Mortality of Walleyes Angled from the Deep Waters of Rainy Lake, Minnesota

Abstract

Existing models of hooking mortality for walleyes Sander vitreus in large polymictic lakes are inadequate for estimating the number of catch-and-release mortalities in deeper, stratified lakes where fish are predominantly caught from depths greater than 10 m. To improve the understanding of how water depth affects catch-and-release mortality, logistic regression was used to investigate how depth of capture, fish length, and epilimnetic water temperature affect hooking mortality rates. In 2006 and 2007, 319 walleyes were caught by anglers at 5.8–17.1-m depths during a total of 10 angling events (July–September) on Rainy Lake, Minnesota. Fish were released into holding cages that allowed them the opportunity to reestablish themselves at their depths of capture; survival was recorded after 5 d (2 d for one cage). After accounting for the effects of experimental handling time (i.e., the time between hook removal and fish placement in the holding cage), capture depth had the largest effect on mortality; increases in either factor were associated with higher mortality rates. A mixed-effects model showed that pseudoreplication (i.e., correlations in survival rates among fish held in the same cage) did not detrimentally affect model parameter estimates or significance tests. In contrast to previous studies of hooking mortality in Minnesota, neither water temperature nor fish length best explained the mortality rates. By providing improvements over previous models, the logistic hooking mortality model developed in this study will allow managers to more effectively estimate hooking mortality rates in Rainy Lake and other deep lakes.

Received February 11, 2011; accepted May 13, 2011

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would especially like to thank Tim Goeman, Kevin Peterson, Keith Reeves, Doug Schultz, and Jack Wingate for providing guidance during the design and initiation of this research. We thank Steve Windels and Voyageurs National Park for the use of the cage-retrieving vessel. We are grateful to all those who assisted with the fishing efforts. Keith Reeves, Melissa Drake, Charles Anderson, Tom Heinrich, Don Pereira, and three anonymous reviewers provided reviews that improved this manuscript.