Fresh News from MarDon
Clyde Foster and Levi Meseberg are working on improving with the assembly of habitat boxes to be placed on the floor of Potholes Reservoir. With these sanctuaries our small fish will be safe from predators. This year will be huge for habitat boxes. This grassroots effort will only be as good as your help. Call to help at 509-346-2651.
Something very exciting is happening on Potholes Reservoir right now: walleye.
Many people are already scratching out some early walleye limits. Your walleye limit on Potholes Reservoir is eight fish; they must be 12 inches in length to keep. Only one of your walleye limit may be 22 inches or longer. The walleye taken as the ice goes off the reservoir are the finest of the year.
At this time the giant walleye hens are preparing to run up the many wasteways to begin the spawning season. Now is when you go out in your boat and fish 55 feet of water. The conditions you look for is underwater hump or some subtle change. In the next period of time you will find on the breaks amazing walleye. On your graph walleye males look like an underwater “Christmas Tree”. These males are mostly under 20 inches and are foraging to gain weight to begin the spawn cycle. The females are gone to spawn by 45-degree water temperatures. The males move up into the creek to spawn. Also the walleye spawn all along the face of O’Sullivan Dam at 45 degrees. The October fall index netting study (FWIN) provided good walleye population for 2015. Now we begin to see how this year’s walleye spawn will be.
The one element that must remain to keep our walleye from falling off is a constant supply of baitfish, perch, crappie, and bluegill. Without baitfish our walleye will only decline. How do we provide the baitfish? Go to www.cwfac.org and see what has been happening on Potholes Reservoir. Since June of 1995,we have been placing habitat boxes on the floor of Potholes Reservoir.
In the complex world in which we live today, if you don’t enhance habitat there will be no future fishing. Get involved to promote future fishing for many years to come to simply allow a place for your kids to fish ... and watch them grow.