Walleye and saugeye successfully stocked across Indiana waterways

This year, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources has stocked Indiana waterways with walleye and saugeye – fish that are known for being excellent table fare and for the skill it takes to catch them.

Because there is no natural reproduction of walleye and saugeye in most of Indiana, the DNR runs a program to spawn and stock these fish every spring across multiple waterways for anglers to catch.

Spawning operations in late March to early April, which are organized at Brookville Lake, resulted in 35.7 million fertilized walleye eggs. The eggs yielded 24.3 million walleye fry (seven to ten day old fish, less than one inch long), 281,468 walleye fingerlings (average 1.4 inches), and 81,181 saugeye fingerlings (average 1.6 inches). Walleye fry were stocked at the end of April, and walleye and saugeye fingerlings were stocked in late May and early June. Additional walleye fingerlings are being held in state hatcheries to grow for fall stockings.

Stocked bodies of water, with their county in parentheses, include:

Walleye fry: Bass Lake (Starke), Brookville Lake (Franklin, Union), Mississinewa Lake (Wabash), Monroe Lake (Brown and Monroe), Patoka Lake (Orange, Dubois, and Crawford), and Shafer Lake (White).

Walleye fingerlings: Cagles Mill Lake (Owen and Putnam), Lake of the Woods (Marshall), Pike Lake (Kosciusko), Prairie Creek Reservoir (Delaware), Shafer Lake (White), Summit Lake (Henry), and Tippecanoe River/oakdale Dam (Carroll).

Saugeye fingerlings: Glenn Flint Lake (Putnam), Huntingburg Lake (Dubois), Koteewi Park Lake (Hamilton), and Sullivan Lake (Sullivan).

The statewide bag limit for walleye, sauger, and saugeye is six fish per day, in combination. For walleye, the minimum size limit is 14 inches for waters south of State Road 26 and 16 inches for waters north of S.R. 26. Exceptions to the walleye size limit are Bass Lake (Starke) and Wolf Lake (Lake), where the minimum is 14 inches; Lake George (Steuben), where the minimum is 15 inches; and Wall Lake (Lagrange), where the minimum is 16 inches with a two-fish daily bag limit.

There is no size limit on sauger or saugeye except on Huntingburg Lake (Dubois), Glenn Flint Lake (Putnam), Sullivan Lake (Sullivan), and on the Ohio River, where the minimum size limit is 14 inches. Typically, walleye and saugeye grow to 14 inches after two years and 16 inches after three years.

Learn more about fishing for walleye and saugeye at wildlife.in.gov/fishing/walleye-fishing.

Learn more about fish stocking in Indiana at bit.ly/Infishstocking

To view all DNR news releases, please see dnr. In.gov.