RIVERDALE It has been a very different spring, no question about it. Ice was off very early on state lakes this spring. As a result the annual spawning run of northern pike occurred earlier than ever before, at least since such records have been kept.
"For 30 years I've been keeping track of dates. We never took an egg in March. The earliest ever was April 1 in the low-water years on Devils Lake. This year we were almost done before April came," said Jerry Weigel, North Dakota Game & Fish Department fisheries production leader.
Game & Fish biologists normally set out their first capture nets for pike about the third week of April, usually early enough to catch the start of the spawn. This year biologists began netting in late March and wrapped up the operation very quickly.
"We are way ahead of schedule," noted Jerry Tishmack, Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery. "We've already started filling outdoor ponds for pike."
State crews bring the eggs to the federal facility for rearing. According to Tishmack, the hatchery is currently caring for slightly more than 9 million northern pike eggs. All of the eggs arrived at the hatchery well before the historic start of the pike egg take. Some of the pike had reached hatching stage this past week.
"It has been interesting," said Weigel. "It definitely shows daylight plays a role and not always water temperatures. As soon as the ice was gone the northerns were doing their business."
Weigel says approximately 3.6 million pike eggs were collected from the southwest corner of Devils Lake and 5 million from Eckelson Lake in Barnes County. The last of the eggs, 2 million of them, came from Beaver Bay on Lake Oahe.
"It warmed up early. That's the reason those fish were in there," said Weigel.
Even though the egg take has been the earliest on record, it has not adversely affected the quality off the eggs.
"The eye-ups are phenomenal again. Eighty percent is off the charts. Sixty is normal," explained Tishmack. "The eggs from Devils Lake and Eckelson both look to be in the 80 percentile. Beaver Bay? Probably around 50 percent the way they look."
"Eye-ups" is a term used to describe eggs that are developing properly. That means the Garrison Hatchery jars should produce 6 to 7 million pike, which will be moved to outdoor ponds. The pike that survive outdoors will be stocked back into North Dakota lakes later this year. Weigel said the goal is to distribute 2 million fingerlings, down somewhat from the 3 million to 4 million of recent years.
The walleye egg take has yet to begin, but biologists have already put out a few capture nets on Lake Sakakawea so they can track the progress of the earliest spawning walleyes. This year's goal is to harvest more than 10 million walleye eggs.
"We'll be putting the Garrison and Valley City hatcheries to the max, 100 percent," said Weigel. "We're shooting for 10.2 million eggs. With a good year we could go even higher."
"Every one of our outdoor ponds will have walleyes," said Tishmack. "For the third year in a row Sakakawea will get 4 million walleyes."
It is an aggressive undertaking designed to insure a good walleye population in Lake Sakakawea for years to come. Other lakes in the state are scheduled to receive their share of young walleyes too. How many depends on the cooperation of spawning walleyes, success of biologists in the field and on survival percentages at the hatcheries.
Salmon and trout
Chinook salmon at the Garrison Hatchery have been moved to their final tanks prior to stocking. The salmon are three to three and one-half inches long now, feeding well and are expected to nearly double in size before being released at the end of May.
"We've got 60,000 catchable Shasta rainbow trout that will go out at the end of April," said Tishmack. "There's also 20,000 browns, around the 10-inch size, that will go into the river later this month."