The Secret Life of Montana's Walleye!

04/22/23 • 50 min

In this episode of the Montana Outdoor Podcast, you will learn all about Montana's Walleye fishery! Maybe we should have called this podcast "Walleye 101" or if we wanted to get a little cheeky, "Mommy Where Do Walleye Come From". But seriously this week we had Fisheries Biologist Heath Headley from FWP Region 6 in Glasgow, Montana on the show and we were able to learn all about Walleye in Fort Peck Reservoir and how Walleye are reared at the Hatcheries in Fort Peck and Miles City and placed into lakes all around Montana. The conversation with Heath went even deeper than that, however. Downrigger Dale and The Captain asked Heath all kinds of questions, like:

How do you collect Walleye eggs for the hatcheries during the spawning season when the lake is still covered with ice like it is this year?
How do they usually collect Walleye eggs and how many do they usually collect? (Spoiler Alert! You are not going to believe that number!!! WOW!!)

If they can’t collect many eggs this year due to the ice cover will the walleye populations around Montana be, ok?
Do big Walleye produce offspring that will also become big Walleye?
Does a Walleye return to the same spawning grounds it went to during the last spawning season?
Wait a minute! How far did you say that tagged Walleye traveled!?
Can interested people actually participate in the Walleye egg collection effort?
And those are just a few of the questions that were answered in this fascinating podcast.

So, give it a listen now! After you listen, if you still have questions about Walleye in Montana you can email FWP Fisheries Biologist Heath Headley by clicking here. To learn more about the Fish Hatchery in Fort Peck click here. To learn more about the Fish Hatchery in Miles City click here. To get fish stocking plans and data in Montana or to learn about other fish hatcheries in Montana click here. Questions or comments about this podcast? Email host Downrigger Dale by clicking here.

Remember to tune in to The Montana Outdoor Radio Show, live every Saturday from 6:00AM to 8:00AM MT. The show airs on 30 radio stations across the State of Montana. You can get a list of our affiliated radio stations on our website. You can also listen to recordings of past shows, get fishing and and hunting information and much more at that website or on our Facebook page. You can also watch our radio show there as well.

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Previous Episode

The Wizard is Back and He is Going to Turn Your Boat Into a Technological Dream Come True!!

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Matt Cowen of Mon-Dak Marine is back for this week’s Montana Outdoor Podcast, and he brought a HUGE AMOUNT of KNOWLEDGE and a MASIVE NUMBER of IDEAS and PROBLEM SOLVING KNOW HOW! This podcast is sure to help you find your way into the NEW AGE OF BOATING.
If you listened to Matt on last week's podcast, you know that he is the owner of Mon-Dak Marine in Glasgow, MT. What you may not know about Matt is he has run his Go Fish Installations on-the-water training business for over 10 years and has helped over a hundred fishermen learn how to operate their sonar and become more efficient in the water. He works with industry experts to keep updated on the ever-changing electronics world. Over the past 5 years he has also offered sonar workshops for Mon-Dak and other regional businesses.
Why is Matt Cowen so dedicated to knowing all the latest boating technology inside and out and to helping other boaters understand how to work all of it? He saw that over the last several years the boating industry has embraced technology big time, from new navigation and sonar devices to new tech to monitor and operate your boat, to new innovations in finding and understanding how to catch more fish and the list goes on and on. More importantly though, he saw that there is, however, a major problem with all that, many boat dealers, associated industry professionals and boaters themselves have no idea how to operate all that new that new technology. What good is all that new technology if you only know a little bit about it? What we learned from this podcast was that the only thing Matt knows more about than boating tech is how to teach others how to use it! He really helped us sort through all the techno noise and pointed us in the right direction. He covered so many important topics that the over 45-minute podcast just flew by and left us wanting more! If you love being out on the water, boating, fishing and just learning how to be a better skipper you will LOVE THIS PODCAST!!
Just some of the topics we covered were things like; batteries, when is it time to switch to a "house battery" for easier AND safer operations? What kind of battery is the best for me? What about the latest electric trolling motors, does that new self-deploying thing even work? How can I get all my tech to talk to each other? And the knowledge just kept flowing! This is great info you need to know, not to mention it is just flat fascinating stuff! Listen to this Podcast and you might just find a way to make your boat work better, find more fish and make you a bit of a wizard yourself!

After listening to this Podcast, you might just have some questions for Matt. You can contact him and even schedule some one on one time out on the water with Matt by clicking here. To learn more about Matt Cowen and Mon-Dak Marine just click here. Also be sure and let Downrigger Dale know what you thought of this podcast by

Next Episode

Mysteries Behind Montana's Dam Management

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The Missouri is the longest river in the United States, flowing more than 2,500 miles from its source on the eastern slope of the Rockies near Three Forks, Montana, to its confluence with the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri. What controls all that water is a series of dams and the most important of those are located in Montana. This episode of the the Montana Outdoor Podcast explores how those dams in Montana are managed, especially the granddaddy of them all, the Fort Peck Dam!
When the Fort Peck Dam was completed in 1940 it was the largest Dam in the World! The dam is managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. On this podcast your hosts Downrigger Dale and The Captain are joined by the Operations Project Manager of the Fort Peck Dam Darin McMurry. Darin is one fascinating guy and gave all kinds of information about how this incredibly important dam is managed and how the decisions that are made there not only affect Montana but everything that happens downstream all the way to the Gulf of Mexico!
When you listen to this Podcast you will learn how the dams along the Missouri River in Montana help manage the risk of flooding, how they help keep the barges moving in the Mississippi River, they help keep Americas Farmlands irrigated and much more! Downrigger also asked Darin about some the myths and mysteries of the Dam and it's huge reservoir. Things like is it true that divers that clean the drain screens have seen creatures that defy the imagination? Is there really one button that if pushed could send all that water pouring across America? Who really makes the decisions on how much water is sent down the Missouri River? You will learn the answers to those questions and so much more!
If you would like to get more questions answered by Darin McMurry just click here to email Downrigger and he will get in touch with Darin and get your questions answered. You can also visit the Army Corps of Engineers Facebook page for Fort Peck Dam and Reservoir by clicking here. You can get information about the Fort Peck Interpretive Center, which is an incredible place to visit if you are near Fort Peck Montana, by clinking here.