After spending thousands on nets and fuel and an average of 400 man-hours per spring to rid illegally stocked walleye from Buffalo Bill Reservoir, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department is eyeing the possibility of hiring subcontractors to continue the multi-year fight.

During a Lunchtime Lecture event in the Draper Natural History Museum’s Coe Auditorium this past Thursday, Game and Fish Fisheries Biologist Jason Burckhardt suggested the the Cody Region’s fisheries employees could move onto other duties if subcontractors were hired for the walleye fight.

“[For those] familiar with the effort that’s going on in Yellowstone Lake; they’ve actually hired Hickey Brothers Research, which comes in and does a lot of their gill netting to remove the lake trout from Yellowstone Lake,” he said.

The company currently has jobs available for the work in Yellowstone but doesn’t mention Buffalo Bill Reservoir in its literature.

“Organizationally, our cumulative wealth of fishing experience allows us to assist the fisheries research community with effective, efficient and adaptive netting techniques, while also allowing us to pursue new technologies to ensure the future effectiveness of sampling strategies in light of the ever-changing environment,” the company pledges on its website.

Burckhardt said the department has been in contact with them about potentially assisting with suppression activities.

“Because it’s a large task for us to do every year, and it doesn’t allow us to do much of the other work that is necessary to do that time of year as well,” Burckhardt said. “We’re going to continue to try to investigate additional spawning sites, and there are other possible suppression related activities that we could be doing.”

Due to budget belt tightening, the proposal to hire Hickey Brothers Research won’t happen this year and the crews plan to start setting nets next week, Burckhardt said. Yet, hiring the subcontractors will remain a priority expenditure for coming budgets.

Walleye gorge on Yellowstone cutthroat and rainbow trout fry, threatening wild trout populations. The North Fork of the Shoshone River, from headwaters in the Absaroka Range to the dam, isn’t stocked by the department, and is one of Wyoming’s internationally famous Blue Ribbon fisheries.

However, gill netting is just one part of the solution in efforts to remove the feisty species. When biologists first discovered the illegal stocking, they engaged with anglers to help by catching all they could eat. There is now a “must kill” regulation for all walleye caught at the reservoir.

“I’ve been developing some ideas related to additional angler incentives, because it’s essential for our anglers to continue to target these walleye. That is one of the primary ways of reducing that population is angler harvest,” Burckhardt said.

It has been a laborious fight since the walleye were suspected of being translocated to Buffalo Bill Reservoir from Deaver Reservoir around 2002. The fisheries department removed otoliths (calcium carbonate structures found beneath the brain of most fish that aid in balance and hearing) from founder fish (dating back to 2002 or 2003 when they were illegally stocked) in Buffalo Bill, matching them to Deaver Reservoir after the species was first discovered in Buffalo Bill Reservoir in 2008.

Two years after the discovery, the 60th Wyoming Legislature passed a law forbidding bucket biology along with severe penalties. The penalties for a high misdemeanor are a $10,000 fine, up to a one year imprisonment and the suspension of a person’s fishing privileges.

“If someone really likes to fish and wants to conduct these illegal introductions, they could actually have their hunting and fishing licenses revoked for life. And that’s not just in the state of Wyoming, because Wyoming is a participant in the violators compact, you could have your hunting and fishing privileges revoked in all of the United States,” Burckhardt said.

That being said, it’s extremely difficult to try to prosecute someone for these illegal introductions, he said. In addition to fines and imprisonment, civil penalties can be assessed for the cost of removal or mitigation of fish illegally introduced. For example, the removal of lake trout from Yellowstone Lake has cost the National Park Service millions in an effort that will likely go on for years to come.

The work has been effective. During initial efforts to remove the species, biologists were catching a lot of big walleye. But those numbers have diminished substantially, he said.

“We’re not catching big walleye out there any longer. So how many do we remove during this operation? It’s really not that many. The number of females removed [annually] has been ... fewer than 200 female individuals,” Burckhardt said. “It’s a really low number of fish, but it’s still very important.”

The Cody region only has three full-time fisheries biologists, including supervisor Sam Hochhalter, Joe Skorupski and Burckhardt, to cover the entire Big Horn Basin. They also hire at least one seasonal employee each year.

Burckhardt will be speaking again next month on reducing and eliminating brook trout populations in cutthroat fisheries, but the date has yet to be determined. For more information, go to meeteetsemuseums.org.