walleye "fry"

[Rocketman]

no, not the kind in the pan. I am wondering about all the tiny "fish" I saw yesterday in a very popular lake that I have spent many hours on over the last decade.(NW MN) I do not remember ever seeing so many. The bite was difficult at best. Can someone shed some light on this? Or maybe I am way off base here. At first I thought it was good to see some "bait-fish", but then as we moved around, they were everywhere. The wind was very calm so they were easy to see. Is this walleye hatch, or "fry"? I am thinking with all this food available it is what made the bite so slow. and how many and how long will they survive?

[fishing life]

I could look up the exact figures but from eggs to adult it takes millions of eggs to achieve 1,000 adults and that continues on with millions to reach 2 10lb adults. The attrition rate is horrible but it does work as you can see with perhaps 100's of millions of eggs in a large body of water and existing populations in the millions. Average female spawn is 80,000 eggs.
And yes you are quite right abundance of forage does tend to slow the bite.

[Phil T]

Fish the weeds. Pike during daylight hours, walleye when the light is lower. Everything wil be looking for an easy meal.

[UGLYSTIK52]

I agree all the preds will be chasing them fry into the shallows.....and having a feast..

[RedNeckWino]

The wallies I caught yesterday had their bellies FULL of fry and wigglers. Gonna try some smaller baits tonight. Been getting them on #11's, gonna take them along but try 5's and 7's.

[Burr]

I've generally had a tough time looking at the young of the year and knowing if they were walleye fry, or some other species. Many of them will end up being food for the larger fish in the system, and a few will grow up.

Normal this time of year. Look for clouds of bait fish like this on your sonar, with arches below them. That would be "feeding" fish. Feeding fish are active fish.