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Age and growth of the walleye in Lake Erie, 1963-1968

David R. Wolfert
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Abstract

Age and length distributions are given for 6,764 walleyes, Stizostedion v. vitreum (Mitchill), sampled during 1963-1968 from commercial landings of walleyes representing discrete populations in the eastern and western basins of Lake Erie. In the eastern basin, where all catches were made with gill nets, age-groups III and IV predominated in samples from large-mesh nets and age-group I in samples from small-mesh nets. In the western basin, where nearly all walleyes were taken in trap nets, age-groups I and II predominated in 1963-1965, and II and III in 1966-1968 (after the legal commercial size limit was raised from 330 to 394 mm). Study of 5,082 walleyes from the two basins showed that at any given age during the first 3 years of life, females were longer than males and, on the average, fish from the western basin were longer than those from the eastern basin. The greatest difference in growth of fish of the same sex for the two basins was apparent at the end of the first year of life, when fish from the eastern basin were only about half as heavy as those from the western basin. After the second year, relative growth in weight of fish in the eastern basin improved: the weight of females exceeded that of females in the western basin by the end of the fourth growing season and the weights of males in the two basins were about equal by the end of the sixth growing season.

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David R. Wolfert. 1977. Age and growth of the walleye in Lake Erie, 1963-1968. https://doi.org/10.1577/1548-8659(1977)106%3C569%3Aaagotw%3E2.0.co%3B2

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