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Location: minocqua, wi. | ^tie the diver-duck breast to a rock, put in a large cast iron kettle and slow simmer ... when the rock gets soft, throw the breast and eat the rock. |
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Posts: 125
| but why? the harvesting of walleye is not the reason because i fish on a private lake where the LMB are out of control. |
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Location: minocqua, wi. | must be a good recruitment or good forage then, get out and have a blast with them! the subject slides easily to the walleye discussion because of what is being done on the Minocqua/Lake Tom chain when the term "WI Northwoods" is used. There are many lakes that have boomed with bass as the walleye population has dropped to the point where some emergency planning has been developed for a remedy. |
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Location: Sawyer County, WI | Maybe the Tourism Bureaus can start promoting a trolling for bass campaign. The fibs and cityots will clean them out in no time.  |
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Posts: 125
| purpose of the chain was to see if there would be an impact with the muskies as it has impacted walleye.. |
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Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | on the Minocqua Chain i don't think it hurts the muskies much at all ... i see it as just food for them. the reason numbers are down is more due to stocking quotas vs. what the system can hold (you can't stock over the quota). if you catch a musky or a walleye your chances are better for a big fish than action from a bunch of small to mid-sized fish. the other lake that has been talked about relative to the same condition is Presque Isle ... i don't fish it so can't comment. maybe some others can chime in on other lakes with muskies where LMB's have exploded ... |
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| Does anyone else think there's a direct correlation between the LMB population and the unusually warm weather we've seen over the last decade or so? Early ice-out, hot summers, late ice up in the fall... |
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Location: minocqua, wi. | last two years we had ice for opener ... it's been a cold muthaphucka up here. you must be listening to Rahm and his chronies ... |
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Posts: 285
Location: NE Wisconsin | There is a study going on right now in northern WI where they are pumping LMB stomachs. After,a,couple of years and hundreds and hundreds of going through the contents of LMB stomachs they have found a total of "one" walleye! I have personnally asked for any research in WI that shows LMB eat walleyes here in WI. There is none.
There is no worse preditor on walleye the the hook and line angler. Like it or not, there are very few near legal size walleyes released in northrh Wi. |
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| The chain we live on has a mercury advisory where you can only keep one walleye over 15 inches. After the severe drought from 2004 to 2010 in the northern highlands, where ground water dropped 47 inches, the walleye population declined. My guess I is that the fish, which evolved as river fish before it was dammed, had unsuccessful year crops because the marshes up in the creeks dried up. The largest walleye fishery in WI, the Winnebago system sees this from time to time. Dry year, and the walleyes who travel 50 to 70 miles up the Wolf to spawn in the marshes have poor reproduction.
Guys that fish our chain for walleyes complained because they were not catching enough keepers. The DNR still allowed up to 5 fish, and pretty soon there were very few fish left. While in the ceded territory, our chain sees very little spearing, with 40 some fish being the largest total taken in the last ten years. But, you cannot tell these guys that they have an impact on the fishery. Nope, going out every night and keeping 4 or 5 fish doesn't hurt. |
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Location: oswego, il | Johnnie - 4/15/2015 3:34 AM
in northern WI where they are pumping LMB stomachs. .
They know how to party! |
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Location: Tomahawk, WI | I'm a little confused about why people think larger bass taste bad. We've been keeping and eating bass of all legal sizes for years and they taste just fine. Any fish that comes out of warm muddy water is going to taste different than a fish that comes out of cool clear water. No question about that. In reality, I'll eat a bass or a northern before a walleye any day. |
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Location: Sawyer County, WI | banditman - 4/15/2015 8:33 AM
I'm a little confused about why people think larger bass taste bad. We've been keeping and eating bass of all legal sizes for years and they taste just fine. Any fish that comes out of warm muddy water is going to taste different than a fish that comes out of cool clear water. No question about that. In reality, I'll eat a bass or a northern before a walleye any day.
Some people enjoy Milwaukee's Best too. |
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Location: Already Gone | jonnysled - 4/14/2015 8:49 AM
^tie the diver-duck breast to a rock, put in a large cast iron kettle and slow simmer ... when the rock gets soft, throw the breast and eat the rock.
lol....I have a few great bar stories from my early waterfowling days regarding divers.
This isn't the place though. Back to the Bass talk. |
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Location: MN | I have never had an issue with Divers tasting bad. Bluebill, Redhead, ect. Little balsamic olive oil and a few spices on the grill is one of my favorite meals to eat. |
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Location: Already Gone | NathanH - 4/15/2015 12:33 PM
I have never had an issue with Divers tasting bad. Bluebill, Redhead, ect. Little balsamic olive oil and a few spices on the grill is one of my favorite meals to eat.
Me either...marinate them in Amaretto & butter.
But mergansers....I gave those away as gifts. One time I gave a few away to some Polish guys in the bar. Took them home and tried to oven bake them for Thanksgiving dinner. They wanted to kill me.
Edited by Mark Hoerich 4/15/2015 12:47 PM
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Posts: 609
Location: Seymour, WI |
I'm with Beaver on this one. If LMB are doing well in a lake I'm OK with that. Don't make them a scapegoat for a walleye fishery that is in decline.
About 10 yrs ago the DNR removed the size limit on LMB on the lake that I fish most often to try to increase harvest of LMB. But instead of keeping small bass to eat, it just increased the harvest of all bass, particularily the biggest fish in the lake. What was once a trophy LMB fishery, is now a lake that is full of small bass and the walleye fishery is unchanged.
The other thing that bothers me about this is that alot of people don't know the difference between LMB and SMB. They just hear that the bass are eating all of the walleyes and they keep every bass they catch whether it's SMB or LMB.
You can't see why the walleye fishery remains unchanged?
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Mike Bolinski
My point is, the rule change didn't do anything to improve the walleye fishery and now lots of big bass are being kept. So intead of having a trophy bass fishery and bad walleye fishery, you have a bad walleye fishery and lake full of small bass.
If they had changed the rule to encourage the harvest of small LMB only, while protecting the larger fish it could have had a different outcome. |
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Location: varies | dfkiii - 4/15/2015 9:22 AM
banditman - 4/15/2015 8:33 AM
I'm a little confused about why people think larger bass taste bad. We've been keeping and eating bass of all legal sizes for years and they taste just fine. Any fish that comes out of warm muddy water is going to taste different than a fish that comes out of cool clear water. No question about that. In reality, I'll eat a bass or a northern before a walleye any day.
Some people enjoy Milwaukee's Best too.
Who. who enjoys Milwaukee's best? I thought only people like me buy it to hand to the annoying neighbor when he pops over to talk my ear off.
Chilean sea bass =good. freshwater bass= yucky. |
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Location: Smith Creek | Mark Hoerich - 4/15/2015 12:43 PM
NathanH - 4/15/2015 12:33 PM
I have never had an issue with Divers tasting bad. Bluebill, Redhead, ect. Little balsamic olive oil and a few spices on the grill is one of my favorite meals to eat.
Me either...marinate them in Amaretto & butter.
But mergansers....I gave those away as gifts. One time I gave a few away to some Polish guys in the bar. Took them home and tried to oven bake them for Thanksgiving dinner. They wanted to kill me. ;- )
A real Polack would've diced em up and tossed them in Bigos. You could drop a deuce in a pot of Bigos and not taste it. |
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Location: minocqua, wi. | the word from the DNR on the Minocqua Chain is that the LMB's simply took over the space when Walleyes reduced and once reintroduced, the Walleyes will re-take the position naturally. there is no argument to the demise of the walleyes at least in this case ... the cause is harvest by spear and hook and line, so the anglers and spearers are joining together to remove that pressure and let the fish do their thing.
i don't see bass harvest as something to worry much about ... they grow like a lazy fat kid and there are plenty of them. |
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| It's just another fun fish to catch as far as I am concerned. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts and eat a few in the process.
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Location: one foot over the line | If handled/prepared properly there is no need to soak any fish in anything. It can also soften the meat and i prefer my fish to be firm. I have cleaned/cooked a ton of sheephead and have served them up as panfish and had guests begging for more. |
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| Sled, you mentioned bleeding them, which is something I've only done with the gamiest saltwater fish. Can you elaborate on that a bit? |
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Location: The desert | Grass - 4/15/2015 12:46 PM
I'm with Beaver on this one. If LMB are doing well in a lake I'm OK with that. Don't make them a scapegoat for a walleye fishery that is in decline.
About 10 yrs ago the DNR removed the size limit on LMB on the lake that I fish most often to try to increase harvest of LMB. But instead of keeping small bass to eat, it just increased the harvest of all bass, particularily the biggest fish in the lake. What was once a trophy LMB fishery, is now a lake that is full of small bass and the walleye fishery is unchanged.
The other thing that bothers me about this is that alot of people don't know the difference between LMB and SMB. They just hear that the bass are eating all of the walleyes and they keep every bass they catch whether it's SMB or LMB.
You can't see why the walleye fishery remains unchanged?
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Mike Bolinski
My point is, the rule change didn't do anything to improve the walleye fishery and now lots of big bass are being kept. So intead of having a trophy bass fishery and bad walleye fishery, you have a bad walleye fishery and lake full of small bass.
If they had changed the rule to encourage the harvest of small LMB only, while protecting the larger fish it could have had a different outcome.
I think your last statement is kind of the goal. Much of what you say is correct, encouraging harvest of the little guys is important.
I have zero problem keeping little bass. |
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Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | cut their gils and put em on ice before you clean em ... |
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Location: Hayward, WI | Have certainly seen an increase in largemouth on many waters in WI. I haven't done extensive research on the topic, but some. Bass like to eat and can be hard on certain aspects of a lake. One thing they are excellent at for sure is keeping panfish numbers in check. A lake that has a pretty high population of largemouth bass usually has a "good" (not overpopulated) or lower population of bigger than average panfish. This is something I started looking for when searching out new panfish lakes to ice fish.
I do think they can be hard on walleyes. Walleyes also do a great job of keeping panfish populations in check, and I think the bass just out compete walleyes when it comes to feeding. Perhaps they are eating walleye fry too - not sure but it would seem likely. Again, bass like to eat.
Here's my take on it. Some guys really like to bass fish, and I can see why. They are usually pretty agreeable, hit a wide variety of baits, fight well, jump, can get big enough to be fun. So, manage the bass/panfish lakes to have good bass populations, and manage the lakes that have historically been walleye/musky lakes for that. I think it's hard to have good populations of all of them in a lake (especially bass and walleyes). We don't need to go over the top and clean them out of WI entirely, but SOME lakes should go on a mission to get as many bass out as possible.
Historically, we had good lakes for bass, and good lakes for walleye. We should try to manage it to keep it that way. As it is, many lakes are just turning into bass lakes and it's tough to find a very solid walleye lake anymore.
P.S. I haven't kept many bass lately but I used to, especially in the winter. I think on the lakes I can, I'll start going back to keeping some of the smaller ones.
Tucker |
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