish,they let them do there thing.I do know this that I will never let a legal eye go in this lake,if the lures in the mouth it's going home,the locals could care less how many they take home,5 minutes and there home or a cell phone call and the limits gone and there back at it. I do believe if Pa.start a BIG stocking of fingerlings the lake will turn around,alot of bad things can happen to the little fry.P.S. there are no small eyes in the lake,so I don't think theres much reproduction going on.

I guess slowtroller didnt read anything in the post and made a poor attempted to make fun of my name? or was that you commander?
plus im 23, pretty far from living in the 60's. although my posts are very not thought out and tend to ramble. sorry i didnt do that well in english/writing class, skip the outline and rough drafts and just click okay.