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Posts: 54
Location: Madison wi | anyone ever caught any skis out of Delevan?? I know they have been stocking them for a long time, but you don't hear much about them. Ive lived 10 minutes from Delevan Lake my whole life and been hitting it pretty hard the last 5 or so years and only seen 2 musky. Ive caught what feels like a million pike , even a few really nice pike over 40 inches. Ive had several 30+ fish days on Delevan..... all pike. The Abundance of pike has to play a role in the muskies not thriving right? What is going wrong, and what needs to be done to improve Delevan lake as a musky fishery??? The limit on pike is 1 per person 32 inch limit. Doesn't that seem high when you can catch a hundred 28" pike in a day. And the stocking efforts in Geneva have been yielding great results, with lots of fish being caught this year. Tons of bass fisherman catching 40+ inch muskies on accident on Geneva. And if im not mistaken the limit for muskies on Geneva is only 38" (I could be wrong). So the Geneva fish are growing super fast! if anyone has any info on the Delevan lake musky situation please speak up. Please feel free pm me with any advice for catching my fish Delevan ski
Edited by billy bucher 12/21/2014 10:54 PM
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Posts: 20219
Location: oswego, il | That is it, Delavan has a ton of pike, nice ones too. If anything increase the size limit because it can produce trophy pike and bass. They should take those muskies and stock a different lake in southern Wisconsin.
Edited by ToddM 12/22/2014 9:30 AM
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Posts: 1283
| I only know of one ski out of Delavan this year in the the low to mid 30s. Millions of nice pike and bass though. I just dont think the muskies can compete with all the pike and big bass. |
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Posts: 123
| There are for sure fish over fifty inches in there. Someone caught a really fat fifty incher a couple of years back. Try at night there my buddy fishes at night and uses a spotlight and has seen some nice fish cruising the weedllines. Give it a try and catch a big one. Don't let people cnvince you it sucks because it's not easy Musky fishing. |
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Posts: 123
| Convince****. |
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Posts: 123
| There is hevy boat traffic. |
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Posts: 305
Location: Illinois | I've heard for years how Delevan is an up and coming musky fishery because of the stocking. Unfortunately catch rates remain very small. Meanwhile just down the street, a bigger lake was recently stocked and people seem to be encountering musky pretty often already. I say forget stocking Delevan as well, and keep stocking muskies in lakes that show more promise. |
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Posts: 688
Location: Northern IL | Billy,
I've been fishing Delavan for some time now catching as many as 450 pike in a single year. My records indicate about 100 pike for every Muskie. Last season we landed 2 muskies, in 2013 2 others including a 40" & 48".
When we first started there were a lot of pike of all sizes but they have progressively gotten smaller over the years in average size which could help to improved a muskie population.
http://muskie.outdoorsfirst.com/board/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=21... |
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Posts: 270
Location: SE WISCONSIN | I agree the pike seem to have been on the smaller side. but on a side note I have been catching a lot more small mouth bass there. |
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Posts: 153
| I bow fish on Delavan lake at night in the summer time because its close to home I live 15 minutes from Delavan lake and I have seen some giants cruising the weed lines at night while shooting carp and suckers it could be a good musky fishery but they I don't think have stocked it for a couple years lake Geneva could be a awesome musky fishery lots of bait and a wide variety of forage such as trout and pan fish and yes carp make it a good opportunity to try and create a awesome musky fishery add in the fact that it is also a big body of water and has lots of structure and vegetation and bingo I hope they continue their efforts with both bodies of water that way than I can just take my boat to work and be on the water chasing musky's in 15 minutes |
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Posts: 54
Location: Madison wi | As many of you have said, delevan is a fantastic pike and bass fishery. Ive caught lots of bass over 5lbs even a 6lb 1oz this spring. Ive caught many nice bass on top raiders and mr. Automatic glide bait while "musky fishing" on delevan. Lots and lots and lots of pike, two of them over 40inches. Although as a few of you have said, the size of the pike has been down lthe last couple years. Biggest pike ive caught this year was only 36.5in. A couple summers ago i used to work as a baot launch attendent, my boss was the grumpy old man steve (any of you delevan locals will know who im talking about). While working i would see plenty of musky guys launching. Quite a fw of them claimed to have caught skis out of delevan. But of coures no pics...... Does anyone have any pics of skis that have been caught out of delevan? I know of a 45lb 51 incher that was caught from shore on a jig and minnow about 5 years ago http://www.chicagolandfishing.com/forums/60-wisconsin/61882-delavan... If anyone has any pics of delevan lake skis please share
Edited by billy bucher 12/30/2014 10:54 AM
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Location: Contrarian Island | dnr put 4100 large fingerlings in 2011, 1000 in 2013... lots in the years before that... lake "should" be good... |
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Posts: 84
| Maybe if Delavan had a slot size of 32inch and smaller to keep pike and return any pike bigger than that to keep the spawners and trophy's in the lake and liberal slot size for LMB the stocked muskies would stand a better chance, and stock larger size Muskie say 20inch or bigger size then maybe after a few years the muskies would start showing up and would be bigger. I like many others catch a lot of 30 inch pike and smaller but not many bigger than that. I like to keep smaller pike but release the larger ones and all muskies. |
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Posts: 153
| sjb42 - 1/3/2015 4:45 PM
Maybe if Delavan had a slot size of 32inch and smaller to keep pike and return any pike bigger than that to keep the spawners and trophy's in the lake and liberal slot size for LMB the stocked muskies would stand a better chance, and stock larger size Muskie say 20inch or bigger size then maybe after a few years the muskies would start showing up and would be bigger. I like many others catch a lot of 30 inch pike and smaller but not many bigger than that. I like to keep smaller pike but release the larger ones and all muskies.
I agree we need to make a slot limit to get rid of some of the smaller pike and give muskies a better chance |
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Posts: 54
Location: Madison wi | Agreed!
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Posts: 153
| I think we need to make it you are allowed 2 pike that are 26 inches or smaller a day and 1 over 35 per day 35 inch pike is a very nice pike |
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Posts: 54
Location: Madison wi | I think delevan needs a slot limit on pike. Where only fish between 26"-30" can be kept. A person can catch litterally 50 pike in a day all around the 28" inch range. Ive caught litterally 100's of pike under 30 inches this year. Id say less than a dozen of them being legal in size (which is 32" on delevan) the average size of pike has gone down drastically in the last few years. Lowering the limit on pike will help increase the average size, aswell as help the musky population. |
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Posts: 54
Location: Madison wi | Anpther delevan lake question.......
Do you guys think its safe to assume the mature muskies in the lake will be up in the Jackson creek inlet trying to spawn in the spring? There is a small dam a couple miles up the creek, im wondering if the muskies make a run up the creek in early spring similer to the lake monona muskies at the wingra dam on the madison chain. Also, has anyone ever tried to get a boat up there? Ive been multi species fishing this lake for years but never tried to venture up the creek
Thanks again to anyone who has responed to this thread! |
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Posts: 1036
| Safe to assume? I'd say yes. A resounding yes. I haven't been on Delavan in about 4 years, but if you are out there, get up by that dam and look around. That would be cool to check out. If there is a population in the lake, that area should draw them in during the spring. |
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Delevan lake