Walleye restoration and conservation in the Lake Champlain Basin 

Advanced Fry 

In the beginning of the Walleye Program all Walleye that were stocked by the State of Vermont and the Lake Champlain Walleye Association were 5 to 8 days old or Fry stage Walleye. To raise fingerling size Walleye these fry were placed in ponds to grow. Due to several conditions success was spotty at best. Chris, John and Dave at the Vermont Fish and Wildlife’s Bald Hill Hatchery began to experiment with the Walleye Fry growing them out to ten days or more. These experiments turned into what is now a very successful Advanced Fry program in the Lake Champlain Basin. They developed a system to grow these fish and it worked great. He had little help due to tight budgets but managed to piece together his first system. 

With the system up and running the Bald Hill staff was able to grow these fish to a stage were their air bladder is developed and they were on feed. Walleye are born with an egg sack that they feed on for the first few days of life. This is a critical stage in the life cycle of a Walleye, moving from the egg sack to feeding on plankton. They were very successful getting them going and thier efforts cut mortality rates tremendously. 

These Walleye Advanced Fry were then used in the ponds to grow fingerlings for stocking into the Lake Champlain Basin. Prior to the inception of the Advanced Fry, success in the fingerling ponds was hit and miss. Production was at best spotty. With the older fish already on feed when they were placed in the ponds production of fingerlings shot up and stayed constant. 

As you can see from the above chart, fingerling production went up from the moment the Advanced Fry were used in the fingerling ponds. This data is from 2004 and shows the increase from the beginning of the use of Advanced Fry. Production has remained constant and steady in 2005, 2006 and 2007. 

The hatchery facility at Bald Hill has only one Advanced Fry System. LCWA has been on a mission for the past couple years to get some upgrades done at Bald Hill so production of fingerling stocking could increase. We have raised a substantial amount of money towards this end. We are glad to report that this year we will purchase three new Advanced Fry Systems for Bald Hill and hope to have them in production by the spring of 2008. Please see our fund raising section on this website for more information on what we are doing.