Boosting L Geneva w/e pop

[Lee Borgersen]

  ...Walworth County fishing group boosting walleye population in Geneva Lake.


  Great news here.
http://walworthcountytoday.com/news/2012/mar/30/walworth-county-fishing-group-boosting-walleye-pop/

I belong to Walleyes For Tomorrow & guide on this lake :fishing2:

Here is an update on progress to date:
 
Lee,

March 27th
Hi All,
 
The hatchery is ready to go whenever the fish are ready to give up their eggs.  We will check the lake for congregating walleyes. If we don’t find any grouped tightly together, but rather spread out like the last time we checked, we will postpone the net setting until Friday as a test net to see if the fish are ripe or not.  If they are grouped we will set nets Thursday, and likely strip eggs etc, Friday thru the weekend.  So until we find out how far along the fish are to spawning, we are day to day as far as beginning hatchery operation.  Will keep you informed, we can use help on the days we strip and fill the hatchery jars.
 
The Harbormaster said we will “play it by ear” as to where visitors would park, depends how much interest there is. Visitors can check with him at the Harbor House.  If you want to help when we are handling the fish, you will have to call me.

March 29th
We were out Wednesday night ( 3-29) shining. Water temp at bottom in 7’ where we saw the majority of the females was 41 deg. Surface was 42. The water has cooled since last time out.
 
Spot 1 had 11  females in .30 mile
Spot 2        7    “       “   in .33 mile
Spot 3        3   “  “        in .16 mile
Spot 4        5    “  “       in  .16 mile
Spot 5       6   “    “       in  144 ft
Spot 6       4  “  “          in 100 ft
 
Very similar to last week, most FM in 5-7 ft, a few in a 3-4 ft.  The males, or smaller fish, out numbered the FM and were scattered in 3-7 ft, most were not paired up with females, but in the general area.  No congregations seen yet in the spots known as major spawning areas.  Let me know what you make of this and our netting plans.

[Lee Borgersen]

                     Update as of today March 30th


Hello All,
 
Our area fish biologist Doug Welch called and asked how we were coming with setting up the hatchery, and how things were progressing with our plans. I said we are ready and waiting.  He may come over to check out our setup tomorrow.  He also said they are doing a lake survey on Delevan Lake for walleye.  He said the surface water had been 62 deg. before the cooler weather hit, and now the water temp. is 56 deg. They have handled a lot of walleye and so far all the females have hard eggs, not ready to spawning yet even with the warmer temps there.  It may be sometime yet before the eggs get ripe in Geneva, but we will keep tabs on walleye activity and water temperature regularly and set a test net accordingly.  If anyone gets out there to check it out, let me know what you see.  We will probably check it again on Wednesday.
 

[Lee Borgersen]

           Walleyes For Tomorrow Walworth County Chapter at work.

See how a portable hatchery is made from an old camper and it gets the job done fine.


http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walleyes-For-Tomorrow-Walworth-County-Chapter/107070139422020

[Lee Borgersen]

                Lake Geneva Report/Friday april 6th Update:

Hi Mike,
 
We were out tonight spot lighting eye’s.  Saw 3-4 areas with walleyes that were more concentrated than the last 2 weeks checking.  There were a few more fish in these areas than other times we checked.  They have moved from 6-7 ft of water to 3-4 ft.  Saw some loose grouping taking place, like 3 fm with 8 males in a group with scattered fish in the same 3-4 areas.  Fish were active and moving.  Water temp is 44 deg. in these areas we are seeing the fish.  Small fish were seen scattered in the 1-2 ft range in places.
 
I think it may be a good idea for you to come down to set a couple of nets with us so we can learn how and check the fish, I suspect it is probably a few more days off until any numbers of fish get ripe, but we will at least be familiar on net setting.  I suppose some of us could also work on the hatchery with the parts you were going to bring down next trip.
 
Give me a call when you can with your ideas.
 
I went to check the DNR walleye egg taking at Delevan Lake for the Lake Mills hatchery Wednesday with Doug.  Saturday the fish were not ripe. Tuesday they started flowing. They will finish their egg quota this am. The water there is 50 deg.

[Lee Borgersen]

         Lake Geneva Report/Friday April 6th Update:



Hello All,
 
We got 4 nets set out in the lake today and put the finishing touches on the hatchery.  Tomorrow around 9-10 am we will go check the nets and bring any fish back to the hatchery at the Abbey Harbor.  There we will check the fish to see if we have any that have ripe eggs to take.  If we don’t we will measure and release the fish, if we do then the hatchery will be operating.  In either case if you want to come over to the Abbey Harbor (check with the Harbor House attendant for parking) and check out what we are doing you are welcomed to do so.  If we have eggs that are ripe we could use a few people, kids included, to help with that process.  
 
If you have trouble getting to the area where the hatchery is located give me a call.
 
Sorry for the late e-mail notice but I just got back to the house now.
 
Hope to see you there,

[Lee Borgersen]

       Lake Geneva Report/Saturday April 7th Update:



Hello Everyone,
 
We had a good day today with our plans to start filling the hatchery with eggs.  We had 4 ripe females and plenty of males to fill 2 hatchery jars with a total of 600,000 eggs or thereabouts. So the hatchery is up and running.  We will do the same thing at 9-10 am again tomorrow and hopefully fill some more jars. We will keep doing this over the next days to fill the hatchery to capacity.  Again, if anyone wants to see the operation or help come on down to the hatchery at the Abbey.  We had some REAL BIG female Walleyes, it is quite a sight to see them.
 
Thanks to the people who showed up to help, many hands made for light work.

[Lee Borgersen]

            Lake Geneva Report/Saturday April 9th Update:

Hello Everyone,
 
We will be checking nets tomorrow April 10th.  The net crew will start at 7 AM.  If we have fish we will process them as soon as the boat gets into the harbor, probably around 8 AM.  If anyone wants to help or see what’s going on at the hatchery, be at the Harbor Gate at 7:30 AM, I will let you in...After that time I will be too busy to go open the gate, although someone else may do it with my pass if they are available.  We have 5 jars of eggs incubating from the egg take over the weekend.  We need to fill up 6 more jars, hopefully in the next 2 days.  So far so good.
 
Thanks to everyone that came down to help or watch and learn.  It was a great Saturday and Easter Sunday I won’t forget.

[Lee Borgersen]

Lake Geneva Report/Tuesday April 10th Update:

Hi All,
 
The netting crew checked the nets this AM and they only found 4 males in one of the nets.  The combination of high winds blowing vegetation into the nets, dislodging a couple, and the cold front made the nets ineffective or inoperable in a couple of instances.  The crew pulled the nets, cleaned them and reset them securely today.  They are confident they will be ready to catch fish if the fish are active.  So, we will be checking nets tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 7 AM, and stripping fish if we have them.  I’ll be at the hatchery at 7 am doing maintenance and getting ready in case we net some walleyes.

[Lee Borgersen]

         Lake Geneva Report/Wednesday April 11th Update:



Hi Everyone,
 
The net crew checked the 4 nets at 7 am today and they caught 7 fish total, 1 28” female and 6 males.  The female was “ripe”, we took her eggs and fertilized them with 2 males and put them in our 6th jar.  She gave 24 oz. or approx. 96,000 eggs. The males gave quite a bit more milt today.

  We are thinking that as the weather moderates and begins to warm the fish will become more active and we will catch more numbers of fish.  We will keep doing this routine the rest of the week to continue filling up hatchery jars. The net crew will start tomorrow (Thursday) at 9:30 am.  I will be at the hatchery at 7 am to do maintenance and get ready for any fish netted.  I may need to leave to go with the net crew if they are short handed and be back with them probably around 10:30 am.

[Lee Borgersen]

           Lake Geneva Report/Friday April 13th Update:


Hi All,
 
Sorry for the late report, just got the chance now.  Every day at the office is good, today was better than usual.  The netting crew brought in 6 very large females that were ripe to the point they were ovulating, spilling eggs, and the eggs ran loose and fast.  They had 5 males, which is less than we would like to fertilize the eggs but we did the best we could.  2 males per 1 female is ideal to help provide potent milt in case one of the males is sterile or has a low viable sperm count.  We filled 3 jars with 60 oz. of eggs each today, or about 740,000 eggs. Right now very few eggs appear to be un-fertilized, but there are some “white” eggs as with all jars at incubation start.  The next few days will tell.
 
We will do it again tomorrow 7 am to keep filling the jars...we are getting close to finishing our egg taking.  If we have to continue beyond tomorrow, we will probably need to tie open the nets for Sunday, I hear the weather could be rough.

[Lee Borgersen]

        Lake Geneva Report/Saturday April 14th Update:

Hello Everyone,
 
We had a long day today with some progress, but not the final egg take we were anticipating.  The net crew brought in 5 very large females, 28” to 30” in length of which only 2 were ripe.  This time we had 7 males.  We took a combined 92 ounces of eggs from these two fish and filled one and one third jars.  The fertilization rate looks better than all the others have so far. I made the decision, based on the weather information I had this morning, to pull the nets and reset when the weather permits.  Now this evening the weather forecast sounds like we could have run the nets Sunday morning.  John and I cleaned the nets that were very full of vegetation and other fouling and we repaired 2 holes and got them ready for reset.  The net crew had to buy an new prop and hub that was slipping badly on the outboard motor on the way back from the net run, John repaired that and we are ready for the next chance to set nets.

[Lee Borgersen]

     Lake Geneva Report/Monday April 16th Update:

Hi Everyone,
 
Did the maintenance this AM, and everything is looking pretty well.  The first 5 jars have the first indication of walleyes inside the eggs or they are “eyed up” as is said when this occurs.  There are about 900,000 eggs in those 5 jars plus the “hospital jar” has “eyed eggs” in it also.  The other jars are coming along too, I would guess we have a 65% live egg ratio or better in these remaining jars.  I was told that 50% to 60%  is considered normal at most hatcheries.  I am going to consolidate 2 of the jars tonight so we can fish the nets and fill these up with new eggs as soon as the winds allow us to reset. I called Tom Riggs from Fort Atkinson, Wi who is a Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Protection approved Fish Health Inspector.  We had a good conversation and he was happy to be the person to inspect the fry for us when they hatch to make sure they are healthy before release to the lake.  In about 1 week, depending on water temperature, we should see our first fry hatch.
 

PS.
If you would like to see how some of the process is working for us you can check out our photos page here: Please take out a minute of your time to view what's going on. The portable hatchery was built from scratch out of an old camper that was donated.

Check this out folks:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.145810602214640.27987.107070139422020&type=1

Talk To Ya Later,

[Lee Borgersen]

If you would like to see how some of the process is working for us you can check out our photos page here: Please take out a minute of your time to view what's going on. The portable hatchery was built from scratch out of an old camper that was donated.


  Check this out folks. Lots of photos ........

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.145810602214640.27987.107070139422020&type=1


Lake Geneva Report/Friday April 20th Update:

Hi Everyone,
 
The net crew pulled it off again.. they dodged the lightning, worked thru the wind and white cap waves, downpour rain, to remove all the nets, and even managed to bring just what we were hoping for.... 2 females, 1 ripe 30 incher and 1 male.  We took the eggs, fertilized them and finished our egg take for this season. We are all very fortunate to have dedicated people working for us.  It was a long netting session of 2 weeks on and off to get what the hatchery needed, and they were there when we needed them.  Congratulations fellas, on your success.  Now we concentrate on keeping the eggs healthy as they incubate. Everything is looking good at the hatchery so far and soon things will be poppin’.
 
I’ll be in touch,

[Lee Borgersen]

Lake Geneva progress Report/saturday April 21st Update:

Hello Everyone,
 
We have the very beginning of fry hatch in the April 7th and 8th jars. They are hatching 3 days early, but it is just a few, and the cold weather and water temps have made them more dormant.  That is good, so they have more time to mature inside their egg shell.  We are at around 270 Daily Temperature Units since incubation start on these jars.  We are averaging 19 DTU’s per day.  Usual first sign of hatch is at 309 DTU’s. So probably Sunday or Monday we should have a large hatch beginning.  I called the Fish Health Inspector to advise him.  I will update him tomorrow, he needs a larger selection of fry than we have today to inspect. I advised our Fisheries Biologist Doug Welch as well, and will update him tomorrow too.  Mike Arrowood will be coming here on Monday to get ready for OTC marking the hatch, and we will learn from him how to do it.  The fry tanks are in place and catching any fry that does hatch.
 
I want to thank our Public Relations Director, Tom Zinnecker for his work on getting our project some exposure.  He arranged for The Janesville Gazette paper to come out to the hatchery and write a story and take some pictures.  The story is on the front page in todays issue.  If you don’t get that paper, you can see it online with some nice pictures.  Good job Tom, I know you worked hard at this.
 
The 4 nets need to be cleaned of vegetation and hosed down.  I am going to be at the hatchery in the morning and John has a guide trip to go on.  Lynn Ricter is working until Monday.  If any of the local guys would care to do this chore, give me a call.  The nets are at The Pier Store on Linn Pier Rd. in the netting boat, there is a hose there for washing them down.  It will take 2 guys a little over an hour.