Outdoor News Daily

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment will be on the Muskegon River below Croton Dam in Newaygo County for a week to 10 days beginning around the last week of March to take eggs from walleye for its hatchery program.

Actual dates will be determined by water conditions as well as walleye concentrations, explained DNRE fisheries biologist Rich O’Neal. The process will be completed by the second week of April.

Crews from the DNRE Fisheries Division will be working off the Pine Street launch ramp, about a mile downstream from the dam, and confine their electro-fishing upstream from the Thornapple launch site, O’Neal said.
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Missouri’s paddlefish snagging season likely will get off to a slow start this year, but when the action picks up, anglers will find plenty of legal fish.

Paddlefish season opens March 15 and runs through April 30. Snaggers use heavy fishing rods, hefty lead weights and oversized treble hooks to snag fish that can tip the scales at well over 100 pounds. The paddlefish itself is a holdover from the dinosaur era. They are primitive fish with cartilaginous skeletons and a rostrum or “paddle,” whose sensitivity to electrical fields enables them to detect food.
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The Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve (DNERR) is seeking volunteers to assist with the annual baywide horseshoe crab spawning survey in May and June on Ted Harvey Wildlife Area, Kitts Hummock and North Bowers beaches.

Since 1990, surveys have been conducted of horseshoe crabs spawning in Delaware Bay. Despite the horseshoe crab’s importance to the ecology of the Bay, little is known about its population status. The data collected by volunteers during these surveys is key for scientists to monitor changes in numbers of spawning crabs in the Bay. Now, every spring on several peak spawning days, volunteers donate their time to count crabs on key beaches in Delaware and in New Jersey. Delaware’s well-trained and enthusiastic volunteers have made this program one of the most successful volunteer-based wildlife surveys in the country.
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The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission today approved a plan that will send 58,118 large rainbow trout – 16,708 over last year’s total – to 104 lowland lakes statewide.

The commission voted to modify the stocking plan developed by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) staff to more closely balance stocking percentages between eastern and western Washington.

Under the approved plan, 55 percent of the fish will go to western Washington lakes, and 45 percent will go to eastern Washington waters. The adopted plan will partly offset lost fish production resulting from the closure of Bellingham Hatchery.
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