It wasn't very long, but very informative. I actually liked this Matt Wolfe guy. He seemed liked he wasn't a fill in. Many people asked questions, even the heckler behind me, and he had decent answers and he didn't seem to blow smoke.
He started the presentation by describing "Old Pymatuning". Those of us who fished back in the late 80s, early 90s know exactly what he talked about.
- Population dominated by small walleye.
- It took longer for the walleye to grow because of the amount of walleye and not enough feed.
- Catching 100 fish in a day, but only catching 5 legals.
I agreed with everything he had to say about "Old Pymatuning".
He then described "New Pymatuning".
- Populated by larger, legal, older (and wiser) walleye.
- They grow faster because of limited number of walleye and an abundance of feed.
- The heavy fishing and not replacing the walleye could wipe out all walleye from the lake.
The next part of the presentation asked why this could happen. He stated the reasons that most of us post about here on the forum. He stated that most of the reasons they heard about, they had no control over.
- Temperature, but they have no control over it.
Matt is an Ohio guy, so he compared Mosquito Lake often. They tracked the temperatures at Mosquito and Pymie and they are both very close. Mosquito has a higher catch rate than Pymie, so temperature doesn't appear to be the problem. Some guy asked him about oxygen levels, but he said it was all compared to similar measurements from Mosquito.
- Fish Community changed, but they have no control over that.
The bluegill and crappie population are booming right now, the best in years. He mentioned that the perch are everywhere, but there are thousands of 1-2 inch perch. This came up again later in the discussion.
- Lake Fertility decreased, again, they have no control over this.
The lake fertility is down, but it is average among other similar lakes (Mosquito Lake). Zoo plankton is down. Someone asked about the regulation on fertilizing crops and also sewage runoff. There are tighter regulation on these and I guess it changed the water quality. It's cleaner, but not neccessarily better for fish. Go figure.....
- Obviously, fry stockings are not working. They do have control over this.
They average 22 million fry in that lake a year, as much as 40 million fry a year.
This is when it got interesting. He stated the obvious, fry stockings are no longer working in this lake. Again, he compared Mosquito Lake. They stock 2 million fry in Mosquito Lake every year, but they have a very high survival rate. He mentioned that historically, fry have a history of not surviving in lakes at one point or another. They have no explanation, but Pymatuning isn't the first lake this happened to.
The fingerling topic came up at this point. He showed all kinds of charts with how many walleye were detected through a 20 year period and what the size were. Early 90s, the chart showed several walleye, but not too many big ones. Today's chart, it showed very big walleyes, but not many of them.
He mentioned how the walleye population steadily dropped since 2000, bottomed out in 2005 with zero walleyes detected. In the late 80s, early 90s, they detected 2 walleyes per minute. In 2007, they detected .07 walleye per minute.
They decided to try stocking fingerlings in Spring of 2008. They stocked (he stressed both PA and OH are working together on this) 586,000 fingerlings (50/50 by each state) and 4 million fry. They marked these fish, some crazy chemical that marked their gill plate or something) and here are the results.
In the fall of 2008, they caught 300 walleye. Of those, only 3% was from the fry stocking. Another 3% came from natural reproduction. 94% came from the fingerling stockings.
They are cautiosly excited about these results, but are not out of the woods yet. They plan on stocking 600,000 fingerlings this Spring and continue to do so each year until the lake population is up again.
He brought up the perch population again. He said you could fill 5 gallon buckets of 1 inch perch in seconds. He feels these fish are eating the fry. But, when these walleyes establish, there will be an abundance of feed in that lake for the walleye. Which means, they will grow faster the first couple years.
But, be careful. They are expecting a big catch of sub legal walleyes this year. And bet your money that they will be watching what is take from the lake.