Hi Bruce, actually right now, some of the first stocking have been caught this spring in the upper sections and were in the 18 inch range. Whether enough will make it to a fishable population like Squantz has been for many years still has to be evaluated but so far it appears it is doing better than Lake Housatonic did in its early years.
I am not tuned into what the herring population is in Lake Zoar but I know some are in there and will feed the walleye well. The problem is a total diet of herring affects the ability of the walleye to spawn successfully. Actually the eggs hatch but the fry only survive for about seven days until the egg sack is used up. They have a thiamin deficiency that has something to do with digestion or metabolism, kind of forget the details now but in any case, they can't survive.
Inland Fisheries did a study by stripping eggs from walleye in Squantz and having them fertilized with males captured from the same spawning reef and then hatched out the fry. I think it was Rowledge Trout Farm that did this for us but we may have done it at our own hatchery. In any case, the fry did not survive. That is why we buy fingerlings which have a fairly high survival rate for our walleye program.
Now Zoar also has a lot of river type chubs, minnows, banded killifish, etc. and tons of juvenile perch so there is lots of feed in there other than herring which is a difference between Zoar and Squantz. Plus Zoar had a surviving walleye population that were descendants of a 1940s stocking in Lilli so natural reproduction is a possibility and with the Pomperaug and Pootatuck Rivers and the stretch from the base of the dam downstream a half mile there is plenty of spawning areas for them to reproduce.
I think it can become a good fishery for walleye.