The main reason was poor "egg up". Which means that a lot of the eggs in the jars didn't hatch. One reason behind it is the fact that some of the folks helping out at the hatchery, mixing eggs and sperm, were not seasoned. So they were not mixed well and therefore didn't hatch. The DEC does not assemble the same group of folks every year to assist and some of them are not entirely farmiliar with the process.Not sure about a lack of food, I had not heard that. They are fed brine shrimp in the hatchery. Zooplankton is what they would eat in the lake. It is what minnows and baby fish eat in the lake.
... \Oneida lake try-hards
this has not been released to the public yet---until now---the constantia hatchery has lost over half of the walleyes so far---stocking quotas will not be met
just curious........why would gobies raise the population of perch and walleye? dont they eat eggs?
They are easy prey for walleye, perch, bass, pickerel, etc.... I believe that's what Reeleyez is sayin
Exactly. So prey fish will eat more gobies and less walleye and perch fry. Plus less fish are being harvested so the population will increase.Goby attack spawn beds but walleye and perch don't make spawn beds.
FFP - my comments about the egg loss are paraphrased from what the hatchery manager reported at the OLA meeting. Basically he had some newbies that didn't mix them quite well enough and some got clumpy. This issue is being addressed.I beleive he said that they had 60-65% hatch this year and a normal year is around 90%. That doesn't nessarily mean that Oneida did not get its normal number of fry though...I can't remember if they were raising fingerlings this year, but like you said FFP, those are the only fish that are fed.