Red Lake's walleye population absolutely enormous

Expect lots of walleyes next summer like this one caught by my brother, Bill, in 2012

I don't believe there have ever been as many walleye in Red Lake as there are today. At least that goes for the 52 years my family has owned and operated Bow Narrows Camp.
During the last couple of years it has been possible to literally catch hundreds of these golden-hued fish in a single day. There even may be too many of them! How can that be possible? How can you have too many of a fish?
Let's start by examining some of the factors that may be contributing to the burgeoning walleye population.

1. Earlier, warmer springs

Climate change has meant ever-earlier ice-outs. The latest record was just this year, 2012, when the ice broke up on April 13, beating the previous record by more than a week. The historical ice-out average used to be May 8 with some ice-outs as late as May 20.
Walleye spawn in the spring, just as the ice is disappearing. The earlier they can get at it and the warmer the weather the faster their eggs and fry develop. In other words, warm springs mean better survival of the young.

2. Smelt

These tiny fish somehow got into Red Lake in the late '70s or early '80s along with just about every other road-accessible lake in Ontario. The exact way this happened is unknown but obviously, since a road is always in the picture, humans are responsible.
Smelt are a high-calorie food source for walleye and makes them gain weight rapidly, but smelt are also a double-edged sword. On the downside smelt are themselves a predator that eat native minnows and the larval-stages of fish, especially deeper water species such as lake trout, whitefish, tulibee (a kind of herring) and ling (aka burbot, eelpout). Smelt are likely at least partly responsible for the decline in lake trout (See Many lake trout spawned; new direction starts). Humans are also responsible.
Although smelt may have been feeding on larval lake trout, the smelt population crashed a few years back -- something that always happens when they get into a lake. The native minnows have come back and even though there are still smelt in the lake, they should never again reach the numbers they once held. That's great news, especially for deeper-water fish like lake trout.
Lake trout are voracious predators. When they disappeared from deep areas on the eastern end of the lake, they left a void. Nature abhors a vacuum; so, walleye moved to take their place. Now there are walleye in some of the deepest water as well as their former shallow territory.
At the western end of the lake, where Bow Narrows Camp is located, lake trout never totally disappeared and are making a comeback. Still, it's an uphill battle because even here there are walleye in many of the deep spots and walleye prey on tiny lake trout. When the lake trout grow larger than the walleye the tables will be turned. And when the lake trout population gets back to a certain level, then no walleye will dare go to deep water again.
3. Fewer lake trout mean fewer predators
With fewer lake trout to diminish walleye numbers, the only big predators left are northern pike which, it must be noted, are doing their best. Just witness all the huge pike our fishermen have been catching. These are well-fed fish! I think we caught more really-big pike in 2012 than in any recent year.

How could there be too many walleye?

So, back to that question posed in the first paragraph.
Walleye populations need big predators that thin them out in order for the remaining walleye to grow exceptionally large in size. Red Lake has always been known for its really, really big walleye. We don't want to lose that reputation.
Northern pike and lake trout have always done a nice job at making it a survival-of-the-fittest for walleyes in Red Lake.
Then the lake trout population took a hit and walleyes got the upper hand, at least temporarily.
The Ministry of Natural Resources has been stocking lake trout fingerlings from Pipestone Bay, just north of camp, in the rest of the lake for about 10 years now and the lakers have been slowly growing in numbers. Last fall, the MNR started a new tactic in which it will produce even more fingerlings each season with the intention of saturating some of the deepwater bays with lake trout to basically outnumber the walleye predators. 
In the meantime fishermen can continue enjoying the walleye bonanza and can do their part by keeping small fish to eat and letting the big ones go. It always makes much better conservation sense to eat several smaller fish than it does to kill one large one. You want to remove the excess in the population, not kill the reproducers that have made it to the top. (See the Stunning Reality of Keeping Big Fish).
If we all had done that years ago, lake trout would never have declined.

So what can fishermen expect of walleye fishing in 2013?

 It is going to continue to be spectacular with a horde of  fish in the 17-20 inch size range and most of the bigger ones in the 25-28 inch group and fewer in the 30+ inches. There probably will also be really small fish showing up, ones that were too small to bite last season. That's just a guess but looking back at the warm springs, it seems highly likely there are lots and lots of walleyes entering the fishing pool.
So walleye fishermen, sharpen your hooks. You are going to have sore arms from reeling in fish for many years.

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