Syracuse.com - Spring DEC walleye egg collection efforts at Constantia hatchery were odd, but fruitful

[HuntingNY-News]

The state Department of Environmental Conservation fish hatchery in Constantia is charged with raising walleye for stocking purposes across the state.

Michael Greenlar/The Post-StandardDEC workers and volunteers get male and female walleye by catching them in special underwater traps on Oneida Lake near the hatchery. Here, workers take the fish from a trap with nets, putting them in a holding tank on their boat.

It happens every spring at the Oneida Fish Culture Station in Constantia. This year’s walleye egg collection process, though, had some interesting twists and turns.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation fish hatchery is charged with raising walleye for stocking purposes across the state.

DEC workers and volunteers net spawning walleye at the mouth of Scriba Creek, which flows by the hatchery. The netted fish are taken by boat to the hatchery where the females are stripped of their eggs and the males of their sperm, and then released into the creek.

The fertilized eggs are put in special containers and eventually they hatch, generating millions of walleye fry. The fry are raised at the hatchery and eventually get stocked in Oneida Lake and elsewhere.

This year, the process got under way about two weeks early, according to Mark Babenzien, the hatchery’s manager. He noted several oddities.

“I noticed the first fish spawning in Scriba Creek about March 13. That usually happens around March 28,” he said. “And normally the spawn progresses where there’s so many fish you can walk across the fish. That didn’t happen this year. At its peak there were probably a few thousand walleyes in the creek, where normally there’s about 30,000.”

Babenzien said the netting of walleyes began on March 20, whereas normally it doesn’t begin until after April 1.

“We caught fish in all stages of the egg-laying process — some that were hard (not yet ready to lay their eggs), some that were ripe and some that were spent (had already laid their eggs),” he said. “It was like that the whole two weeks we were netting them. Normally, they’re mostly all at the same stage.”

Michael Greenlar/The Post-StandardWorkers strip the fish of their eggs and sperm, mixing them in a bowl to assist the fertilization process.

Finally, when it came to the end of the netting process and no more fish were being caught, the hatchery had a number of ripe females but a shortage of males. Babenzien said the staff just gave up and released the females into the stream.

“I’ve been doing this at the hatchery for 23 years and I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” he said.

“Spring came early, the flows from the streams were low. The lake was low. It all affected where the fish spawned. Many may have just spawned in the lake, which they’re allowed to do. They just went out to the shoals and laid their eggs,” he said.

The bottom line, though, was that things worked out and it was still a matter of “mission accomplished” at the hatchery.

“We collected enough fish to get 289 million eggs. That’s what we were aiming for,” Babenzien said.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog