Storm Lake walleye reach record size, boost egg collection season

Storm Lake’s walleye are getting bigger than fisheries staff have ever tracked, and that is good news for both the lake and the local economy around it. During five nights of gillnetting near the Storm Lake Marina, crews pulled 1,221 fish from the water and found females averaging 23.2 inches, a sign the fishery is producing larger brood stock and more eggs for future stockings.

Biologist Ben Wallace said the 2026 egg-collection season confirmed the trend. Of the fish taken April 13, 816 were females and 405 were males. The largest walleye measured 28.7 inches and weighed 11 pounds, and Wallace said the longest fish he has recorded since he began tracking the numbers reached 29.8 inches. The season produced 325 quarts of eggs, or an average of 0.94 quarts per fish, a sharp improvement from 2010 when the average female was about 20 inches and produced only about 0.35 quarts of eggs.

That increase matters well beyond the hatchery tubs. Bigger females mean healthier adult fish, more egg production and a stronger fishery for anglers who spend time on Storm Lake and the businesses that serve them. In a community where the marina, bait counters and lakefront traffic help define the summer season, a reputation for trophy-sized walleye can pull more visitors to Buena Vista County and keep more of them there.

The eggs collected this spring were fertilized and sent to hatcheries in Spirit Lake and Rathbun Lake, where they will eventually be raised into fry and stocked back into Storm Lake and other Iowa waters. Storm Lake remains one of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ key broodstock lakes for walleye and muskellunge, part of a statewide hatchery system that stocks about 130 million fish each year into Iowa waters. The Spirit Lake Fish Hatchery alone has four egg incubators with a total capacity of 1,100 quarts.

Wallace tied the fish’s size to the slot limits that have protected the lake for years. The original rule began in 2007, when fish between 17 and 22 inches had to be released. The regulation later shifted to 19 to 25 inches in 2022, a change that allowed more harvest of smaller fish while protecting larger breeders. That gradual approach, Wallace said, has helped build the current population, and the result is showing up in the lake now.

The latest Storm Lake fishing report says the lake also has a strong year class of 21- to 23-inch walleye, with those fish protected until 22.1 inches under the slot regulation. For anglers watching the lake this season, the message is hard to miss: Storm Lake is producing big fish, and the ripple effects reach from the hatchery to the shoreline businesses that depend on steady traffic.