A number of walleye, or pickerel, fingerlings were released into Nickle Lake over the weekend, as part of an ongoing project of the Weyburn Wildlife Federation.

Around 15 local members of the federation met on Friday evening at their fish rearing pond located adjacent to the lake, and worked there until about 2 a.m. as they drained the pond through a fish trap; they then took the walleye fingerlings, collected in an aeration tank in a boat, and were distributed in different locations around the lake.

"We run it at night to minimize stress on the fish. We generally get a rush of minnows and tadpoles at first, and then the walleye come later," said federation member Kelly Kozij, adding this is around the 15th year the group has done the stocking of walleye fingerlings into Nickle Lake.

The drainage process of the fish-rearing pond takes several hours, and a new fish trap was built this year to catch the fingerlings.

The federation begins with 50,000 walleye fry supplied from the fish hatchery in Fort Qu'Appelle, which are put into the rearing pond over the May long weekend each year. The small fry are allowed to grow for about two months without any predators before the federation then catches them and transfers them to Nickle Lake.

The number of walleye fingerlings was down slightly this year, but members feel this will have a minimal effect on the overall population of walleye in Nickle Lake.