LCO Fish Hatchery Navigates Challenges, Delivers Above-Average 2025 Walleye Production

By Joe Morey

News Editor

Despite tricky spring weather, tight budgets, and unusually low source-water levels, the Lac Courte Oreilles (LCO) Fish Hatchery closed the 2025 production season “very successful,” according to a report delivered to tribal members by Paul Christel, LCO Fisheries Biologist and Hatchery Director, at the Oct. 18 General Membership meeting.

“Weather made things tricky at times, budgeting was a concern, and low water levels became an issue,” Christel told members, noting staff are already “working in the off-season to be set up as well as possible for next year.”

To hold down feed costs, the hatchery stocked fish a bit earlier than usual. “As a result, the fish were a little smaller, but only by about half an inch,” Christel said. Even so, extended-growth walleye still averaged over seven inches, squarely “in the middle of the extended-growth category.” In total, eight area lakes were stocked with 35,663 extended-growth walleye and 25,000 small fingerlings (1.8-inch fish), which Christel described as making 2025 an above-average production year overall.

Big Lac Courte Oreilles again received the majority of hatchery fish. “The lake has been unable to pull off decent natural production for some years now,” Christel said, pointing to climate change impacts that vary across area lakes. Earlier, and less predictable, ice-off has increasingly mismatched young walleye with the food web timing they depend on in their earliest life stages, he explained. “Spawning occurs and they start off ok, but then around June the young walleye in lakes drop out. They do well in the hatchery ponds because conditions are closely monitored and managed.”

Christel emphasized that stocking keeps walleye available for anglers and preserves their place in the ecosystem: “It holds their place on a population-dynamics level, keeping other species from filling that void. Then, when environmental factors do line up, they will be able to generate year classes without the added challenge of abnormally high competition or predation from other species.”

“Stocking is a critical component of fisheries management for the whole region, especially when it comes to walleye,” Christel said. “If trends continue, the significance of stocking will continue to grow as well.”

Addressing questions about federal funding, Christel said established contracts are not expected to be clawed back “for now,” but he expressed concern about future opportunities.

“Natural resource protection does not appear to be a high priority at the federal level these days,” he said, adding that available funds seem “more skewed toward economic ends, rather than protection and enhancement for its own sake.”

The LCO Fish Hatchery has played an outsized role in sustaining walleye locally, especially on Big LCO. In recent years, Christel has reported production of up to 43,000 walleye in a single year, and from 2021–2024 the hatchery stocked more than 104,000 walleye and 105,000 small fingerlings into Big LCO, in some years five times more than was harvested, underscoring the program’s importance to both tribal and non-tribal anglers.

Big LCO itself is a 5,139-acre, 90-foot-deep lake supporting a classic northwoods fish community that includes walleye, musky, smallmouth and largemouth bass, northern pike, and panfish, with very clear water and public access at multiple landings.

According to the Wisconsin DNR, the broader Chippewa Flowage system and nearby waters have a long, documented history of stocking strategies that increasingly favor larger fall fingerlings and extended-growth fish, a shift designed to improve survival, recruitment, and resilience amid changing conditions.

As 2026 planning gets underway, Christel said the hatchery team is focused on pre-season preparation to buffer against climate and budget pressures.

“We’re working now to be positioned as well as possible for next year,” he said. “Our goal is the same as always; healthy fisheries for our community and for everyone who fishes these lakes.”