Tagged Walleye Released in Good Hope Bay

[wayne gustaveson]

This week we traveled to Good Hope Bay to study migrational movement of walleye in the northern lake. It is possible that walleye may migrate from Lake Powell up the Colorado River and then move back and forth between the river and lake. Our goal was to tag as many walleye as possible with sonic tags. This 3-inch long transmitter is surgical implanted in the fishes abdomen where it may be able to transmit individual fish movement information for as much as two years.

Hydrophones have been placed in the lake and river to record fish movement and identify individual fish by number based on the code number of a tiny PIT tag inserted in the each walleye that was captured and tagged. These hydrophones record fish movement data by tag number of each fish passes by. The hydrophone data is checked and recorded by our scientists on a regular basis.

Anglers in the Good Hope are may come in contact with one of these brave tagged walleye carrying a lot of metal in the stomach. Please do not harvest one of these fish. Each fish can be identified with a visible plastic Floy tag. The tag states "Do Not kill" and "Research Fish". Release these brave warriors to swim again and give us valuable information on fish movement in the inflow area of Lake Powell.