Factors Influencing Walleye (Sander vitreus) Year Class Strength in the Upper Susquehanna River

Age-0 Walleye were monitored in the upper Susquehanna River from 1995 through 2010. I used these data to examine factors that influenced year class strength and to construct a predictive model. Mean river flow in May demonstrated the strongest relationship with year class strength (r2 = 0.57). A model consisting of May flow, June flow, and July air temperature explained 86.7% of the variation in the data from 1995 through 2006. This model successfully predicted Walleye year class strength for data from 2007 through 2010 (mean prediction error = 13.1/hr).