By Fort Peck Reservoir biologist Heath Headley
Weather conditions have remained favorable for the most part in the Big Dry Arm of Fort Peck Reservoir. Water surface temperatures have ranged from 45 to 51F over the course of the last several days. These water temperatures have allowed us to capture good numbers of ripe female walleye throughout most of our trap netting locations.
Thanks to consistent numbers of ripe female walleye captured in the trap nets, we’ve managed to hold an egg-take each day since the last update (see below). As you can see below, the number of walleye eggs collected from April 19th to April 20th doubled. This was due to an increase in water temperatures – 46 degrees on Saturday warming to 51 degrees on Sunday. It should also be noted that this timeframe is when we typically see the peak of the walleye spawning activity occur in the Big Dry Arm area.
- April 17th – 6.1 million
- April 18th – 6.7 million
- April 19th – 5.9 million
- April 20th – 13.1 million
These four egg collection efforts gave us an additional 31.8 million eggs which quickly brought the total to approximately 62 million eggs for the season. This will provide enough eggs at the Fort Peck and Miles City fish hatcheries to meet fry and fingerling stocking requirements for 2025. In addition to the walleye eggs, a total of 1.5 million northern pike eggs were collected to meet stocking requests for several waterbodies here in Montana.
On behalf of the fisheries and hatchery staff at Fort Peck, I’d like to thank all the volunteers who assisted with this year’s efforts. Be safe on the water and best of luck fishing this year!
Feature Photo: Nicole Nelson with big female walleye captured from one of the trap nets.
