Doug Leier: Fisheries crews overcome challenges during late-arriving spring

WEST FARGO – I’ll apologize in advance as I’d rather not dig up bad memories, but this past winter started too early and stayed too long. But sometimes, as a friend reminded me, “we can turn the page, but don’t forget what we’ve read.”

The winter/spring of 2023 and its lasting impact on deer, pheasants, livestock, landowners and citizens has been noted. Also on record is how similar to a flood, the recovery spans over time and in some instances measures in years.

Take the impact of winterkill. While hundreds of lakes survived, if your favorite fishing hole experienced a significant or complete die-off, stocking is key to jump-starting the repopulation process.

While the extended winter caused wildlife mortality deep into spring, it also narrowed the window for the spawn, which is triggered by a combination of longer daylight and species-specific water temperatures beginning the process. It wasn’t just the fish that faced a unique set of circumstances, it was also the spawning crews.

The slow arrival of spring, with more snow and cold before warmer temperatures arrived, posed a challenge to North Dakota Game and Fish Department fisheries crews, who began the 2023 spawning work April 21 at Cattail Bay on Lake Oahe. Even so, it wasn’t the latest start on record, which was April 26, 2018.

“We got a late start to our spring after the pretty terrible winter,” said Paul Bailey, department south central fisheries supervisor in Bismarck.

Typically, crews like to be done earlier rather than later. Think of it in terms of planting new grass or hatching out the next crop of pheasants. The earlier start helps with growth and can bring better survival through summer and into the next winter.

On what certainly wouldn’t qualify as a spring day to brag about – strong winds, incessant snow and cold temperatures – fisheries biologists still collected 2.28 million pike eggs, or more than half of this year’s egg goal. Fisheries biologists went into the short-lived spawning season with a goal of collecting 75 quarts of eggs, which translates to about 4.5 million eggs.

“Typically, we can collect northern pike eggs from a variety of sources from a number of good pike populations across the state,” Bailey said. “This year, we’re left with really one source, given the conditions.”

In the end, crews collected 119 quarts, far surpassing their goal.

Fisheries crews use trap nets to collect pike swimming along the shorelines looking for suitable spawning areas. Once in the nets, male pike are sorted out from the female pike.

It’s important work for the future of fishing and the recovery of winter killed fisheries and in cases where there is natural reproduction, helping fill in gap years where some classes of fish weren’t as successful.

As summer moves in the direction of fall, the memories of the never-ending winter will slowly fade, but the impacts to fisheries will be felt for some time. Thanks to some excellent work by your Game and Fish fisheries crews, the recovery is a little faster, and hopefully the next winter doesn’t start as soon and ends earlier.

We’ll find out in due time. Until then, go fish.

Doug Leier is an outreach biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. Reach him at dleier@nd.gov.