Reid Lake is well known for their annual walleye fishing tournament, and some new insight on the fish is coming thanks to a biologist from the University of Regina.
The Shaunavon Wildlife Federation’s Catch and Release Walleye Tournament was the perfect chance to gain some new insights on the habits and habitat of Reid Lake’s fish population. The University of Regina sent a team to tag the walleye as they were being measured.
Christopher Somers, a professor of biology at the University of Regina led his team in tagging 140 walleye over the two-day tournament.
"It's part of a much larger program that I do called a marked recapture program for fish in Saskatchewan,” explained Somers. “We're interested in when a fish is brought in and it's been through the angling process, what are some of the factors that affect the success of getting fish back into the population and making sure they're okay. We can learn about important areas and habitats based on where the fish is recaptured, and we can also learn about growth.”
Somers has been conducting these studies for the past seven years at tournaments across the province. This was his team’s first time tagging in Reid Lake, and he believed that the population was very healthy.
“We have tagged around 20,000 fish in Saskatchewan since 2017, and we have got about 2600 recapture reports, which is more than a 10% return rate on the on the tagged fish,” Somers stated. “This is phenomenal in terms of what we know about studies that take place around the world of a similar nature. The anglers here are really doing a good job of reporting and we are getting a lot of information from the program.”
Somer’s study is entirely based on response from anglers, which means that the fishers’ interest and curiosity allow them to play a direct role in observing biological changes in the fish.
“The part that is probably the most satisfying for me is that communication with anglers and the sharing of information,” said Somers. “The idea is that anglers catch that same fish down the road, and they can e-mail me and send me in the code information, and they can tell me where they caught the fish. They can measure it and I can share the information that we have.”