Hiya folks,

Eggs in fish in the middle of summer. So many folks write into Outdoor Canada magazine and say, “I caught a Walleye or a Yellow Perch in late August or September and it was full of eggs. Did that fish not spawn in the spring?”

The answer is yes, it probably did. Those are next year’s eggs. A fish up here in Canada only has a very short time to grow and produce next year’s eggs. So if they spawned in May or June, they have about three to four weeks to recover. But from that point on there are only about two or three weeks of somatic growth where they’re actually growing themselves. And then from about August or September onwards, most of the energy they’re devoting is to next year’s egg production.

So it’s very, very common in August or September onwards to catch a fish with eggs for next spring.

Happy Fish’n,Gord “The Doc” Pyzer