D-N-R gives a hand to Mother Nature in fish spawn

Iowa D-N-R fisheries workers are setting nets in the Mississippi River this week in hopes of catching some preferred fish, but not for themselves. The D-N-R’s netting adult northern pike near Guttenberg, where about two-million eggs will be collected and fertilized at the hatchery there. Mike Mason is supervisor of the D-N-R’s Fish Culture section. He says the eggs are stripped from the fish and fertilized.Mason says there’s virtually no natural reproduction of northern pike in Iowa but with the D-N-R’s help, the species’ numbers continue to grow statewide.About a million little pike, or fry, will be put back into the Mississippi. Another 300-thousand will go the Spirit Lake hatchery where they’ll be raised to about three inches, then released in lakes and waterways across Iowa.