(Provided by Michigan DNR)

Among the premier species sought by Michigan anglers, walleyes are in high demand. The Michigan DNR stocks many walleyes to create fisheries where reproduction doesn't occur and to supplement naturally reproducing fish. But even when operating at full capacity, the DNR's hatchery system cannot produce a supply that meets demand.

So Fisheries Division has partnered with a number of citizen groups across the state to form walleye-rearing cooperatives to increase production. The cooperatives help maintain the ponds, fertilize them, and often help in fingerling harvest. Statewide, the DNR has partners helping run 30 walleye-rearing ponds.

"In Mason County, we basically give the Mason County Walleye Association the fry and they do all the work," said fisheries biologist Mark Tonello in Cadillac. "They raise 250,000 to 300,000 fingerlings pretty consistently every year."

"They've got a good pond and they know what they're doing," Tonello continued. "I can't tell you how valuable that is - those fish are stocked all over the northwestern Lower Peninsula. Without them, we just wouldn't have the walleye fisheries that we do."

Unit supervisor Dave Borgeson in the DNR's Gaylord Operations Service Center praises the efforts of two groups in the northern Lower Peninsula - the Thunder Bay Walleye Club and the Pickerel/Crooked Lake Association - for their efforts.

"We really rely on these groups to help us out," he said.

The Thunder Bay group operates the six acre James Farm pond, which produces about 200,000 spring fingerlings annually.

"We've always had a cooperative working relationship but it's really ramped up the last few years," Borgeson said. "We'll stock East and West Twin Lake by Lewiston, or allow the fingerlings to move on their own downstream into Lake Winyah, an impoundment on the Thunder Bay River. This impoundment generally gets a good stocking just about every year and it couldn't be any easier."

The Pickerel Creek Pond, about four acres, produces around 100,000 spring fingerlings. Following years when the natural reproduction in the Inland Waterway system seems to have been good - as documented by fall surveys - the fish are used to stock other lakes in the area or even in other management units, according to Borgeson.

The Drummond Island Sportsmen's Club is an even more complex cooperative, Borgeson explained. The Inter-Tribal Fisheries and Assessment Program provides the fry, the DNR provides the fertilizer, and club members provide the work to produce the fish, which usually wind up in Lake Huron's Potagannassing Bay.

In southwestern Michigan, unit supervisor Jay Wesley says the Gun Lake Protective Association works on three small ponds to produce fish for Gun Lake while the West Michigan Walleye Club provides support for two Belmont ponds in Belmont, near Grand Rapids, as well as ponds in Muskegon.

The Gun Lake group produces about 50,000 fingerlings annually from three acres while the West Michigan crew produces more than 650,000 fingerlings from 24 acres of ponds.

Jessica Mistak, the unit supervisor in Escanaba, works with five partners on six ponds across the Upper Peninsula. The cooperatives range from long-term to nearly brand new.

The Indian Lake Property Owners Association has averaged 7,900 fingerlings in its two years of existence. The Copper Country Walleye Association has averaged more than 230,000 fingerlings every year it's operated since 1997. Bay de Noc Great Lake Sport Fishermen, which has run two ponds some years, produced 135,000 fingerlings last year in one. And Wildlife Unlimited of Delta County averaged 87,000 a year every year since 1997, except in 2007 - when no walleyes were reared because of concerns over viral hemorrhagic septicemia.

"Without the help of our partners, our ability to stock walleyes would be significantly diminished," Mistak said.

Statewide, cooperatives produce more than four million walleyes a year for stocking in Michigan waterways, a relationship that works well for the both the DNR and the anglers of Michigan.