Assessment of Stocking Success of Walleye in the Eleven Point River, Arkansas

Abstract

Few studies have evaluated stocking programs for walleye Sander vitreus in the southern United States; this may be the first such study for a southern river. The Eleven Point River, located in southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas, has been supplementally stocked by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) and the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) for many years. Our goals were (1) to assess the contribution of walleye fingerlings in the Arkansas section (∼60 km) of the Eleven Point River using the recapture rates of marked walleyes and (2) to assess the reproductive contribution of stocked walleyes using genetic tracking of mitochondrial DNA markers. All of the walleyes stocked by the AGFC during 1999–2002 were freeze-branded; these fish possess the A haplotype, which is the most common one rangewide. Wild fish and those stocked by the MDC in the Missouri portion of the Eleven Point River possess the native C haplotype of the Black River system, which includes the Eleven Point River. Electrofishing samples revealed that the stocked fish captured in Arkansas from 2002 to 2004 were almost evenly divided by cohort; 52% possessed the A marker and 43% the C marker. Forty-three percent of the walleyes older than age 3 (and therefore present in the river before the release of the freeze-branded fish) had the A marker. Walleyes originating from the AGFC-source fish had significantly greater relative weights than did native-spawned walleyes and fish released in Missouri. In addition, haplotype-A walleyes had significantly greater relative weights than haplotype-C walleyes. The high relative weights of the sampled fish throughout the study suggests a lack of intraspecific competition as a result of stocking.