Southern walleye becoming hard to find

By David Rainer (Contact) | Clanton Advertiser

Published Monday, March 2, 2009

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Fisheries Section is looking for a few good southern walleye.

Yes, believe it or not, there are walleye in Alabama—just not many of them these days. Indeed, the popular and abundant northern walleye has a southern cousin. Unfortunately, the southern strain endemic to Alabama and Mississippi has been on the decline for the past few decades because of changes in water flow and the resulting siltation of the spawning grounds.

The population in Alabama has now reached a point that the Fisheries Section is attempting to capture fish to establish a brood stock at the Marion Fish Hatchery.

Despite significant effort, fisheries biologists have had only limited success in collecting southern walleye for the project. Only eight males were caught in the latest sampling effort at Hatchet Creek, a Coosa River tributary that runs into Lake Mitchell.

Unlike its northern cousin, the southern walleye is more at home in Alabama’s cooler rivers and creeks, according to Rider. On the other hand, the northern walleye has adapted very well to the lakes and reservoirs from Tennessee to Canada.

“Our fish are more riverine, so when the impoundments went in the siltation basically suffocated the spawning gravel,” Rider said. “These fish need a clean, cool, gravel bottom to spawn successfully.”

When he was at Auburn in the early 90s, Rider was involved in a study for the Conservation Department that sampled southern walleye across the state. He remembers in 1993 that it didn’t take much effort to catch about 20 fish in Hatchet Creek.

“Fast forward about 15 years when we started making plans to develop a brood stock,” he said. “We went back to Hatchet Creek and saw how bad it had filled in and we didn’t get a lot of walleye.”

With the fish collected in 2006, the hatchery was able to produce 6,500 fingerlings that were released into Lake Mitchell. About 500 fingerlings were saved for brood stock.

“The thing about the brood stock is it’s tough to keep those fish alive in the hot summer months at Marion,” Rider said. “Our hatchery has been running cool water from the wells through the ponds, but we have had some mortality. Once we get a brood stock going, we’re going to explore more ways to keep them alive. We’re looking at National Forest lakes that are deep and cool.”

The Fisheries Section is also looking for any information they can get from Alabama’s anglers about southern walleye, which is darker and more mottled than its northern cousin.

“We’re asking anglers to let us know if they catch a walleye,” Rider said. “We would like to know exactly where they caught it. If they could take a fin clip about the size of a thumbnail, we can take the tissue and determine if it is the southern walleye strain. We are looking for any information that would help us concentrate our collection efforts.

“If they catch a walleye and want to keep it alive to donate to the hatchery, that would be the best-case scenario.”

Anglers who wish to donate a live fish or a fin clipping should contact the Fisheries Section at 334-242-3471.

– David Rainer is a guest columnist for The Clanton Advertiser. His column appears each Tuesday.

---

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE THIS STORY?

---