Photo of a walleye fish. (Courtesy of the University of California-Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences)
It’s fishing season in Texas, and many people are heading out on their boats to catch dinner. However, there is one fish they won’t find in White Rock Lake anymore, and many do not know why.
In 1978 and 1979, nearly eight million walleye fish inhabited White Rock Lake after the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department deposited them, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Since then, no amount of fish that large has been placed in the lake. None of them was taken out, so what happened to the millions of walleyes?
White Rock Lake. (Photo by Danny Fulgencio)
Former biologist Charles Inman said the parks department placed that many walleyes in White Rock to establish the species and launch a predator fish to control the number of yellow basses, the Morning News reported.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist Cynthia Fox Holt said the average survival rate of young fish is about 15 to 25 percent. Mixed with warmer temperatures and predation by yellow bass and largemouth bass, walleye growth may have been halted, according to the Morning News.
Since the walleye deposit, the total number of fish placed in the lake does not come close to the nearly eight million deposited over two years.
Most recently, White Rock Lake was stocked with catfish and largemouth bass.
