Fingerlings raised on base are used around state to restock the game fish
 
PUBLISHED: June 15, 2006
 
By Tom Watts
Macomb Daily Staff Writer
 
 
Macomb Daily photo by David Dalton  
Dennis Tar and Todd Somers of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Fish Station in Waterford sort through spring walleye fingerlings at ponds located on Selfridge Air National Guard Base.  
 
Fish hatchery ponds at the Selfridge Air National Guard Base have been home to raising spring walleye fingerlings since 1975 for reintroduction into lakes across southeast Michigan.
On Tuesday this week, the Department of Natural Resources collected an unofficial count of 167,928 walleye fry -- each about 1 1/2-inch long -- from the north and south ponds with a final destination to Belleville Lake near Ypsilanti and Devils Lake south of Jackson.
 
"Our creed is preservation of walleye," said Jerry Fox of Clinton Township, who joined dozens of Lake St. Clair Walleye Association members on Tuesday for the annual event. "We want to make sure the walleye get in our system in southeast Michigan. These walleye are our livelihood"
 
Lake St. Clair Walleye Association members enjoyed a hearty walleye fish fry with all the trimmings (French fries, rolls, Cole slaw) as DNR officials' extracted spring fingerlings from the ponds located next to Lake St. Clair.
 
Bill Furtaw of Michigan United Conservation Clubs District 8 said 99,858 spring fingerlings were retrieved from the south ponds at Selfridge on Tuesday morning and about 68,070 fry were taken from the north pond later in the afternoon.
 
"There are a lot of them this year," Furtaw said. "Looks like a real good hatch. They'll probably total over 200,000 when they put the nets back in the water (Wednesday)."
 
Over 300,000 walleye fingerling eggs were planted into the ponds on April 28.
 
"They say about 30 percent survival is a good average, so to get (167,928) over 66 percent is great news on the first day," said Ralph Boland of the Lake St. Clair Walleye Association. "This is the best we've ever seen."
 
Last year, 131,431 walleye fry were retrieved from the ponds over a 2-day period, said Dennis Tar, a Fisheries Technician for the DNR Fish Station in Waterford.
 
"Some of these spring fingerlings will go to Belleville and the rest we get (Wednesday) will go to Devils Lake," he said. "They will grow to about 5-6 inches by the fall."
 
Tar said there are six fish hatcheries in Michigan: two in the Upper Peninsula, and four in the Lower Peninsula, including Wolf Lake where eggs were taken for the Selfridge ponds in April.
 
"The eggs used at Selfridge were taken from the Titabawassee River and then to Wolf Lake hatchery," he said. "We are now trying to get multiple species of fish at hatcheries instead of just one species like walleye."
 
Tar said he appreciated the "cooperation" between DNR officials and club members, but Boland said "nothing would be possible" without the generous donations of fishing clubs like the Lake St. Clair Advisory Committee and the Lake St. Clair Walleye Association.