Age of a 10 pound walleye?

[BPBOB]

Recently saw a picture of a 10 pounder caught on a Detroit lakes area walleye- stocked lake.How old would you guess the fish to be? The lake has a strong bullhead /sunfish forage base-some perch too. Max depth of the lake 39 feet-about 500 acre lake.

[JohnMickish]

Without the DNRs knowledge on the lake it will be pretty tough to pinpoint the age of the fish. Some lakes with a great forage base (like Leech) walleyes can reach 18" in three years, while in some other lakes it takes three years to reach 13". From what I have read it's not real common for a walleye to live longer than 15 years under perfect conditions.

Soooo, with the info given I would guess the fish was 10 years old, give or take 3 years.

[BPBOB]

Thanks for the input.I looked today - the lake had fingerlings planted in 2001 -the fish was probably from that group.

Bob

[FBMH]

yes i would most likely guess anywhere from 9-13yrs old. It all depends on the lake like he said. But those 10lb eyes are amazing. You also can check by lookin at a fishes mouth, especially a walleye because they will smooth out their teeth just like when you check the age of a deer. If the teeth are very smooth and old from eating things, its a big old fish. Otherwise, those 13in have very sharp teeth!

[pureinsanity]

Without the DNRs knowledge on the lake it will be pretty tough to pinpoint the age of the fish. Some lakes with a great forage base (like Leech) walleyes can reach 18" in three years, while in some other lakes it takes three years to reach 13". From what I have read it's not real common for a walleye to live longer than 15 years under perfect conditions.

Soooo, with the info given I would guess the fish was 10 years old, give or take 3 years.

With that bit of information you can bet the walleyes in the rivers don't live very long. That means those piggies just chow down everyday getting big and fat and long.

[My_Key]

I recently read a pretty extensive book about walleye that included everything from life cycles to catching them. This is pretty much a summary of the life cycle chapter.

In the southern rivers and resevoirs, walleyes grow faster, and reach 10lbs+ pretty quickly, like within 6 years, and they typically don't live past 8 years. The growing season there is much longer than here in the north. By southern, I'm talking Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and such.

The further north you go, the longer it takes for them to reach that weight. A 10lb fish in MN would most likely be 10+ years of age, depending on the forage base of the lake/river. In one lake in the northwest territories of Canada, it takes 8 years for the walleye to reach 15".

mnfishinguy is correct, most walleyes don't live past 15 years before they die naturally. I think the oldest they thought a walleye to be, was 20 yrs old somewhere in Canada.

With that bit of information you can bet the walleyes in the rivers don't live very long. That means those piggies just chow down everyday getting big and fat and long.

Not necessarily, the fish in the river grow at a similar rate to their brethren in the lakes.

If one spring, 1,000,000 eggs were laid, only two of those would typically grow to reach 10lbs. They say it takes the successful spawning of 5 or 6 females one season to produce ONE 10lb fish. Researchers claim that under ideal conditions, only 20% of spawned/fertilized eggs hatch, and only 5% of those that hatch survive the first 3 weeks. They then suffer mortality rates of around 50% until they reach keepable size. Remember that next time you see the DNR released 300,000+ fry in your favorite fishing lake and you can't seem to find them. Plus, these studies don't reflect the extra mortality that comes from being stocked into the weedbeds where adult bluegills, crappies, bass and pike are already established.

[Mike Walerak]

The only way to tell for sure is to age the fish specifically. I would contact the local DNR fisheries speacialists and they can give you some age dynamics for that region or lake. The only known way to age a fish is to count the rings on the scales under a microscope much like you would age a tree. The other way and more accurate method would be to take the odilith bone out of the fish and count the rings inside.

The scale counting method is really tough because it all depends on the season as to how much the fish grows in a particular season. You need a real good understanding of the seasons and a good size sample set to get it right.

mw

[goblueM]

if you ever want to get a general idea of length at age or weight, you should look up Kenneth Carlander's Handbook of Freshwater Fishery Biology on Google Books

he basically spent his life compiling studies done all over the country, so he has comparitive age/growth data for a ton of species. sure, they won't get you the exact age from fish in the lake you might be interested in, but they get you in the ballpark

[TrophyEyes]

How old do you think a 33 1/2" walleye caught up by Flin Flon, Manitoba is? It looked about as old as the lake.

[My_Key]

How old do you think a 33 1/2" walleye caught up by Flin Flon, Manitoba is? It looked about as old as the lake.

Probably just about ready to die of old age.