Best Breeders?

I don’t know if this falls into the catagory of “stupid, nuisance, or good” question, but I find myself bewildered by the statements of what size walleye is the best reproductive range. I’ve read and heard reports defending slots like 15-20, 20-24, 20-28, and anything over 24. So which is it?

I can see the younger fish maybe having the best overall health so maybe the eggs are better, but does a 20″ carry as many eggs as a 28″? Here’s a thought:

A deer has one fawn. All of it’s good health and attention go to one offspring. The deer grows older and has 2 fawns. Strong reproductive qualities, healthy deer, but now has double duty. Are the fawns weaker fawns as a result? How about the triplets? Point being, that even a possible smaller and weaker triplet in the right year will survive and grow to an adult. Therefore, the old doe may not be as good in health and reproductive areas, but she is capable of reproducing up to 3 times as many!

This logic against the walleyes makes me wonder about the definition of best breeder. Which is really most important, if one can be called more important over another.

Another factor in my ponderment is the fact that there are many more “less than 24” fish than “over 24”. Is that where the difference is made up?

How is this question determined because the reports are getting as confusing as the great sodium debate?

down boy!! play dead!!

just HAD to toss that in!!…..

well… back to beating that old dead horse…. (bad pup.. stop rolling in that! it stinks!!)…….

ok….

I guess if your looking for the absolute BEST breeder… the maximum output of “viable spawn” by a single fish…. then usually your looking at fish around 25 inches….. the word VIABLE is the key one… the larger the fish the MORE spawn they produce… but bioligists have found that the OLDER the fish the less VIABLE spawn they produce…. BUT… it seems to work out that fish LARGER than the optimum still produce aprox as MUCH viable spawn as the 25’s….. in the end every spawner contributes to the spawn…. removing huge numbers of smaller fish COULD have a more significant impact then a smaller number of larger fish…. its pretty hard to just say…. here, key in on THIS size and kill em all!!

so anyway….. doubt this clears things up totally or buries the horse deep enuf it wont be dug back up! lol……

In your own “off the cuff’ way of tearing me up, you actually reiterated my exact point. How can anyone say this or that makes the difference or that this group is better than that group? They all have a roll. However, to steal an expression from Haywood, there’s a “gazillion” reports out there encouraging fishermen to pay special attention to certain catagories, because they’re the “best” breeding class. So again, are we to assume that slots are a “Bull Roaring” issue in regard to reproduction? Let’s look at the correlation here! Are slots really in regard to reproducing or current numbers in year classes? Maybe I’m just confused, but either there’s a whole lot of misinformation being distributed or we have a major conflict between our words and our practices. What are we to believe?

its always a tough call…. heres what I figure… conventional wisdom has us tossing back fish usually in the 20+ inch range….. heres the deal with that… the longer a fish is, the older the fish is….. the more ods it had to beat to get that big, destroying that fish is removing something from the ecosystem that is NOT easily replaced…… replacement of older fish is known as class recruitment… which is a fancy term for “older fish are replaced by younger year classes as they age….”…..

if your going to take numbers of fish smaller fish are more easily replaced because it takes less time for a subsequent year class to replace them…. recruitment is a process that takes time….. at any one time there are a limited number of 15 inch fish, 20 inch fish 25 inch, etc, etc…… when you remove one from that group its simply gone…. it will only be replaced by time… and in that time the year class that fish was from will age more and grow……

soooooo lets say you have a big year class… if you made a slot limit to protect THAT year class all the way through its growth curve then eventually you might end up with a big number of old big fish….. and that would dominate your biomass curve….. (by biomass curve I refer to the fact that an ecosystem can only sustain a certain poundage of fish, it can be lots of smaller fish…. or a lesser number of larger fish, so if you went with larger fish there would be less numbers out there to catch….. you kind of see this happening in MileLacs where the larger fish are being protected by a slot and there are lesser numbers of smaller fish because of biomass discrimination and slot harvest)……

geeeee….. now as you can tell Ive totally forgotten the point…… but you can see the process is complicated….

slots are used to control harvest… they do this….. they are used to protect larger fish so they are not harvested early thus making the fishery be filled with many small fish that are less desirable for keeping…… and for spawning…..

in general slots DO work as a management tool……. at least in a healthy ecosystem……

but in the end… EVERY spawner is valuable… and sure…. if you release them all I figure that would be better then killing certain select groups off……

its the bioligist job to decide what year classes can afford to be selectivly harvested, and be the backbone of the catch and kill fishery…… its a very tough job!…. kind of like predicting the weather….

WHAT???????????????? LOL! Just kidding! That was great! Now, is it done snowing? OK, ok…………….I’ll be nice. After all, you’re still recooping from yesterday’s pummeling………….(tee heee!)………………

I like what you had to say about the slots. It’s all tied in to the reproduction issue, one size is not dominently more important, and they are designed around a desired harvest that will produce a certain type of fishery, over time. That is, if all factors cooperate, which does include weather. Thanks!

Ummm………………so which is best? :O)

yes… I did take quite a beating… with those large puppy ears flapping in the wind and busting my chops!! next time Im going to tie them to the anchor…. !!! geeee I wonder if you will remember that when I tell you to drop anchor??

so which is best?? “why I oughta!!…. wheres that shock collar controller??”

I fell genetics are the piece to this puzzle that are often igorned. Some fish, maybe even most fish, are genetically incapable of reaching trophy size. There are two recent articles, one in the Midwest Outdoors, the second, from the North American Fishing magazine that bring this point to the surface. The Midwest Outdoors article focused on size and age of fish off of Mille Lacs. They found numbers of 22 -25 year old fish that were only 6 lb fish. And yes, the were females. They also found 12 -15 year old fish that were the true hogs… 30+” and in excess of 10 lbs. The difference? Clean living? Ah…no. Genetics, of course. Some fish, like people, are predisposed to achieve a large size if the opportunity presents itself and if the environment will support it. Kill these fish with the genetic propensity to achieve a large size before they spawn and you’ve removed something much more substantial than a single large fish. The second study, printed in the NAFC mag was done on bluegills. The same scenario was found… some fish got big…. others couldn’t no matter the circumstances. The catch was that in this test group, after the trophy fish were removed, no subsequent fish ever attained true trophy proportions during subsequent generations. The genetic make-up to attain trophy size had been stripped from the gene pool.

I like to catch huge fish so I release big fish. I like to eat little fish so I release big fish and keep little fish. Big fish make little fish…. and some of those little fish grow really BIG. I can’t come up with a reason to kill big fish to eat. It makes no sense to me. Need one for the wall? Keep it. Enjoy it as a symbol of the accomplishment and as a reminder, a memory, of everything you love best about the sport you charish. Once you’ve got one for the wall, release the rest.

James Holst

Moving Waters Guide Service

http://www.movingwaters.net

good post James!….

the genetics angle does not suprise me….. and with the advancement in genetics we could be looking forward to bioengineered BRUTES!!!…. who knows? Im sure it will be looked at…. but not dove right into….. when it comes to tampering with nature, you never know where your gonna roll snake eyes….. (instead of river eyes?)

Finally, an answer I can chew! Just kidding! R’eyes, your knowledge is respected and appreciated. Just gotta pull that chain when you’re gettin’ “droopy eyed”.

James, great approach and I like the angle. Makes a lot of sense. In fact, I think between you and RE, there’s enough info to kill the theory of a “best breeding size” and we can focus on our practices as a whole, instead of being curbed by the latest “best size” report.

In light of the genetics testing, are there different strains, much like the “Florida Bass” vs. “Northen Bass” that might account for some of the findings?

say James….. (or anyone who might know)… what research papers were referenced in that genetics article you were talking about… I would like to read the real thing! if anyone has an idea let me know….. I will also check with the Mn DNR under their research papers… they are supposed to be putting them all online…. but its been a slow process……

Great post James,

especially the last paragraph, I could not agree with you more, I am still waiting for the one for the wall but I know it will happen someday.

Steve

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