First off: Sorry I don't have a direct link for this post. Came across the info on some random FB group and can't seem find the link anywhere. But really interesting info from a MN DNR fisheries biologist that I felt was worth sharing:
> "Old school thought was the old fish produced less viable eggs and weren't all that important. Newer research suggests that those eggs are larger and have better survival. They are still helping the population and probably most important to have big eggs when food is scarce or there is a dip in temps after hatching so the fry can live longer off the yolk sac when a smaller yolk sac fish might die. The relative contribution from large fish is low compared to the large numbers of small adults but increasingly important when those environmental variables negatively impact the year class that just hatched.
> "The most overplayed concept is genetics of a large fish. If a fish has the genetics to get large, those genetics exist immediately. The only thing that changes is how many times that fish with the big genes gets to pass them along.
> "Over harvest of large fish is the fastest way to drive down population size structure. Look at bluegill. You can have a lake that has no bluegill over 6″", take a bunch out, put them in a pond with little to no competition, and the fish respond by getting bigger. Our FiN program does just that, then net them and stock the bigger fish for anglers. Bluegill can also get crowded and stunted, but the second they reach a size desirable to an angler, it is removed from the system. Not the same as walleye, but kind of an extreme example to demonstrate my point."
