A little history ...

Milking Walleyes

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources worked in the Gunflint Trail area to improve fishing. Occasionally they milked the walleyes in the spring and raised the young fish in DNR hatcheries before releasing them back into our lakes. Gunflint Lake was one spot they milked walleyes.

DNR set up operations on the upside of the Cross River Bridge by Moosehorn Bed and Breakfast. While the ice was solid, they drove posts through the ice and into the bottom of the river. Immediately after the ice went out on the river, these poles were used to create a series of net holding pens in the water with crosswalks above the water. One pen captured all the fish going upstream. The fish in that pen were divided into male and female pens by men sitting on the crosswalks with their legs in the frigid water. Rough fish such as suckers were also sorted out and removed from the lake.

The females were checked daily to find ones ready to spawn. Ready ones were “milked” by squirting the eggs into a fine sieve. The largest females could release almost two quarts of eggs. A little dirt was added to keep the eggs from sticking together. The milked fish was released on the upstream side of the nets to continue spawning naturally. Next a male walleye was taken from its pen. Sperm from the male was squirted over the eggs and the fish was released upstream. The eggs were gently swirled to evenly mix the sperm and eggs. The fertilized eggs were taken to the French River Hatchery on the North Shore. There the eggs hatched and the fry were raised all summer. In the fall, the young fry were released into Gunflint Lake and other lakes along the Gunflint Trail.

In a good year, Gunflint Lake got more young walleyes than it would have received from the natural spawning process. Also there were fish left over to put into other lakes. Finally, a substantial number of rough fish were removed from the lake. The problem was that this was an expensive operation to conduct. Also if the timing of the ice out was off or the spawning period lasted longer than funds, a major portion of the spawn could be missed. The first couple of years worked well, but there were a couple years when it didn’t go so well and the DNR abandoned the program. While the milking was in operation, locals found the program to be fascinating to watch.