Is there a PM walleye bite in April?

[wakina]

If it is legal for you to keep the fish that you catch be it a male or a female and you want to keep it by all means do so!! A female walleye is just as much a female walleye in July as it is in April or in November.

For those of you that want to change or challenge the Regulations for spring spawning season or tell others what gender fish they should keep or release here are some numbers for you to think about!

After the 2003 year class of walleyes became old enough to contribute to the spawning population of adult walleyes, there were approximatley 30 million adult walleyes available to spawn, now if only 1/3 of those were females that would be 10 million female walleyes available to spawn. If each female walleye only layed 150,000 eggs that would be 1,500,000,000,000 eggs layed and with a hatch rate of only 1% that would be 15,000,000,000 larval walleyes hatched and at a survival rate of only 1% living to their first year that would mean that there would be a minimun of 150 million 3 to 6 inch walleyes left to keep the population stable. So what happened to all the little walleyes? So how does changing the regulations or releasing a legally caught female walleye change for the better or increase the survival of the little eyes that are hatched. Please explain!
I left the numbers of females and the amount of eggs that each female would lay on the conservative side. If the population was evenly split between boys and girls there would be an additional 75 million little eyes left at the end of the first year. Here are some more numbers to contemplate!

Walleye produce 20 to 25,000 eggs per pound. 3-10 year olds producing 53,000-426,000 eggs. Ohio Seagrant often states that 250,000 eggs as the average.
10-50 percent of the eggs hatch.
25-50 percent of the hatching fry survive.
10 percent of the hatch live to be three year olds.
If 30 percent hatch and 25 percent live it would take 640 females to produce 12 million fry. OR 3,000 to produce the 56 million.
A more conservative estimate of 10 percent hatch and 10 percent of the hatch living to three years old requires 5,000 females for 12 million and 23,000 for 56 million.
(By TOMB)

The problem is not, and has not been the lack of adult spawing walleyes but the problem is and has been the survival rate of the larval walleyes and fry into their second year.