Are People Illegally Sneaking Walleye into an Idaho Lake?

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Are People Illegally Sneaking Walleye into an Idaho Lake?


While Mike Thomas and Chris Weber have been bass and perch fishing on Lake Cascade final May, Thomas thought Weber was messing with him. They have been making an attempt to catch fish to move to a group pond within the close by city of Cascade, Idaho. As the duo began hauling some bass in, Weber stated he had a walleye on the road.

“I asked him, ‘Is that another bass?’” Thomas remembers to Outdoor Life. “He said ‘Man, it feels like a walleye.’ And I was like whatever, I’m used to getting ribbed on. I thought he was joking.”

But if anybody knew what a walleye chunk felt like, it was Weber. He was a walleye information in Wisconsin, and moved to Cascade to chase perch on this precise lake. He requested Thomas to seize the web, however Thomas didn’t assume that was mandatory, since he was satisfied the fish was simply one other bass.

“Then it kind of swirled up near the surface, and he could see that white tip on the fin, and he said ‘It’s a walleye! It’s a walleye!’,” Thomas says. “I reached out with the net to help him land it…as he lifted it up, kind of flipping it, it almost went back in the lake. But the emotions and response to him catching that walleye, I’ll never forget. I was pretty shocked, to say the least.”

This might need been the tip of the story if Thomas have been simply one other angler. But he’s not. He’s a regional fisheries biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the place he makes a dwelling realizing what’s purported to be in Lake Cascade and what’s not. Walleye fall into the latter class.

Now, 9 months after the catch, a staff of researchers from the NOAA fisheries division, the University of California Santa Cruz, and the University of California Davis’ Center for Watersheds Sciences has decided that the walleye had solely lived in Lake Cascade for about two years earlier than Weber caught it at age 4. In different phrases, it was born some other place and introduced there.

One Fishy Walleye

After getting the walleye again to a lab, IDFG researchers eliminated its otolith, or internal ear bone. Fish carry what are often called “chemical signatures” on their otoliths from the waters they reside in. The chemical signature on the walleye otolith matched that of three perch from Lake Cascade, however just for the final two years of the walleye’s life. The perch, however, had the identical chemical signature since delivery, signaling that they hadn’t lived anyplace else.

“We are excited to use the tools we have developed to track fish movements to help our Fish and Game partners solve the walleye mystery,” UC Santa Cruz researcher Malte Willmes stated in an IDFG press launch.

“We have never used otolith microchemistry in a forensics case, but it is clear that it is a powerful tool,” analysis staff lead Rachel Johnson added.

Walleye Idaho
Walleyes are predatory fish, and managers concern they might pose a menace to perch and different species in Cascade Lake. USFWS

It goes with out saying that lake fish don’t have a tendency to leap waterbodies. IDFG has a stocking program, however the state doesn’t put any walleye in Lake Cascade. If a raptor had plucked the walleye out of a distinct waterbody and flown it right here, it wouldn’t have survived.

That leaves one speculation for this whodunnit.

“Folks think this waterbody should have this species of fish in it, and Fish and Game won’t do it, so they do it,” McCall regional fisheries supervisor Jordan Messner tells Outdoor Life. “They go to a lake that has that fish species, catch a few of them, put them in their livewell, then drive the boat with water in the livewell over to where they want those fish, go out fishing in their boat, and just toss them over.”

What Now?

Catching the perp in an unlawful stocking case is extraordinarily tough, IDFG assistant chief of enforcement Joey Ishida explains.

“We don’t locate most of these individuals. When you think about how fast someone could dump a bucket of fish into a body of water and just take off…we’d literally have to have an officer or witness on site to document it all,” Ishida tells Outdoor Life. “And with a large body of water, it’s going to be tough to prove that those fish dumped into that body of water were walleye. It’s a really tough case.”

When studies of the walleye first circulated, Citizens Against Poaching supplied a money reward for data relating to what was assumed to be unlawful stocking. But the thriller remains to be unsolved at this level.

According to Ishida, anybody convicted of misdemeanor unlawful stocking faces a effective of as much as $1000, as much as six months in jail, and a one- to three-year lack of their fishing license. They may additionally need to pay restitution for remediating any issues attributable to the unlawful stocking. This can whole within the a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars}.

Where Perch Reach Old Age

So what’s the massive deal if a number of walleye ended up in considered one of Idaho’s greatest lakes?

“If you add a top predator, like pike or walleye, it adds a new dynamic in there and could jeopardize the perch fishery,” Thomas explains. “We’re unsure if they’d be able to reach old age. Without the adequate forage base, we don’t know how walleye would do, either.”

jumbo perch illegally stocking walleye 3
Idaho’s Cascade Lake is residence to one of many healthiest populations of jumbo perch within the state. courtesy of IDFG

Thomas factors out that Lake Cascade doesn’t have a ton of forage fish like ciscoes or minnows. Instead, the ecosystem depends on perch to behave as each a forage species and a predator species.

“It’s a pretty simple fish community. There aren’t a lot of other fish species in Cascade,” Thomas says. “What makes the jumbos so unique in Cascade…is that they’re reaching really old ages. We know that our 8- to 9-inch perch are the same age as 8- to 9-inch perch in other lakes in Idaho. But what’s getting them to 15 or 16 inches is a lot of time. Once they reach that 8- or 9-inch mark, they put so much energy into spawning that their growth rate slows. It takes a long time for them to get that big.”

Read Next: The Insane Cult of the Lake Erie Walleye

Ultimately, the invention that the walleye wasn’t born in Lake Cascade does deliver some aid to fisheries managers. Even although it provides the enforcement division a damn-near-cold case to attempt unfolding, it additionally means that walleye aren’t efficiently reproducing within the lake—or, at the least, that this explicit fish wasn’t the results of that.

“At this point, we have seen nothing to indicate that walleye have successfully established themselves in Lake Cascade,” Messner stated within the press launch. “[That] is good news.”

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