California Walleye

[PescadorUtah]

Can you tell me any waters in Ca. that hold Walleye
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[tubeN2]

Hey there PescadorUtah, There haven't been any walleye in CA for a number of years. Let me get a hold of TubeDude. He has the Ca fish history on the back of his hand.
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[TubeDude]

[cool][size 2]Walleyes have been introduced into a few waters in California, but never successfully. The big issue is not food or habitat, but water temps. Unless winter water temps get somewhere below about 40 degrees, walleye will not spawn.[/size]

[size 2]I lived in Santa Barbara in the late sixties, just after the last attempt to start a walleye population in Lake Cachuma. Nobody was bringing in any walleyes to the marina, mostly because most fishermen were going either for trout or bass, and not fishing where the walleyes were. Also, the lake was closed to fishing after dark...or before daybreak.[/size]

[size 2]I made a couple of walleye-specific trips one spring and managed to hang several walleyes up to about 5 pounds...on the old reliable crawler and spinner harness rig. I also hung some big largemouth and a couple of nice channel cats. Never caught any more walleyes after that, and never heard of anyone else catching them either. [/size]

[size 2]There are quite a few nice lakes in northern California that would probably be very good for walleyes. However, the state fisheries departments manage the waters carefully and are not too wild about experimental plantings of carnivorous species...especially where there might be smolts of steelhead and/or salmon present.[/size]

[size 2]We have several lakes in Arizona that have small populations of walleyes...where the water never gets cold enough for spawning. That's because there is a regular stocking program for walleye fry and fingerlings. They develop roe and milt, during the right time of year, but there is just not a low enough temperature to trigger the spawn.[/size]
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[JapanRon]

Hi there TubeDude,

After 3 years the DFG is still not even close to ridding Davis Lake, up in the northern half of the state, of pike that some idiot bucket biologis decided to 'creatively plant'.

Lot of dumb dumb's don't realize all sorts of things besides fish can be brought along with these highly destructive 'plants'. Even certian unwanted weaknesses in the gene's if a 'planted fish' did reproduce with a native population. As we wellllllllll know.

JapanRon
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[TubeDude]

[cool][size 2]Yeah, JR, I have followed that debacle at Davis Lake. I used to go up there ice fishing in the winter and fly flinging in the summer. Used to be some great big rainbows and browns.[/size]

[size 2]Then, the bucket bozos introduced northern pike and now they got toothy trout munchers in there too. It's strange though. There are quite a few fishermen who really developed an appreciation for the northerns. It was probably some of them that took out some specimens and kept them in private ponds until the poisoning had run its course. But, from what I heard, they were finding fingerling northerns soon after treating the lake, as if some brood stock had survived and spawned.[/size]

[size 2]Ya cain't keep everyone happy. But, responsible anglers can do their part to watch their favorite waters and do their part to prevent wasted resources (poaching) or illegal introductions. In Utah and Colorado there are several lakes that have gone through several evolutions of biomass due to illegal dumping of other species. Some lakes have literally "crashed" and need to be totally repopulated with the approved species.[/size]
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[tubeN2]

It sounds like the new movie that may be out. Jurrasic Lake. It started off someones careless spawn sack tossed into a toilet then suddenly everyones lakes were popping up with some kind of sub species of the browns.
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