HUGE WALLEYE - Zachary Hunter Moran, 9, of Tawas City caught this 10-pound, 31-inch-long walleye on April 19 while fishing with his father, Jim, on Tawas Bay. - Courtesy photo

WIC rearing pond is a VHS casualty
by John Morris

TAWAS CITY - For the second straight year the Walleyes for Iosco County (WIC) pond is sitting dormant, a casualty of the Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) effort to battle viral hemorrhagic septicemia.

Viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) is a disease that causes fish to hemorrhage internally and externally.
Jim Baker, the DNR’s fisheries unit manager for southern Lake Huron, said no walleye were raised in Michigan last year because of VHS. Baker said the DNR is rearing walleye this year as a pilot program by using just two state operated ponds in Auburn.

“We don’t want to risk putting VHS in state waterways,” he said. “We know there’s still a risk of VHS, although it’s still low.”

He said VHS has been documented in Lake Huron near Rogers City and inland in Budd Lake in Clare County.

Baker said the WIC pond wasn’t the only one impacted again this year in the area as the Sugar Springs pond near Gladwin and the Alcona pond will sit dormant as well.

“We are only planting a limited number of walleye in inland lakes,” Baker said.

This year, three lakes in Iosco County will received DNR planting of walleye fingerlings. Cedar Lake, which mostly lies in Alcona County, will received 60,000 young walleye, Round/Indian Lake will get 15,000 and Sand Lake is expected to received 12,400, Baker said.

And for the second straight year, Tawas Bay won’t received stocked DNR walleye.

“There is no need,” Baker said. “We’ve been watching the walleye in Tawas Bay.

“The natural reproduction is sustaining that fishery far better than we could have done with stocking.”

Baker said in the last five years, Tawas Bay has had “four of the largest year classes of walleye we’ve ever seen.”

And for the second straight year, Tawas Bay won’t received stocked DNR walleye.

“There is no need,” Baker said. “We’ve been watching the walleye in Tawas Bay.

“The natural reproduction is sustaining that fishery far better than we could have done with stocking.”

Baker said in the last five years, Tawas Bay has had “four of the largest year classes of walleye we’ve ever seen.”

He said those large year classes were in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007.

WIC President Phil Babe said however, the reports he’s getting is that numbers of one- and two-year old walleye in Tawas Bay are smaller.

“When we planted fingerlings, the perch fishermen were catching six- to eight-inch walleye in the winter,” Babe said. “The past two winters, I have not heard of the small walleye being caught.”

Baker said he is hopeful that the WIC pond will be up and operational next year.

Babe said he also is concenred with Tawas Bay’s brown trout fishery that has “pretty much disappeared.”

It’s a concern shared by Baker. “The brown trout fishery has declines lake wide,” he said. “In the absence of alewives, there’s no vast amount of forage fish.”

And the young brown trout are susceptible to predation by walleye, pike, bass and fishing eating birds such as cormorants.

Baker said Tawas Bay is schedule to receive a planting of brown trout this spring.