How the DNR Studies Walleyes (Fox River, Electrofishing, Tagging)

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:09][music] >> What are we doing?

[00:00:27]Oh my god.

[00:00:32]>> [music] [music] >> Hey, what's up everyone? Welcome back to the channel. Today, I got something special brewing today. I am at Fox Point on the Fox River and we are hooking up with the DNR and we are going to do some electroshocking on the Fox. So, it's going to be fun. I've been wanting to do this for a while and sounds like a lot [music] of pre-spawn fish still. So, hopefully we get some giants in the boat. So, anyways, let's go.

[00:01:07]>> [music] >> There are a lot of walleye there already.

[00:01:17]>> [music] [music] >> We're going to be putting electricity in the water to stun the the fish and pure water itself actually does not conduct electricity. It's the ions in the water, um you know, the debris, things like that that are actually what's conducting the electricity. And so, it's the ions in the fish that actually is what stuns them. So, the boat specifics is our generator. This is what produces the electricity, goes through this cord under the floor, comes out the side here, goes into this box. This is how we control the type and amount of electricity that goes in the water. So, we're going to be using pulsed direct current electricity. From the box, it comes out um another cord here, goes back into the walls of the boat, goes through a cable inside those orange booms, around those rings, and down the droppers that are hanging off of each of those rings. So, that's where it goes into the water. The hull of the boat is what actually completes the electrical field.

[00:02:33]Andy and Logan will start up front. Um they're going to be doing the majority of the dipping. We'll open up the live well.

[00:02:41]You know, they're just going to be scooping up fish with their dip nets, turning them around, and putting them in the live well until we're ready to process the fish.

[00:02:53]All right, you guys are on.

[00:03:06]Yeah, got one. Finally. Yeah.

[00:03:15]Oh.

[00:03:17]>> [music] >> I want the big muskie.

[00:03:20]Oh, well.

[00:03:26]Probably here. What? It's one.

[00:03:29]Oh, okay.

[00:03:31]>> [music] >> Muskie.

[00:03:36]Muskie to go.

[00:03:38]>> [music] >> All right, you expect I got that one?

[00:03:51]Muskie to go. Oh, muskie.

[00:04:03]It is stirring it.

[00:04:06]Stirring the hell out.

[00:04:10]What are we doing?

[00:04:11]Oh my god.

[00:04:22]Yeah.

[00:04:23]Muskie.

[00:04:25]That muskie to got that.

[00:04:33]>> [music] >> What are you doing?

[00:04:37]Beautiful fish.

[00:04:47]>> [music] [music] >> That this been one of the latest spawns in a like that long.

[00:05:02]Since I've been here 2022, um you know, we've had such early [music] winters. We were done tagging on the Fox on March 26th last year.

[00:05:15]>> [music] >> Probably a female.

[00:05:19]Green female. [music] 587.

[00:05:24][music] Green female. 711, which is just over 28.

[00:05:42]Fresh tag on the back now?

[00:05:53]What's the color of it?

[00:05:57]Green female.

[00:05:58]654.

[00:06:02]That thing is bad. It is good.

[00:06:05]This one [music] we're taking a spine off of to age it.

[00:06:10]We take one of those dorsal spines and it grows growth rings like trees.

[00:06:19]Green female.

[00:06:21]682. [music] >> [music] >> Muskie to go.

[00:06:36]>> [music] >> So, we'll take them back to the lab.

[00:06:41][music] We'll embed the base in epoxy and then cut a thin section out of it with a jeweler saw and look at it under a microscope.

[00:06:53]>> [music] >> Nothing.

[00:06:58]Just under the skin.

[00:07:01]>> [music] >> Muskie the length is 576.

[00:07:12]All the fish with that be >> And it's an LV fin clip so the hatchery Hatchery fish.

[00:07:19]All right, that's going to be the 2024 fish.

[00:07:23]So, 2024?

[00:07:24]You good with it?

[00:07:25]>> Yep.

[00:07:27]Oh, yeah, two muskies.

[00:07:30]One more.

[00:07:31]What's the name of the county?

[00:07:38]Another LV clip.

[00:07:42]Length is 625.

[00:07:46]>> [music] >> Length is 205.

[00:07:56]A recapsure from a previous year. You [music] can see all the algae growth on it. Oh.

[00:08:01]That good thing. How much is the length here? 611.

[00:08:07]This is a spawned out female.

[00:08:11]>> [music] >> Tag number is 19174.

[00:08:18]You got a male here.

[00:08:19]>> It's a male.

[00:08:20]462.

[00:08:23]He's ready to go.

[00:08:28]White female. 598.

[00:08:32][music] You got a nice female.

[00:08:35]This is a little bit thinner now. We got rid of her [music] first tag.

[00:08:38]First tag.

[00:08:39]It's another white female.

[00:08:47]Green female. 656.

[00:09:01]I'm Jason Bregman. I'm a fisheries biologist with the Wisconsin DNR. We're out on the Fox River today electrofishing. Um a couple of DNR staff and um we're trying to collect walleyes to tag them um as part of our large Green Bay uh walleye population tagging study. So, the way our electrofishing works is we actually put electricity in the water to uh stun the fish so they're not able to swim away so that we can scoop them up with dip nets and put them in the live well and collect the data that we need for them. So, uh today we are tagging all the walleyes that we captured as part of our large uh project to get a better understanding of angler exploitation or the percentage of the adult population that are harvested by anglers each year out on the Bay of Green Bay and we really use that information to evaluate fishing regulations and whether we need to make changes to those fishing regulations.

[00:09:57]So, um that's the primary purpose for the bait tagging study. So, we encourage anglers to report any tagged walleyes that they capture. Um the tags are located right next to their dorsal fin.

[00:10:09]And there's an email address right on the tags to report those. Cuz that information, like I said, helps us really understand angler uh catch rates, harvest rates, and exploitation, and helps us set our regulations.

[00:10:21]All right, guys. That was a great time out there on the boat with the DNR there.

[00:10:25]I mean, it's just been crazy tough on the river and even just electroshocking, it was a lot slower than expected, you know. But we still pulled up about 80 fish, but it's crazy that's April 10th now and that there's so many pre-spawn fish yet. I mean, I think we only got three fish maybe that were the eggs were coming out and were eggs already post-spawn. So, really late year this year for sure out here, but it was definitely a great experience out there.

[00:10:56]So, thanks to uh Walleye's for Tomorrow, Andy from Walleye's for Tomorrow, and Logan and Jason from the DNR. It was a great opportunity to be out there.

[00:11:06]Overall, great time. If you guys haven't yet, though, try to get out here with the DNR. It's It's really fun time. If you love walleyes like me, you'll love Green Bay. It's just so awesome to see all these giant walleyes getting pulled up. It's one of a kind up here that we got in Green Bay. So, um anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this video. And if you guys haven't hit that like and subscribe button, but anyways, thank you all for watching.

[00:11:29]>> [music] [music] [music]