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Email received with these photos: Kris Lindstrom of Manistee MI. I have caught two walleye in the past week that have blue on the peck fins, dorsal and tail. They also have a baby blue on belly and lower jaw. The blue on the fin tips is fairly bright like nothing I have ever seen. The fish bodies are much lighter in color than any fish I have seen in the past. Even the meat has a different feel to it than the normal yellow walleye I've been catching. More slender body with big eyes. I think really think they need a closer look.  Here are a few bad pics but I will take great ones on the next catch. The one here is 28".

Hi Mike. Got an intersting email from a guy in Michigan and I don't know him, however, apparently he was on my Outdoors Niagara website and read about the blue pike in my blue pike section of the website.  http://www.outdoorsniagara.com/bluepikeindex.htm  He took the time and effort to send me his pictures and a little description and I said I would forward to you for an opinion and an answer.

I have better pics in case you can't open this as it is in Microsoft Publisher but I wanted you to read his letter and my reply to him.

Could you give me an answer or a reply and I can forward the information to him?

Thanks

Mark, I am forwarding your e-mail package to Don Einhouse, our DEC Lake Erie Unit leader and our blue pike "manager." I'm hoping that Don can respond to your correspondence. Since the blue pike pictures and comments were sent to us in microsoft Publisher, which most of us DEC employees do not have loaded on our machines, I asked one of our colleagues to open it and save it as a PDF file. I will send the picture to Don Einhouse as a PDF file, in a separate e-mail transmission. 

Mark, I would encourage the angler to contact his own State Natural Resource managers to report his "blue fish" catch, if he has not done so already. Take care, Mike W.

Mark,

Yes, those walleye pictures are strikingly blue colored. There has been continued investigation into blue walleye/blue pike discrimination since more modern genetic tools have emerged over the years. However it's my understanding after exhaustive investigation the fish genetic expects have still not found a strong genetic match to the fish that was the Lake Erie blue pike, even though blue colored walleye are often caught by anglers in various waters, mostly in Canada, upon genetic investigation they still prove to be walleye. I'll forward those photo's to a couple blue pike investigators with whom we have an ongoing working relationship and they can follow-up if they wish.

Don

Donald Einhouse NYS DEC - Lake Erie Unit Leader 178 Point Drive N. Dunkirk, New York 14048 phone 716-366-xxxx

The bright aqua color is characteristic of walleye in many Canadian lakes, and is also found in other percids. It is a pigment variation, with the blue often around the fins and eyes, and can rub off on a q-tip, etc. Dr. Wayne Schaeffer (U Wisconsin) gave a talk on this at the 2007 IAGLR meeting. These aqua blue pigment walleye co-occur with yellow walleye. They do NOT have blue pike Sander vitreus glaucus morphological characters (the larger eyes, smaller intraorbital space, more sloped head) and they do NOT have blue pike genetic characters. They are just a color variant of normal walleye.

Sincerely, Carol

Carol A. Stepien, Ph.D. Director of the Lake Erie Center & Professor of Ecology University of Toledo 6200 Bayshore Rd Oregon, OH 43618 419-530-xxxx