The Department of Natural Resources and Environment will be on the Muskegon River below Croton Dam in Newaygo County for a week to 10 days beginning around the last week of March to take eggs from walleye for its hatchery program.

Actual dates will be determined by water conditions as well as walleye concentrations, explained DNRE fisheries biologist Rich O’Neal. The process will be completed by the second week of April.

Crews from the DNRE Fisheries Division will be working off the Pine Street launch ramp, about a mile downstream from the dam, and confine their electro-fishing upstream from the Thornapple launch site, O’Neal said.

“We have to work that area in order to get the fish we need,”O’Neal said. “It usually takes about a week.”

The public is invited to watch at the Pine Street launch. The fish will be netted, stripped of their eggs and milt, and sent to a DNRE laboratory where they will be examined for health and body condition.

Anglers who wish to avoid interference by the egg-take operation should fish downstream from the Thornapple site.

For more information about the DNRE Fisheries Division, go online to www.michigan.gov/dnrfishing.