Joe, you like, I guess I don't know if you want me to like tell you in advance what I'm going to do or
and then take a picture.
So I'll just kind of follow me back on that and then I might just have you, when we get the phone up to the
lines, I might just try and then frame the get a shot up through that your phone.
Okay, thank you, thank you so much for being here in this building, I'm so glad to see you.
Um, cool, so like, well, do you want me to like talk while I'm doing it?
You know, narrate what you're doing as you're doing it and what you're looking for if you can.
Okay, um, yeah, so these are walleye eggs we collected this morning when we were fight netting.
Um, and I'm just taking them out of the vial and putting them on the scope so that I can photograph them.
And you're too small, so like, I'm just throwing them out a little bit.
And I, I can like make this process shorter.
Normally it takes like each sample takes a little bit to like sprout them out good.
So I can just take a picture if that's easier.
No, whatever you, whatever you usually do, that's, that's fine with me.
I got nothing but time.
Okay.
Um.
So what's the process for someone to go for it?
Super simple.
So basically like anybody that would like to fish here, you know, they have to pop into the station here.
I think it's literally just this right here.
And so we just do them a little pencil.
Uh, we did, you know, their address and a couple of things.
A little bit of demographic data.
And then that's really it.
At that point.
And then you can just line it up through the scope.
I'm actually going to get found on a fine plate.
Like, don't report out when they get done.
You know, we've got a letter.
We try to call them, send them that stuff.
Um, so then after they go out fishing, um, we would mark down, you know, the date and stuff like that.
What time they started fishing.
Um, they didn't have the analogy here.
And then later I just put these photos into image processing software.
And what we're doing is looking at the diameter of the eggs and the yolk basically to look at how walleye eggs.
You know, how like different, let me think of the right thing to say.
Basically like, how do walleye eggs influence recruitment?
How are walleye eggs part of the, how does that like set up?
I mean, I'm sorry.
I'm thinking basically like while I recruitment is declining.
And one of the things that kind of came out was maybe that that maternal effects could be important.
So well, how, how might the female walleye influence recruitment?
Well, maybe it's something to do with the eggs.
So, and there's studies that have shown that if eggs are bigger, that the larvae will be bigger.
So maybe they'll have some sort of advantage.
And then how, you know, that yolk and that nutritional investment in the egg could influence that as well.
So like, and we looked at all these different.
So we did a study recently that was published and we looked at female size, female age.
We looked at environmental factors, like variability, looked at like different kind of population level factors,
like yellow perch and just looked at, you know, how was egg size being influenced by all these things.
And it did seem like the main focus seemed to be that environmental variability can influence eggs.
So if in years where forage isn't as abundant, it seems like maybe the eggs are less provisioned.
They're not as nutritionally dense.
And it seemed like some of these factors, the most important factor ultimately seemed to be like maybe a genetic factor.
So maybe some walleye are just generally better at producing eggs and have generally better,
and which might influence their recruitment.
Yeah, so that's why we're keeping the study going, even though we already published on it,
because we're trying to build up that long-term data set.
So in that paper, because all of our female walleye are tagged in the spring,
and so we catch the same fish year after year after year.
So every, in multiple years, you could get egg samples from the same fish,
so you can look at how different factors have influenced those eggs,
and then we can look at recruitment later.
So we're kind of looking at that long-term kind of egg quality and maybe recruitment potential.
How's the egg quality looking so far?
Well, I haven't measured them yet, so I have to like take the photo and put it into the software,
and then I do little measurements on 10 of the eggs,
and then we can kind of look and see if per female, okay, how big were her eggs on average,
how big were the yolks on average, how variable were they,
and then we can kind of like, we can relate those back to, well, this year,
what was the ice like this year, what was the ice like last year, what was the perch like last year,
how are these things influencing eggs and potentially recruitment?
Potentially.
Yeah, so that's what I'm doing.
All right.
Yeah, I don't know.
For about two years, you know, there are a few people in there that have seen 120 perch,
you know, in and outing.
There's still people, see them up.
I actually haven't demonstrated to probably pick all the snacks,
and then I'll be there after, and so,
I'm going to move up to Samford.
Yep.
And like I said, everything should be there, both should be ready to go and guess stuff,
and the hooks, you know, to tie off the boat is in the deep seat of the truck there.
Okay.
So, should we all have been going to go home for you in that quarter?
Sounds good.
Yeah, so I'm not going to get your leg.
It doesn't take long.
It's when something like that happens, and people are harvesting at that level.
But it's going to be even...
Well, the first thing I need this, you know, I've gone for a while.
But it's one of the purposes of why I originally regulations were set up,
so when I did open up the fishing, I think, you know, the natural mindset would be like,
one, they're going to be absolutely loaded with fishing,
and they're all going to be huge.
It works the opposite way with fish.
And so you have too many miles to feed, and so they were all almost done.
Small with something.
And so the no-close season, no bag of them, no size of them was originally put on
to basically how much harvest does it take to kind of put that reflection on balance.
Like Mack was talking about, he loves the fish some mama on that mallet.
And his little dog, his little white dog, is dyed now, and he had those hard issues.
But he'd be in here every two days, you know, older gentlemen dragging his canoeing in there
and all his glory was a little dog.
So you get a lot of that stuff, which is kind of cool.
Yeah.
You get to know people.
Wernher.
Wernher.
Yeah, we get dirty old men in here.
Big gals and stuff.
You can imagine.
Wernher.
Here's another one he and his brother's brother's passing them up to,
but they need to exclusively push it out.
Yeah.
So, I mean, this is the main building that was remodeled in 2008.
It's all solar and generator-owned.
We're completely not figuring it out.
So, the big muskies, I guess.
You know, all kinds of different species of animal work.
Yeah.
So, five history.
Definitely.
Yeah, most pretty much it.
No, I guess.
Oh, I have a section on YouTube.
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