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PRATT -- Predator fish populations in 17 Kansas reservoirs received a significant boost in recent weeks with the stocking of 1.96 million fingerling-sized walleye, sauger, saugeye, striped bass, and wipers.
Sixty-one community and state fishing lakes were stocked with an additional 442,900 fingerling-sized predators which also included smallmouth and largemouth bass.
In addition, almost one-quarter million walleye, largemouth bass, and wiper fingerlings were re-stocked into hatchery raceways where, upon being trained to eat pelleted feed, will be grown out to a size of six to eight inches in length.
In the fall, these fish will be stocked into the state’s public fishing waters. Fingerling-sized predators are raised in KDWP hatchery ponds where they feed on intensively-managed plankton populations for a period of about 30 days.
This “jump start” produces a predator fish that is largeenough to begin feeding on native prey species when stocked into our lakes and reservoirs. Kansas reservoirs typically contain an abundance of native prey species, especially gizzard shad, which will provide the bulk of the diet for these fish during the remainder of their lives.
With this abundance of prey, most of these fish will reach a harvestablesize during their third or fourth year of life.
Kansas hatcheries reached a milestone in predator fish production this spring, when they topped the 2.75 million mark.
This level of production exceeded the 1999 production demand of 2.48 million fingerling-sized fish.
Uploaded: 7/29/1999
Uploaded: 7/29/1999