More Details About VHS, 2009 Stocking, Etc.

[Don Wittenberger]

Let's start with VHS, the fish disease.

The federal quarantine is imposed by watershed, not by state, which makes sense because disease organisms spread through connected waterways.

The muskie eggs WDFW gets from Minnesota DNR come from "Leech Lake strain muskellunge." Leech Lake is a large lake in northern Minnesota within the Lake Superior drainage. VHS has not been found in Lake Superior or its drainage, but this drainage is included in the quarantine as a precaution. The eggs themselves don't come from the Lake Superior drainage, though. They're stripped from broodstock fish kept in two lakes within the Upper Mississippi River drainage, which is outside of the quarantine area.

These eggs are tested twice before being shipped. After arriving in Washington, they're disinfected with ozone treatment. The fingerlings are quarantined in a hatchery for a year. Then they are test two more times before being released into our lakes.

Now let's talk about the 2009 stocking.

Washington normally gets about 20,000 eggs, which produce about 6,000 fingerlings. However, WDFW has requested 25,000 for the 2009 plant, so there should be extra fingerlings. These may get planted in an Olympia area lake that doesn't currently have tiger muskies, although a final decision hasn't been made yet. The eggs should arrive in Washington around May and current plans are to raise the fingerlings at the Meseburg hatchery in Tri-Cities.

Now let's talk about public money -- what's available, and how it gets spent.

WDFW's total budget is over $155 million a year. About 28% of this is federal money; about 29% comes from the state general fund, about 20% from license fees, and the rest from other sources (PUDs, etc.). The warmwater enhancement fund is about $1.35 million a year. This doesn't include warmwater activities in regional offices, such as the amount of time spent by regional biologists on warmwater species, which is significant. The total warmwater hatchery budget for 2007-2009 is $320,349. In 2007, the entire fish culture budget was allocated to bass, bluegills, and crappie; but in a typical year, about 2/3rds is spent on walleye and crappie, and 1/3rd on the tiger muskie program. (None was spent on tiger muskies in 2007 because there is no 2008 tiger muskie stocking.)

The primary reason bass and bluegills don't get more more is because the department's biologists haven't been able to identify any waters that need supplemental stocking of bass and bluegills. These populations seem to be maintaining themselves, of if they're out of balance can't be corrected by just planting more bass or bluegill into a lake where these species already aren't doing well. and in WDFW's experience, stocking these species in lakes where they already exist doesn't provide any benefits to these fisheries. If anything, these species are overpopulated, so stocking more of them would result in even more stunted fish.

Getting back to the new lake under consideration for tiger muskies, I won't name it at this time because it's not certain it will be stocked, but in general it is a lake with good structure for muskies but the forage base is a bit weak because it doesn't have squawfish and the tiger muskies would have to live on perch and other spiny rays, which can't support as large a population. So, this would be a lower population density lake compared to our existing tiger muskie lakes. It is a fairly small lake (under 300 acres) but has a state launch site with a concrete ramp and some undeveloped shoreline. The 50 inch minimum size now in place should help make small urban-area lakes like this more viable as potential tiger muskie fisheries because they'll be less likely to get "fished out." I personally would like to see more tiger muskie lakes in all parts of the state to give anglers more options, especially in these days of sky-high gas prices, and a lake in the Olympia area would be closer for Puget Sound area anglers, whose only nearby option currently is Tapps Lake. Which lakes are suitable for tiger muskie stocking is up to the biologists and that's not a judgment I'm qualified to make. As an angler, I hope it will be possible to expand the number of tiger muskie lakes in the future, including eastern Washington. And I'll take them one at a time, or any way we can get them. But, again, these decisions are the province of trained biologists.

(Edited at 4:38 p.m. 2/14/2008)

[muskyhunter]

Hey Don,
Thanks for the tidbits of info..looking forward to the upcoming season. And my newer boat. See you at the next General meeting on the 21st. Take care, Todd

[Don Wittenberger]

I probably won't attend the Feb. meeting. I'm fighting a bronchial infection.

[Fisherman_max]

if any of you know it, i think lacamas lake would be a good place to stock tigers. it has a way over population of perch, and bluegill, very good structure, and open water. its almost a smaller version of merwin but is a little more well endowed in my opinion, i think the presence of tigers would benifet the fishery because if the tigers thinned out the perch they would end up not being so stunted. i think if even 50 were realeased and survived the fisheries quality would increase. but the absence of squaws would be bad.


i am in no way even close to be qualifyed to make a judgment of this sort but just a thought.

[Don Wittenberger]

I'll see what WDFW says about it, as they're likely to have a few extra fingerlings this fall, and have been looking for a lake to put them in. Normally they order 20,000 eggs to get 6,000 fingerlings, but they put in an order for 25,000 to arrive in May. Most of those that hatch will be kept in the hatchery for a year, until they're 12 to 15 inches, because the survival rate is better at that size. However, to keep the number to 6,000 next winter, they plan to plant whatever surplus exists in the fall of 2008. These fingerlings will be around 8 to 9 inches and won't have as good a survival rate, so I'm guessing a plant of 100 might be equivalent to a spring stocking of 50. I think the 50 inch regulation makes it more feasible to do what you suggested, as otherwise angler harvest would clean out a small population in no time, but it'll take a couple years to find out how much public compliance there'll be. The new regulation may turn out to be ineffective to stop angler harvest; that's still an unknown at this point.