An 18-inch walleye from Glendale Lake. It’s typical of those caught in a recent survey.
Photo: PA Fish and Boat Commission
If 46 walleyes can tell a story, this is apparently a good one.
Biologists from the Pennsylvania fish and Boat Commission spent the night of April 4 electroshocking Glendale Lake. It’s the 1,600-acre water serving as the centerpiece of Prince Gallitzin State Park in Cambria County, 15 miles north of Altoona.
The commission has stocked Glendale with walleyes for 25 years. It surveyed it this spring to see how that fishery is doing.
It coincided with the period when walleyes are near shore, “as walleye typically spawn at night in shallow water during late March and early April in Pennsylvania,” reads a biologist report.
But the timing wasn’t perfect.
“Most of the walleye on this survey were adult males which suggest it was early in the spawning cycle as the females tend to congregate a few days later,” it added.
Still, crews collected 46 fish, which biologists classified “a very good catch rate.”
And many were nice. Fish ranged from 17 to 24 inches. Twenty-nine were between 18 and 20.
That bodes well for the fishery, the report concluded.
“The PFBC walleye stocking program at Glendale Lake is meeting statewide objectives and the lake should provide great walleye fishing opportunities this year,” it said.
Other fish
Biologists caught a few other fish of note at Glendale.
They got two muskies, one 36 inches, the other 34. Both were implanted with PIT, or passive integrated transponder, tags. Each carries a unique number.
If biologists capture those same fish again later, they’ll scan those tags, identify the fish and note how they’ve grown.
And what else?
Well, also collected was a chain pickerel. It was 24 inches long.
“A 24-inch chain pickerel is considered a trophy anywhere pickerel are found and based on the PFBC’s 2016 biggest fish awards program, this fish would have placed third for length of all pickerel caught and entered last year,” the report noted.
