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Walworth County group starts walleye hatchery

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Lake Geneva walleye hatchery

For the last two weeks, the fledgling chapter of the nonprofit Walleyes for Tomorrow has been collecting spawning walleyes from Geneva Lake to harvest their eggs and hand mix them with milt (for the uninitiated, that’s fish sperm).

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FONTANA — Walworth County Walleyes For Tomorrow volunteer Eric Parmelee called it “Lake Geneva gold.”

Parmelee was talking about the gusher of tan-colored glop pouring out of a 25-inch female walleye as his group’s president, Brian Simon, massaged the fish’s belly Wednesday morning at the Abbey Marina.

It was fish eggs—thousands and thousands of them.

For the last two weeks, the fledgling chapter of the nonprofit Walleyes for Tomorrow has been collecting spawning walleyes from Geneva Lake to harvest their eggs and hand mix them with milt (for the uninitiated, that’s fish sperm).

The group’s master plan: to turn at least 2 million walleyes eggs into fry that it will use to restock Geneva Lake’s waning walleye population, mostly to bolster sport fishing.

Volunteers from the group have set up a mobile hatchery at the Abbey Marina, and about a dozen volunteers have been staffing it around the clock to shepherd their fish mission.

For the fish and the walleye club, it’s been a challenging labor of love.

“Mother Nature has really made this process spotty,” Simon said as he wiped fish slime from his beard with the back of a rubber-gloved hand.

Wild temperature swings have heated and cooled Geneva Lake waters the last several days, throwing off the walleye breeding cycle and alternately luring and chasing fish from nets the group has set in shallow spawning areas along the lake’s shores.

High winds, which are notorious for whipping up wave action on the lake, have at times wreaked havoc on the group’s fishing efforts, emptying the nets of fish and clogging them instead with lake weeds.

Somehow, the group has managed to collect nearly 3 million eggs in the last two weeks. But in many cases, it’s been one fish at a time. Wednesday, their haul totaled four mature female fish and about 16 males.

If that sounds sparse, it’s because there aren’t many walleyes in Geneva Lake. Recent DNR counts suggest there could be as few as 4,000 walleyes in the entire 5,300-acre lake, Simon said.

John Trossen, a fishing guide and member of Walleyes For Tomorrow, said walleyes are not native to Geneva Lake, but thanks to heavy stocking in the 1960s and 1970s, walleyes once abounded there.

Group member Tom Zinnecker said he remembered fishing at the Abbey Marina in the late ’60s. Then, huge walleyes used to stack up like cordwood near docks at the marina.

“If you couldn’t catch one in two minutes, people said that there was something wrong with you,” Zinnecker said.

Walleye numbers at the lake have fallen off precipitously since those days, but Trossen said no one really knows why.

Trossen said some fish biologists believe shrinking walleye numbers could be tied to predator fish eating fry, while others blame a yearly brown algae bloom at the lake.

He said the algae settles and grows on walleye eggs, clogging them. Some fry inside aren’t strong enough to break through the grime, and those fish die.

“They don’t stand a fighting chance,” Trossen said.

Trossen said the group hopes to bolster walleye numbers to support a sport fishery with a specific life cycle for the species: from hatchery to fisherman to the dinner table.

“We all want the same thing, here,” he said. “Lots of nice walleyes to catch and eat.”

Group members were ribbing Parmelee because his son Orson was just born Tuesday, and on Wednesday he was at the marina delivering fish babies.

“After the baby was born, I called out here right away to check on my other babies,” he said.

Parmelee, who is a science teacher at Traver School in Lake Geneva, was using a sponge paintbrush Wednesday to stir plastic bowls of eggs and fish sperm with a mix of water and clay designed to activate fertilization and keep the eggs from sticking together.

The mix looked like dirty cheese grits.

Parmelee is one of a few volunteers who staffs the group’s mobile hatchery trailer at the marina.

Inside, an aquaculture system incubates and cleans the fertilized eggs in canisters filled with a solution of water and hydrogen peroxide.

Later, when the fry hatch, they’ll be forced into a PVC chute and funneled into 300-gallon plastic tanks. From there, the group will mark and release the fish into the lake. Some fry could be hatching within the next week, Simon said.

The project required permits from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is monitoring the project.

The DNR plans to count the fish later this year. That’s when Walleyes For Tomorrow can get an early indicator of the fruits of its labor.

Zinnecker says the group hopes to stock walleyes in a different Walworth County lake every year.

As for Geneva Lake, the group estimates that in three to five years, male walleyes from this year’s hatchery project will be full grown and ready for the fishing line—or the deep fryer.