Our city has entered into a cooperative agreement with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to raise baby walleye for them to release into area lakes. Our group will be providing the volunteers needed to net the fish and see them safely to their final homes in the lakes.
We will be providing the labor needed to assist the DNR with netting the fish each fall. Setting nets, raking out weeds, weighing and measuring the fish are just some of the activities that our volunteers will be doing.
Although the walleye did not survive this year, the fathead minnows thrived. The State will come back in the spring to net minnows to take to other ponds before stocking us back up with walleye.
Even though we did not achieve the outcome we wanted, we learned that we can have a positive effect on the fisheries as a whole.
We will only reclaim the pond in the fall so there is plenty of time for the water to recover before the spring fish planting.
The weather did not cooperate with us the day of the fish netting so we had to hand pull the nets from shore. This was a new experience for all of our volunteers. We had previously only used a boat.
We found out that minnows were living in another adjacent pond. We had not stocked any into that pond. Ducks, geese, and turtles must have moved the eggs from one pond to another. Mother Nature found a way!
