Management

Many management experts agree that each lake should be managed to produce the species for which it was suited naturally. It is expensive and sometimes unrewarding to try to manage a walleye lake for lake trout or bass or vice versa. Yet there have been efforts to introduce species to lakes which were never meant to support it. Sometimes these efforts were harmless, but other times they were detrimental to the native stocks.

Walleyes are good survivors and breeders wherever they are distributed naturally. It doesn't seem necessary to introduce them into lakes where they were never found before just to provide a sport fishery. Too often, more fragile species like the lake trout suffer because the walleye will often compete and win in forage efficiency.

In some areas size limits have been introduced because of the slow rate of growth of walleyes. Too much angling pressure exerted on young walleye will prevent them from reaching catchable size. Some areas, however, have removed size limits because of the mortality rate of undersized walleye which are mutilated when anglers release them from the hook.