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Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/14/17 in all areas

  1. 1 point
    I find that the proliferation of bass in many lakes over the past few years, has a much more detrimental effect on pickeral populations than pike do.
  2. 1 point
    In order to take firewood from crown land you need to get a fuel wood permit from the mnr. They run about $30. Usually logging company's will leave the stuff they don't want in piles along the road as long as they're not in neatly stacked piles then you should be good.
  3. 1 point
    Could be a number of things going on, one would require a bit more information about the fish community and the history of the lake(s) in question, but I can offer some generalities. It's not unheard of to see stunted populations of walleye in small lakes, particularly where it's an introduced population...introduced predators in small systems can rapidly deplete the natural prey base. Walleye can be pretty variable with their growth and age at maturity...populations under stress tend to reach maturity at a younger age and smaller size than in healthy populations, so we might expect such a stunted population chug along for quite some time. But walleye are also highly cannibalistic, especially when no other prey is available, so eventually the population could be reduced. Add to that competition and predation from pike, which seem better adapted to small lakes in this part of the world, and eventually you could see the stunted walleye population disappear altogether.
  4. 1 point
    So there is quite a bit going on with your post and these are just some guesses-- I would hesitate to call it "science" other than being based on basic fishery biology principles. Your question about small lakes with lots of 11-13" walleye suggests that a couple of things might be going on. Walleyes do reasonably well feeding on minnows but to grow to large sizes they do best when they can get fatty fish like whitefish or they have very large populations of minnows. Small lakes have less productivity capacity so it is quite possible these lakes just cannot produce enough minnow biomass to support a good population of large walleye. You could also be seeing the effects of over-harvest resulting in few to no fish >13". It is probably a combination of these factors. You didn't mention anything about other predator species or what their population structure looks like. It their population structure is solid, they could be out-competing the walleye for forage. It their population structure also seems "stunted" then that is more evidence of insufficient forage. For the lake with the logging road, I would guess that the easier access has resulted in over-harvest of the walleye population (perhaps to the point of a complete crash). It is somewhat surprising that the walleyes seem to have been eliminated, but if that is the case, it would partially explain why you aren't seeing big pike too as we all know that walleyes are a favorite prey item of pike. It takes a lot of minnows to support a 40" northern as compared to 10-15" walleyes.