Prior to each year’s gillnetting, both of Iowa’s hatcheries, Spirit Lake and Lake Rathbun receive fry stocking requests from across the state. This helps each hatchery manager determine the number of walleyes that need to be brought to the hatchery. For example, the 2025 fry request is 51 million walleye fry, which means about 615 quarts of eggs. This means netting about 650-700 ripe females and 250 males for fertilizing the eggs.