Okay, we're set, you're good, we're good.
All right, well I guess let's start with,
can you kind of sum up what we were doing,
what was the point, the goal,
and then what were the methods for what we were doing today?
Yeah, so today you came out on the Lake Winnebago
bottom trawl survey, it's a survey
that has been conducted with the same methodology
since 1986.
It really samples pretty much every species
and I guess life stage of species
that exists out there where we're able to trawl
using that gear.
But kind of the main objectives for us,
some of the first questions you get when you go out,
we're really looking at the year-class strength
for walleye as well as a lot of the other game
and panfish species that people target on the system here.
So that's essentially the number of the smaller individuals
that you catch, the more smaller ones,
that were born the previous spring.
So I call them young a year, often abbreviated as Y-O-Y.
Oh, sorry.
The whole thing or just.
Yeah, the whole thing, I'm sorry guys.
Oh, it's fine, I could probably do it better.
Yeah, I do, actually.
So it's called a bottom trawl survey, right?
Yes, yep.
And so you're talking about how long ago did it start?
So the bottom trawl survey, and it's original,
or I guess in its current modern methodology
started in 1986.
The research special that you guys are out there on today
was actually part of a much earlier
rough fish removal program, and that kind of dates back,
I think it ended around the 70s.
But now that vessel is used primarily for,
actually it's really only use that we have for it now
is the Winnebago bottom trawl survey.
And again, it samples pretty much all species
that you find out in the lake.
Some species are gonna be more geared towards
being observed in the trawl.
It's really good at documenting walleye population numbers.
The young of year catch, so the year clash the rank,
basically the more fish that you catch,
the small ones that were born in the previous spring.
It tells you that they had a successful spawn
if they're caught in high numbers.
You can then even then look at recruitment
of those young of year fish comparing
the young of year catch from, say, 2022
to the yearling size catch of 2023.
So you can look at recruitment that way.
It really just gives us a good way to keep tabs
on the multiple fisheries, all the different species,
how they're doing, how the reproduction's going,
what the adult population's like,
what size structure is like,
and gives a lot of insight to anglers as well.
We put out that report, it usually comes out around November,
and I typically get some phone calls
and emails asking for it before it's actually out there.
So this, what we got today is not the only survey,
like you do this multiple times and average them out.
It's not just the one day that you're out there
and what you got that day.
Yeah, so Winnebago is an absolutely massive body of water.
It's the largest inland lake in Wisconsin.
It's about 137 some thousand acres,
so it's kind of hard to wrap your head around
if you're used to just like normal sized inland lakes.
We also have the upper river lakes
that are part of the system as well,
but the survey does only cover Winnebago.
Kind of scattered throughout the lake,
we have 46 waypoints, those are the same 46 waypoints
we have been trawling on, you know,
going back to 1986 to keep it standardized
and comparable across all these years of data that we have.
And then we'll do it the first week in August,
the first week in September, the first week in October,
and then each one of those months,
we do the same 46 waypoints,
so they're essentially done in triplicate
and we take the average of those three months too,
I guess right up the final report.
I don't think a lot of people realize
how much just counting goes into this.
Yeah, yeah, there was,
I mean, today you guys saw it,
we had some extremely high catch rates for trout perch,
which are these kind of small forage fish species,
they're a highly utilized forage species
for a lot of our sawed after game fish,
like walleye and sauger.
And actually yesterday, the day before you guys came out,
we had 16,500 in a single net pool.
I think we were on the table counting
for a good 20, 30 minutes there.
Today, we actually moved over to check weighing on,
as you guys probably observed,
and yeah, if we kept on getting those really high numbers,
that's kind of what you have to do.
But what is so significant about making sure
that this count is comparable to the last 20, 30, 40 years
of counts?
Well, I mean, for the standardization of it,
if you were to switch up your waypoints
or do something different,
this has been done the same way since 1986.
If you change something and then get a different result,
you really can't use it to compare,
that's a really big thing in fisheries management
in general, the standardization of methodology.
And it's all relative, you know, it's trend data
and it's relative to what has happened before.
And so that's important for people to understand,
because fishermen will think,
well, they're hitting over here,
or last year they were hitting over there,
but you can't just go where you think they're hitting
or where the word of mouth at the bar or the paint shop is.
Yeah, and that kind of gets into, I guess,
like the law of averages and why we have 46 different
waypoints scattered all over the lake.
And then not only are we hitting, like, again,
we're doing them in triplicate and taking the average
of those, so, you know, maybe there's an off day
and fish aren't in whatever location for whatever reason.
That's why we do it in triplicate to get that average.
And then if you do it the same way,
again, law of averages, everything comes together
and it's comparable over the long term.
So what did you see today in terms of the number
of walleye per net pool?
Is that average high, low?
Yeah, so currently right now in Lake Winnebago
and the Winnebago system in general,
we do have a above average adult walleye population.
We had a very large year class in 2022.
You guys probably saw today the biggest net poll
of young of year walleye, again,
the young of year indicating the year class strength
or how successful the spawn was.
I think we had, like, 35 in a net poll.
In 2022, we were having net polls well over 100,
you know, basically indicating that they had
a very, very successful spring.
The adult numbers are up.
The average is right around five and most net polls
we were getting, you know, between five and 10.
So we do have a lot of the survey to go.
We were also right on the west side here,
right in the main lake.
That is where we typically see a good amount of walleye.
We can kind of get lower numbers on the north end
and maybe the east side occasionally.
But they can, you know, they move around
and numbers fluctuate and vary.
You could look at, like, the standard deviation
of the data set between waypoints
and it can be somewhat surprising, actually.
But the young of year catch overall, you know, again,
like, people will be calling and asking, like,
hey, how'd the first week of the trawl survey look?
Like, how's the year class?
And it's like, as of now, we're probably sitting
at above average hatch for Winnebago system walleye.
That being said, you know, those numbers could drop off
as we move into the later months.
So I don't really want to make any claims on it now.
But yeah, the adult walleye population
is definitely looking good above average, for sure.
So why didn't we see any larger walleye in the net pole?
It seemed like there were a few 11 of maybe 14.
Yeah, I mean, so the average size of fish on Winnebago,
you know, you're really going to see fish
between, like, 15 and 18 inches.
You do see bigger fish, like, in our spring
electrofishing survey when we're up there during the spawn,
we see fish as big as 28, 29 inches.
They are relatively rare.
It's definitely more of a, I guess you could say,
like, consumption or harvest oriented fishery around here.
It's really what the system is relying on
is a lot of natural reproduction.
And then the anglers most definitely utilize that resource.
And people, I guess, ask a lot about if adult numbers go down,
that's actually not the most concerning thing
that could happen on the Winnebago system.
The most concerning thing would be the lack of production
for a prolonged period of time.
The system is absolutely massive.
We have a really unbelievable amount of spawning habitat
for these fish to utilize.
And as long as environmental conditions line up,
the reproductive history of fish, not just walleye,
but fish in general, it's to spew out a whole lot of eggs
and then how many of them survive.
So as long as that can still occur
and those fish can be replenished,
the young of your catch, I guess,
is what I'm getting at, could be more concerning.
You were talking about the size of this lake
versus other lakes that most people will probably be on
if you don't actively go fish Winnebago.
And it is stunning to see just the drone that we're pulled out
of just the number of fish period.
It's huge.
Yeah, just the biomass of the freshwater drum
that we get in the trawl is very, very impressive.
I think if you look at the end results from the survey,
it's well over 50,000 individuals each year.
And they're not small fish either.
The trawl perch, obviously, they're, you know,
those little kind of forage fish type.
But yeah, the drum, they range from, you know,
nine inches to, we get them up to like 25, 26
on some exceptionally large individuals.
And you also pulled a few sturgeon.
Yeah.
And you scan those.
It looks like one came across the setting.
Yeah, one of them did have a pit tag.
So Lake Winnebago is home to one of,
if not the largest lake sturgeon population in the world.
And if you, you know, want to take it into account
like fish per acre or however, like yeah,
maybe obviously Great Lakes are so much bigger.
So the population might have more individuals,
but for density Lake Winnebago is probably, if not the biggest,
one of the biggest in the world
for Lake sturgeon populations.
And so what's the significance of having volunteers
come out and do this?
Yeah, so volunteers are great.
You know, one, it really helps us get our work done.
You guys saw how many fish we are counting today
and how many, like how much time it takes to do that
if we were to have that much more staff on the boat.
And then two, you guys are out on the boat today
with a lot of walleyes for tomorrow members.
And those guys not only do a lot of their own work
all around the system,
I know I think you guys are covering some
of their portable hatchery work,
but they fund projects for us.
They come to, you know,
Winnebago Fisheries Advisory Committee meeting,
have their input.
And it's just a really, really good way to, I guess,
gauge the wants and concerns of the public
versus, you know, what we're doing as a state agency.
So not only the walleyes for tomorrow guys,
and all the other volunteers that come out,
they are typically with a sportsman's club
or they're just a average angler
who read the trial report and saw at the bottom
they could sign up to volunteer.
So it's a really good way to kind of bridge that disconnect
that often happens between anglers
and the state agencies managing these resources.
They probably get a different perspective
of what it's like out there,
but versus just being in their own boat.
Yeah, I know, and it's like all anglers
are gonna have their own anecdotal fishing experience.
Like, oh, I caught more fish this year
and I caught more fish this year.
And it's like, well, if you come on our boat,
will you really get a better understanding
just because of the sheer amount of fish
that we're handling and the gear that we're allowed to use
to sample the population?
And a couple more detail oriented.
So the net and the drag cover one acre
in each of the waypoints?
Yep, so the net is 27 feet wide when the boards have it
and expand it open.
We tow that behind the boat at four miles per hour
for five minutes.
If you do that calculation there,
someone can fact check me if you want.
It comes out to roughly one acre.
So each trawl will cover one acre.
Each trawl and event, you know,
the 46 waypoints and triplicate will add up to 138.
If you think that Winnebago is 137,000 acres,
like the entire view,
think about the acreage coverage versus the whole system.
It's like 0.01% of the system
that we're actually covering with that bottom trawl
or I guess of the lake, not the system, but.
But that's enough to have accuracy and faith
in the numbers you're putting out?
Yeah, and it's all again, going back to the standardization
and the relativeness.
So it's relative to what we have been doing
and it is a very extensive survey.
I guess it's a very big lake,
but we have 46 different sites scattered all throughout.
We're dragging that nut down there for five minutes,
four miles an hour, we catch a lot of fish,
get a good idea what's going on out there.
Okay, can I get you to say it's probably your name
and give your title and then just give us the names
of the other DRA people in the boat?
Yeah, Angelo Kozola, that's A-N-G-E-L-O-C-O-Z-Z-O-L-A.
I am a senior fisheries biologist
for the Wisconsin DNR based out of Oshkosh
covering game fish management on the Winnebago system.
The other DNR staff on the boat, Jason Coles
was the guy with the orange bib on.
Jason is J-A-S-O-N-K-O-H-L-S.
The gentleman with longer hair was Nate Chymanski.
That's N-A-T-E-S-C-H-M-I-M-A-N-S-K-I.
I wanna spell check that one.
And then the boat captain was Ryan Zernzag,
that's R-Y-A-N-Z-E-R-N-Z-A-C-H.
Great, thank you so much.
We're good with that, Ann.