Slow at Willard .. Report

[Fin-S-Fish]

hey, those wipers can spawn and the eggs and milt are viable. However, biologists don't think the spawn can successfully hatch because of habitat limitations. Old studies show that striper eggs need to be suspended in flowing water until hatching or they die. They think that the inlet is too short and the eggs will find their way into still water, sink to the bottom and perish. However, the biologists thought the same thing about lake powell. Later studies show that most of the stripers in Powell are not spawning in the river inlet but are spawning successfully in the main lake without current. There is now an overpopulation of stripers at Powell, so therefore this shows that current is not absolutely necessary for sucessful spawning. Since white bass, the other side of the wiper mix consistently spawns in mid-lake rock locations without current, the potential for wiper eggs to survive successfully without current is probably much higher than the DWR personnell think. Further, every wiper I've cleaned in the spring had well developed eggs and milt. I would say no, they're definitely not sterile.
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