PIKE RIVER HATCHERY— Favorable weather conditions allowed DNR fisheries staff to make quick work of the annual egg harvest here this past week. The sudden turn from winter-like conditions to summer-like warmth helped clear ice and boost water temperatures in Lake Vermilion’s Pike Bay, and that sent thousands of ripe, spawning walleyes up the Pike River.
The DNR crew dropped nets on Monday, April 20 and began egg-gathering two days later, collecting their annual quota and pulling nets as of Saturday, April 25. This year’s total harvest was “right around 500 quarts” of eggs, according to Pike River Hatchery Manager Brent Flaten.
That’s just slightly above their 2026 quota of 472 quarts, a volume determined by the stocking plans for lakes throughout northeastern Minnesota, and it translates to about 22 million individual walleye fry.
The collected and fertilized eggs will incubate in hundreds of containers inside the hatchery. Once they hatch—expected around Memorial Day—the fry will be stocked in dozens of lakes across the region. Nearly half are slated for Tower-area lakes, including about 1.613 million for Trout Lake. Lake Vermilion will receive the most: 5 million fry plus an additional 2.5 million from this year’s surplus. Burntside Lake is also set to receive 1.48 million surplus fry.
In the International Falls work area, Pelican Lake, near Orr, is earmarked to receive three million fry from the surplus.
Lake Saganaga, in Cook County, is allocated 4.5 million fry for stocking efforts there, the largest allocation behind Lake Vermilion.
Zebra mussels prompts finer filtration
The DNR has responded to the recent detection of immature zebra mussels, known as veligers, in Lake Vermilion with finer filtration of water entering the hatchery. The hatchery had already been filtering water down to 100 microns to screen out spiny waterfleas, another, larger, invasive pest. With the detection of the microscopic veligers, the DNR has added a 25-micron filter to ensure those don’t enter the hatchery’s system and potentially be spread to other lakes through stocking.
Flaten said he is also doing more testing of river water at the entrance to Pike Bay, which could be one way to assess the source of the veligers.
While similar testing of samples from Lake Vermilion have revealed the presence of some veligers, Flaten said there’s still no evidence of adult zebra mussels in either the lake or the incoming streams. The lake’s low level of calcium is expected to be an impediment to the establishment of an adult population of zebra mussels, said Flaten.
Area lakes slated for stocking in 2026 include:
Tower area
Astrid- 60,000
Maude- 50,000
Nigh- 80,000
Pauline- 50,000
Jeanette- 600,000
Big- 750,000
Nels- 44,000
Low- 106,000
Section Twelve- 22,000
Whisper- 20,000
Purvis- 25,000
Wolf- 75,000
Mashkenode- 64,000
Trout- 1.613 million
Vermilion- 5 million

Tower area surplus
Cedar- 156,000
Ojibway- 134,000
Pike River Flwg- 252,000
Burntside 1.478
Vermilion- 2.5 million

I-Falls area
Dark- 70,000
Ban- 194,500
Seretha- 37,000

I-Falls area surplus
Pelican- 3 million
Marion- 183,000
Moose- 929,000