From Wyoming Game & Fish
Our 2003 fish sampling at Keyhole showed a great game fish size structure. Walleye ranging from 12 to 28 inches and averaging 19.6 inches were found.
The weight of the average walleye was nearly 3 lbs. Small walleye are usually not caught with our standard gill nets, so small mesh gill nets are set to sample walleye less than 10-12 inches.
Several walleye from 4.8 to 7.1 inches were captured in the small mesh nets, indicating good to fair survival of our walleye stocking in 2001 and 2002.
Northern pike averaged 30 inches and ranged from 22 to 37 inches. The largest northern weighed almost 13.5 lbs.
Smallmouth bass ranging in length from 8 to 17 inches were sampled. while crappie from 7 to 10.5 inches were also caught in the nets.
The 7-8 inch crappies are very abundant in Keyhole and until a significant portion of that size class succumbs to natural mortality, it is doubtful the size structure desired by anglers will improve.
Walleye and northern pike spawning and natural reproduction are unreliable in maintaining the populations of these two species at Keyhole so fingerlings (small fish about 1-2 inches long) are routinely stocked.
Walleye and northern pike are stocked at the rate of 20 fingerlings per surface acre; with Keyhole at about 6,000 surface acres in early May 2004 our request will be for 120,000 fingerlings of each species.
Wyoming gets walleye and northern pike fingerlings by trading fish with the State of North Dakota.