Results of the 2007 WDFW Fall Walleye Index Netting (FWIN) Surveys

[spadam98]

Here is a link to it it has five different lakes on ithttp://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/warmwater/libra ... fwin07.pdf

[michaelunbewust]

wow. 300 walleye a year for 6 years, and, havnt seen any new data or even considering making any changes to the regs (although, it has not effected the fisheries one bit, with thier bright ideas). that is 1800 walleye per lake. i do not have the degree, but, my cousin is a biologist for BPA, so, he does, and, he even said it is a waste of time and resources. they need to try something new, because, all that is being accomplished with thier survey's is a huge fish fry!!#-o they actually know some of the problems, but, refuse to address them. of course, this is my own opinion, and, im sure some of the regulars on here with alot of research and data themselves, will agree/disagree with me, but, add alot more views. what does evryone think??

[YellowBear]

The FWIN studies are very informative.
They can keep track of of things like, how old a 20 inch fish is, which they should already know by now.
They can tell you if it was a male or female.
If it was a female they can tell you roughly how many eggs it was carrying. which they should already know.
They can also keep track of Mercury in the fish. Now this one is important as we all can benefit from this knowledge, but you don't have to kill 300 fish a year per lake to find the answer.

Now it has been pointed out a time or two that I am not a Biologist but I do have comman sense.
If you remove 300 fish out of a lake and half of those are spawners, you will make a dent in the population.
Now if you do this for 6 years and add the fish lost to the study as well as there offspring, you can see that the FWIN study does not produce enough useful information to warrant the loss of so many fish.

We have also found out that the FWIN study has nothing to do with population count, that is done by electroshocking.

The biologist predicted a few years ago that we would see a crash in the Walleye population in Moses lk.
They are going to make sure it happens.

I talked to a tournament angler the other night and he said that he was prefishing for the contest at Moses.
I asked if he had found any and he informed me that he had.
He said that they had found a good bunch of eyes and had been happy with the numbers but, out of 30 some fish nothing over 17 inches was seen.

Another gentleman that I spoke with this past week informed me that he fished Moses lk for 50 hours before he stuck his first eye of the year. That's not very good.

The impact has now stretched its wings into the seep lakes.
In the past I would start catching eyes in the seeps in March, I got my first Walleye out of Soda yesterday. A whopper of 12 inches. I spent some time with a Aqua-View drifting around and looking for fish. After a hour or so I had seen exactly 0 Walleyes.

I would also like to point out that the Smallmouth seem to be loosing there grip here as well.
My wife and I fished Soda two weeks ago and did pretty good. We boated a dozen or so over the 14 inch limit.
No beds were found and the water was just a bit cool yet. too weeks later the water had warmed and things looked good for a great day. We boated 1 over 14 inches and I would say at least 50 others that were 4 to 6 inches. No Bedding fish on the flats. No old beds.

I know I can not take too days of fishing and compile any information with certainty, but as I spend most of my time on Soda and have for the past 12 years this is not a good sign.

On a brighter note, we did find some very respectable Crappie's, not many and they were scattered but nice fish.
All were released so maybe some day we can start keeping them again.

Sprague lake boat count last wednesday-0

[Anglinarcher]

This has been a strange weather year, so I am not as surprised as YellowBear about not seeing beds, or catching Walleye of the expected size and number yet. I am seeing this for Bass on many of the Eastern waters this year, and I suspect we may loose an entire year class of fish.

I am also not too worried about the loss of 300 fish due to sampling. I suppose that 300 fish in a smaller body of water would really upset me, but in larger waters, this is not a great percentage at all. If there were 300 fish taken, and there were 30000 fish in the system, 1% would have no impact at all. On the other hand, if there were 300 fish taken and only 3000 fish, than perhaps I would be more concerned.

Still, I have questioned, and will continue to question, the talents and determination of OUR F & W techs. I have wondered in the past if there is an agenda involved, a political agenda, that take priority over true scientific evaluation.

So, YellowBear, I think we may not have the same level of concern, but we both find that we agree a lot on this subject. Just what is going on here?

[YellowBear]

I have also considered the weather and I suppose I should give the WDFW the benefit of doubt, but when I see a drop in the population as much as I have seen so far this year I have to wonder.
I am not just looking at the fish that we are catching, but I have to consider the fish that I am not seeing.
So far I have spent three and a half hour's just looking for fish with a Aqua-View. I have seen a few Smallmouth but that's it. No Walleyes. No Trout. No Perch. I have to admit that although I did catch some Crappie two weeks ago, I have not seen any with the camera. This is no surprise as the Crappie in Soda have been far and few between for years now.
Some years back we witnessed a Whitefish dye off and since then we have not seen any improvement in there numbers.
As I am on Soda close to 100 days a year and have been for the past 12 years, I think I can tell when something just ain't write. As AnglingArcher pointed out, the numbers of fish taken from a large body of water may or may not be a factor.
The small lakes will show results much faster. I will continue to fish Soda and I will continue to post my findings.