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. <\/p>\n
\u201cI asked him, \u2018Is that another bass?’\u201d Thomas remembers to Outdoor Life<\/em>. \u201cHe said \u2018Man, it feels like a walleye.\u2019 And I was like whatever, I\u2019m used to getting ribbed on. I thought he was joking.\u201d <\/p>\n But if anybody knew what a walleye chunk felt like, it was Weber. He was a walleye information in Wisconsin<\/a>, and moved to Cascade to chase perch on this precise lake. He requested Thomas to seize the web, however Thomas didn\u2019t assume that was mandatory, since he was satisfied the fish was simply one other bass<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThen it kind of swirled up near the surface, and he could see that white tip on the fin, and he said \u2018It\u2019s a walleye! It\u2019s a walleye!\u2019,\u201d Thomas says. \u201cI reached out with the net to help him land it\u2026as 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\u2019ll never forget. I was pretty shocked, to say the least.\u201d<\/p>\n This might need been the tip of the story if Thomas have been simply one other angler. But he\u2019s not. He\u2019s a regional fisheries biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the place he makes a dwelling realizing what\u2019s purported to be in Lake Cascade and what\u2019s not. Walleye fall into the latter class. <\/p>\n Now, 9 months after the catch<\/a>, a staff of researchers from the NOAA fisheries division, the University of California Santa Cruz, and the University of California Davis\u2019 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. <\/p>\n After getting the walleye again to a lab, IDFG researchers eliminated its otolith, or internal ear bone. Fish carry what are often called \u201cchemical signatures\u201d 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\u2019s life. The perch, however, had the identical chemical signature since delivery, signaling that they hadn\u2019t lived anyplace else.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are excited to use the tools we have developed to track fish movements to help our Fish and Game partners solve the walleye mystery,\u201d UC Santa Cruz researcher Malte Willmes stated in an IDFG press launch<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have never used otolith microchemistry in a forensics case, but it is clear that it is a powerful tool,\u201d analysis staff lead Rachel Johnson added.<\/p>\n It goes with out saying that lake fish don\u2019t have a tendency to leap waterbodies. IDFG has a stocking program, however the state doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t have survived.<\/p>\n That leaves one speculation for this whodunnit. <\/p>\n \u201cFolks think this waterbody should have this species of fish in it, and Fish and Game won\u2019t do it, so they do it,\u201d McCall regional fisheries supervisor Jordan Messner tells Outdoor Life<\/em>. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Catching the perp in an unlawful stocking case is extraordinarily tough, IDFG assistant chief of enforcement Joey Ishida explains. <\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t 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\u2026we\u2019d literally have to have an officer or witness on site to document it all,\u201d Ishida tells Outdoor Life<\/em>. \u201cAnd with a large body of water, it\u2019s going to be tough to prove that those fish dumped into that body of water were walleye. It\u2019s a really tough case.\u201d<\/p>\nOne Fishy Walleye<\/h2>\n
What Now?<\/h2>\n