Family-Outdoors

Rathbun Lake had one of its best walleye netting seasons in years, filling the hatcheries incubators with eggs to spare. Rathbun Fish Hatchery supervisor Jay Rudacille said hatchery staff are expecting those eggs to start hatching any day now. “It’s just over three weeks for the first eggs taken, which is a concern, but the hatch is being delayed by the 45-49 degree water, which is on the cool side,” he said. “Typically we get a hatch rate of 70 to 75 percent. The longer it takes the eggs to hatch, the poorer the hatch rate.” Netting crews hit the water on April 6, and caught the spawn just right. “We want to be as efficient as possible with our netting crews and this year we nailed it,” Rudacille said. “Our netting operations caught the spawn on the upswing, we netted through the peak and some on the downside and we were done. “It was an excellent season,” he said. Female walleyes from Rathbun averaged 1.4 quarts of eggs, an increase over the 1.04 quarts per female in 2012, and 1.1...