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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | After many weeks of discussion, Muskies Inc.'s executive committee voted to craft and release a position statement regarding the conservation threat to fragile muskie populations Forward Facing Sonar poses. Read it HERE!
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Posts: 16
| The charter guides, tournament fisherman, and sponsored content creators make up the majority of the use cases of this technology. Their very income depends on continually producing reliable fishing. And i'm fairly certain none of them are going to be terribly concerned about the "ethical use" of said technology if it means they are outperformed by their competitors by not using it to the utmost.
I guess i'm not really certain about what the "ethical use" is of what amounts to radar in a game that heavily revolves around instinct and guesswork. This technology removes the need of any of that. The fish lose no matter what. | |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | If the public widely rejects the content resulting from the practice because it's achieved in an unethical manner, social pressure can be a very powerful thing. I have very little respect or admiration for any big muskie caught sharpshooting. I look at that the same as high-fence deer hunting. | |
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Posts: 320
| sworrall - 5/17/2024 5:26 PM
If the public widely rejects the content resulting from the practice because it's achieved in an unethical manner, social pressure can be a very powerful thing. I have very little respect or admiration for any big muskie caught sharpshooting. I look at that the same as high-fence deer hunting.
I agree except it is more like high fence deer hunting using thermal imaging from a helicopter. | |
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Posts: 267
| Howdy,
I agree with Steve and think that this is a great first step in defining the responsible use of a technology that is not going away. Obviously this point has been beaten to death on this site but I applaud MI for taking a balanced position.
Take care,
Ruddiger | |
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Location: Athens, Ohio | I hope that when MI "formulates it's stance" that they will consider exceptions for use of the technology for valid research projects. Some fish may need to be 'targeted' for various studies, and this is certainly more of a valuable tool than what I've seen by using PIT trackers. m | |
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Posts: 119
| I think someone, somewhere, once may have lied about the lure/color/location that caught their giant Musky. So they will lie, and stick the big fish in our faces, and there will be nothing we can do about it but bicker and disapprove.
As for me, I'll float on a log with a leafy branch for a paddle, use fish intestine line and rock hooks so that other anglers don't think I'm ethically challenged.
Let's go back to dacron, paper graph, Pikie lures and wood rowboat so we can ethically jab an 8/0 hook in a Musky face. Anything else is gauche.
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Posts: 1291
Location: Hayward, Wisconsin | Very well written/said! Muskie's, Inc. in the forefront as they have been since the advent of Catch and Release in the 70's. | |
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Posts: 2024
| Kill and eat crappie with FFS OK, but Catch more muskies and release them ("possibly" kill them in the process) not OK.
I can't get over how we're asking people to not catch as many fish... I think the people using it will drop their membership, if they already were members. Ban guiding on lakes instead. They're free loading off of our fisheries moneys.
BTW, who makes up this so called Muskies inc Executive Committee? Are they biologists, other scientists, or other muskie nuts put on a board by their fishing buddies? Most importantly, are a majority of them from WI? How did they get into their positions of deciding what is OK for the species? Until the DNRs in MN, KY, and IL release their rules an regs on it, I'll just grab my popcorn. Does MI have a youth representation on the committee? Or, is it bunch of Boomers than can hardly operate a computer?
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| Interesting comment about the crappies. On today's episode of Water & Woods, Rob Manthei is guiding Gillespie on St. Germain area lakes. They start fishing for walleye and switch to crappies on another lake. There they show images from live scope and watch the crappie move in and out of the weeds. Manthei talks about how they used to have to keep moving to find where the crappies had gone, now they can see on the screen.
The caught a lot but were not keeping any that day, for whatever reason. | |
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Posts: 20
| As a young MI member (under 30) I appreciate the statement. I think there are a number of young anglers that feel similarly from what I heard on the most recent Spot Burn Podcast episode put out by Musky Fool.
Personally, I don't see how new technologies such as FFS provides any benefit outside of initial increased catch rates for early adopters that ultimately becomes neutralized when the technology becomes ubiquitous. The early adopters will move onto the next new thing, but the net result is increased angler efficacy that puts pressure on an increasingly threatened resource.
If we don't want to limit electronics whatsoever, then maybe the state DNRs can cut out the electronics companies entirely and just put GSP trackers in every musky they stock or net and sell live tracking data through an app to the public. You still have to "get the fish to eat" but you don't have to waste time casting aimlessly or learning fish habits and biology. I recognize this is a bit hyperbolic but I don't see how future iterations of fish locating technology will not be akin to this. | |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | ARmuskyaddict - 5/18/2024 11:10 AM Kill and eat crappie with FFS OK (where di I say that? This ain't a crappie board ), but Catch more muskies and release them "possibly" kill them in the process not OK. ( Catching 'more' is not the obvious issue, it's HOW more will be caught) I can't get over how we're asking people to not catch as many fish... I think the people using it will drop their membership, if they already were members. Ban guiding on lakes instead. They're free loading off of our fisheries moneys. ( strongly disagree) BTW, who makes up this so called Muskies inc Executive Committee? Are they biologists, other scientists, or other muskie nuts put on a board by their fishing buddies? Most importantly, are a majority of them from WI? How did they get into their positions of deciding what is OK for the species? Until the DNRs in MN, KY, and IL release their rules an regs on it, I'll just grab my popcorn. Does MI have a youth representation on the committee? Or, is it bunch of Boomers than can hardly operate a computer?--- OK, a lot to unwrap there.
Stepping out of OFM Co-Owner and into Muskies Inc VP of Communications and marketing:
Muskies Inc has been here for decades working with fisheries managers, biologists, etc. We are a conservation related organization recognized as one of the first to suggest Catch and Release as a conservation ethic. The Executive Committee represents all the Chapters through out the country, and no, the Chapters are certainly not all in Wisconsin. Region 1 represents the West, Region 2 represents North Central, Region 3 the East, and Region 4 South Central for over 50 active Chapters. Collectively, the Chapters are responsible for an amazing amount of stocking efforts and funding. The EC is all volunteer, includes Regional Representatives from various Chapters, and various members as the other officers on the Board. We meet once a month via computer/phone. It is our responsibility to represent the Chapters and unaffiliated members. We publish a magazine sent to all members, a monthly newsletter to all Chapter Presidents and interested parties, and our very popular calendar (fund raiser). I'm VP Communications and marketing and from what I know most of us are very capable around computer tech. Anyone is welcome to attend our meetings. OUR ORGANIZATION Muskies, Inc. is an Active, Service-Oriented, 501 (c ) (3 ) Non-Profit Organization for men, women and children. Founded in 1966 by Gil Hamm, the original group of thirteen avid Muskie Fisherman concentrated on continual improvement of the Muskie Resource through rearing and stocking efforts, and sound conservation practices. Today, Departments Of Natural Resources have realized the value of stocking Muskies. There are thirty-seven of the lower forty-eight states with active Muskie stocking programs. Muskies, Inc. has expanded to over 6,000 Members and 50 independent Local Chapters throughout the country. We have become a national voice of the protection of the Muskie species. Muskies, Inc. is widely recognized as the first organized group of anglers to espouse the “Catch And Release” practice now embraced by many conservation minded groups throughout North America. Today Muskies, Inc. focuses on three critical areas: Youth, Fisheries, And Research. FISHERIES – Muskies, Inc. works to conserve, protect and restore North America’s Muskie Fisheries. Areas of concern include habitat preservation, water quality, water management policies, and the development/maintaining of self-sustaining fish populations. RESEARCH – Muskies, Inc. continues to seek out Elevate And Fund Research for local projects and activities that involve improving Muskie fisheries. YOUTH – Muskies, Inc. provides guidelines and suggestions for quality programs and activities to educate our young members and, where possible, youth in general to ensure the future of the fishery. - To support selected conservation practices based on scientific merit and carried out by authorized federal and state agencies;(position statement regarding FFS Included)
- To promote muskellunge research;
- To establish hatcheries and rearing ponds and introduce the species into suitable waters;
- To support the abatement of water pollution;
- To maintain records of habits, growth, and range of species;
- To disseminate muskellunge information;
- To promote good fellowship and sportsmanship among men, women and children;
- To promote a high quality muskellunge sport fishery
We also operate the Lunge Log.The Lunge Log is a standardized
voluntary reporting system through which members of Muskies, Inc. register Muskies they catch
and by doing so may participate in an annual Members Only Fishing Contest (MOFC). Muskies
must be 30 inches or longer. The Lunge Log serves as a valuable resource to our members,
fisheries, scientists and managers who work with muskies. We also provide umbrella insurance for our Chapters for events, tournaments, etc. I'm sure I am forgetting other activities and accomplishments and hope this clarifies what MI does.
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | mikie - 5/18/2024 9:00 AM
I hope that when MI "formulates it's stance" that they will consider exceptions for use of the technology for valid research projects. Some fish may need to be 'targeted' for various studies, and this is certainly more of a valuable tool than what I've seen by using PIT trackers. m
Obviously, agreed, and I am certain they will. | |
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Posts: 1398
Location: Brighton CO. | I am a ex Muskie INC International Board Member and yes it was a lot of years ago however I was not on the Executive Committee. Back then I knew a few of the guy's on the committee, One who was the International President was a ex Colorado Division Of Wildlife Commissioner (he was responsible for getting Tigers Stocked in Colorado) one was a food salesmen, one was Highway Patrolmen, School Board Executive, trucking company dispatcher to name a few. All these guy's knew how to get things done and who to talk to get things done. and yes they were fishermen. Guides teach people how to fish and keeps the ball rolling for the next generation of fishermen and helps some older folks say on the water. | |
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Posts: 386
Location: SW Ohio | Surprised they listed side scan but not down scan. Both are nothing more than a snap shot of what was there, similar to 2D. Does not mean they are still there. Fish move. LS shows them moving and where they are going. Huge difference. SS, DS and 360 have been out for years and are accepted technologies. It took LS to get everyone up in arms. Majority of all fishing boats have some sort of sonar system, and some are better at using it than others.
If MI determines that I'm an unethical fisherman because I use SS, should I continue supporting them? Will they continue to take my "tainted" money? Condemn me for using using technology but badger me for membership fees and donations? Hmmm, a bit of a conundrum for both of us, and not an easy one to answer. I think they are thin ice and should tread lightly. I don't have LS, nor do I plan on installing it anytime soon if ever, but I will continue to use SS, DS and 2D. If that makes me "bad" then I guess I'll be a "bad" fisherman. Not just due to my low catch rate but due to what electronics I have in my boat. | |
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Posts: 2024
| Steve,
Thanks for the comprehensive summary. I am all for MI, I'm just playing devil's advocate with my ramble before. Although, the Boomer part was probably true... Personally, I think FFS/LS can be a great detriment to muskies; especially when used in ways we know will likely lead to harm of the fishery/fisheries. However, when the June open water trolling bite on Vermilion started gaining popularity in 2013, people said the fish will all be harmed. The sky never fell on that one though. The open water trolling bite is always there too. I got a fat 46 incher on July 26th, 2020 over 40 fow. FFS/LS shows us the guys preaching Buck Perry's spoon-plugging ideas were right. Trolling fish can't be targeted based on depth. At least with FFS/LS, education can help people select 20 ft as their depth limit. How does that get enforced though? Or, is it just another thing muskie fanatics have to gripe to others about? Along with proper release tools etc.. Yes, FFS/LS is similar high fence hunting, in respect to fair chase. The difference is we're no longer putting a 22 though the muskies head, and they have a decent chance to swim off.
xcskier had a great point about the youth. The sport is dead in areas requiring stocking if recruitment of new fishermen and women is not achieved. Muskies suck, a book was written about it. We love them though. I, for one, will hop in a friend's boat to see what it's all about this summer. I bet I end up drinking too much beer, or smoke up a bit, because I'll get bored really fast. I like the hunt and can still cast all day. That may be frustrating when it's slow, but not boring. However, I'm 53 with a fully developed frontal lobe. Young people need more stimulation, and if seeing them on the screen to cast at helps get their blood racing so that they continue to fish, the sport will benefit in the long run.
Regardless of MI's conclusion, DNRs are the only governing bodies. I doubt they adopt any regs that would results in a decrease of people getting out and fishing.
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | OH Musky - 5/18/2024 3:41 PM
Surprised they listed side scan but not down scan. Both are nothing more than a snap shot of what was there, similar to 2D. Does not mean they are still there. Fish move. LS shows them moving and where they are going. Huge difference. SS, DS and 360 have been out for years and are accepted technologies. It took LS to get everyone up in arms. Majority of all fishing boats have some sort of sonar system, and some are better at using it than others.
If MI determines that I'm an unethical fisherman because I use SS, should I continue supporting them? Will they continue to take my "tainted" money? Condemn me for using using technology but badger me for membership fees and donations? Hmmm, a bit of a conundrum for both of us, and not an easy one to answer. I think they are thin ice and should tread lightly. I don't have LS, nor do I plan on installing it anytime soon if ever, but I will continue to use SS, DS and 2D. If that makes me "bad" then I guess I'll be a "bad" fisherman. Not just due to my low catch rate but due to what electronics I have in my boat.
"If MI determines that I'm an unethical fisherman because I use SS"---- What?
MI didn't say, insinuate, or indicate using FFS makes anyone a 'bad person.' I own the tech and use it all the time on one screen for really good boat control. I can admit to keeping my boat in a better position than before the tech arrived; seeing exactly where the weedline, rock edge, or other structural elements are is a plus. No one is dissing the tech, it is what it is and it's here to stay. We are, as a conservation-based organization, encouraging it to be used with conservation in mind. Sharpshooters drive around with the spotter running the sonar until they spot a fish, stop and then harass it, while the spotter stares at the sonar and an angler casts or jigs until they give up or it hits. I won't apologize for calling that practice out as less than fair chase. We received similar comments when we fought hard for the catch-and-release ethic.
'DNRs are the only governing bodies. I doubt they adopt any regs that would results in a decrease of people getting out and fishing.' Agreed, never said they would. In fact, I'm certain they will not.
I fish with a number of young folks each season, and have yet to have one give two hoots about my 4 sonar display.
As I said before, it isn't using the tech, it's HOW the tech is used.
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Posts: 386
Location: SW Ohio | My comments were based on MI’s article and this:
“Sharpshooting,” the practice of using live view, 360, or side scan to target individual muskie, should be considered unethical.”
Everyone using sonar targeting individual fish whether it be jigging using 2D or finding them with side scan over a sand bar is, therefore, unethical. We are all guilty of it if we use sonar to locate and target fish. Doesn’t matter the type. But that is the whole purpose of using sonar. Locate and target them. I have dozens of pics for side scan showing fish, several that I’ve caught, most never eat.
Like I said, it is a conundrum for both MI and its members.
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Location: Chisholm, MN | A great first step. Thanks Steve | |
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Posts: 618
Location: Bloomington, MN | I've never been in a boat with one. I guess I could afford to get one, but I will never fish a tournament again because of FFS even if I get 2 and learn how to use them. The gosh darn dialed in locals was my previous excuse. I do not hold much pride in my fishing accomplishments for the large fish I have caught in the Northwest Territories. Anyone can catch them, they are stupid. This year our guide on Great Slave will have the FFS Garmin, so I'm interested in the results with stupid hungry fish. I still enjoy mindlessly drifting a weed line/rockpile for the elusive muskellunge with high hopes. | |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | ---“Sharpshooting,” the practice of using live view, 360, or side scan to target individual muskie, should be considered unethical.”
Everyone using sonar targeting individual fish whether it be jigging using 2D or finding them with side scan over a sand bar is, therefore, unethical. We are all guilty of it if we use sonar to locate and target fish. Doesn’t matter the type. But that is the whole purpose of using sonar. Locate and target them. I have dozens of pics for side scan showing fish, several that I’ve caught, most never eat. ----
I have Mega 360, Mega Side Imaging, and Mega Live on my rigs. Using that tech for boat control, structure ID, fish ID while fishing a breakline (which most who have the tech do) is a far cry from driving around scanning, picking out a fish on SI or 360, dropping in the FFS, zeroing in on and chasing the fish about until one gives up or the fish hits-- removing all elements fair chase. I use 2D all the time and compared to sharpshooting (read the description of the tactic above) it's not even in the same universe. You keep painting this with a broad brush disregarding the statement intent. Once again, it's not using the tech, it's HOW the tech is used. Not a conundrum at all. The keyword is SHARPSHOOTING, not the tech. | |
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Posts: 639
Location: Duluth | Very good statement from Steve and MI.
Appreciate the time and effort you have put into the sport. | |
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| Sorry Steve, I have a difficult time making a clear distinction there. First year I had my SI, took a break from casting weed line, etc., deciding to criss cross the lake, looking for bait balls. Found one in middle of the lake, with what appeared to be a musky lurking nearby. I rigged a rod with a crankbait and began making passes near the bait ball. On the third pass, hooked and boated a nice musky, which I believe was the one I saw earlier. Yes, the live scope would be clearer, easier to see, etc., but is it really that different than what I did with SI? | |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | North of 8 - 5/19/2024 9:44 AM
Sorry Steve, I have a difficult time making a clear distinction there. First year I had my SI, took a break from casting weed line, etc., deciding to criss cross the lake, looking for bait balls. Found one in middle of the lake, with what appeared to be a musky lurking nearby. I rigged a rod with a crankbait and began making passes near the bait ball. On the third pass, hooked and boated a nice musky, which I believe was the one I saw earlier. Yes, the live scope would be clearer, easier to see, etc., but is it really that different than what I did with SI?
You knew the muskie was in the area but didn't have a sonar lock on it tracking it as you cast to it chasing it around, and you also were not using another person as your spotter. There are multiple comments that many muskies spotted on SI do not hit. Cool. Maybe we should leave them there instead of dropping in the FFS and harassing them endlessly. Believe me, cast placement with FFS is laser accurate, not so much with SI. However, if you are good enough with SI to find, lock on, and harrass a fish, ask yourself if that's sporting and fair chase.
When I installed my first FFS I tried using it on crappies and was able to track, pursue, and catch every single crappie in a school I found on a crib. I have never used it that way again, and won't. Fair chase that was not. | |
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| Ok, that is a good explanation of the difference. Not having used the FFS, not aware of all the capabilities. | |
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Posts: 355
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | I think the statement is perfect.
A statement such as this provides guides and lodges guidance an ethical justification to take a strong position on the use of this tech with their clients and guests. The same can be said of the social media end of things, tournaments.
Not sure how anyone can take umbrage with an ethical stance of Muskies Inc. - ethics are not regulated in any way other than peer pressure and personal shame. Many folks consider fishing for fun to be unethical, so we are all on the wrong side of someone's ethical line. This line just provides guidance as to what the educated musky community thinks is in the best interest of musky fisheries everywhere.
The justification for such an ethical stance with muskies is actually both a conservation and fishing quality issue ultimately. Muskies are not as bright or enigmatic as we like to think they are, it has always been about trying to find them. "Sharpshooting" in all its forms using the electronic capabilities we have now and what is about to be developed reduces musky fishing to simply teasing them to bite. If that sort of fishing turns your crank, so be it - but the problem is sharpshooting ultimately ruins it for everyone else - in the same way keeping muskies in the past did. Sharpshooting is unstainable.
Thanks to everyone that spent time developing this stance. I look forward to providing this information to the lodge that my musky partners and I frequent - the lodge owner asks us about it every time we visit.
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/19/2024 4:05 PM
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Posts: 159
| ARmuskyaddict - 5/18/2024 11:10 AM
Kill and eat crappie with FFS OK, but Catch more muskies and release them ("possibly" kill them in the process) not OK.
That doesn't make any sense. Crappies and sunfish are generally not being released with this technology, especially in the winter during ice fishing. Muskies are being released. Most of us that specifically target muskies are very good about handling and doing it properly so the fish survives.
Panfish are the species on the losing end of this and its not even close. Constant, year round pressure and targeted by meat hunters. Bag limits are going to have to come down on them soon. | |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | There are new laser sights and after-dark scopes for hunting rifles, too. Those actually ended up being against the law to hunt with in most states. I OWN the FFS tech and will choose not to be a sharpshooter. What you choose is up to you, but MI saw the need to raise the subject for discussion.
There's a member who has registered over 90 fish already this year. | |
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Posts: 66
| While I do think limits will need to be adjusted -- I don't see how being able to catch more fish efficiently is inherently bad. A lot of people only have limited time to be on the water and if this helps them to enjoy it more, great. If you want more youth involved, this seems to be a good way to do it. Telling a kid, "hey we coulda caught more but wasn't it it more fun to catch nothing but do it the old school way?" I also think if you have the technology on your boat then you're supporting the use of it. You can't say you only support it "in these specific circumstances." There will always be people who abuse the system no matter what the technology is. If you want to use it and it's legal, you shouldn't be "shamed." | |
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| For people who disagree with a "fair chase" ethic in musky fishing, do you believe that C&R and good handling practices can maintain the resource no matter how effective musky anglers are? If you do believe this then I can understand not liking to be told the "right way" to fish. However, I personally believe that even with C&R and improved handling practices there is still a limit on what the fish can take before there are negative consequences on the health of the musky population as a whole. I'd rather fish for healthy muskies with limited technology than an unhealthy population with limitless technology, especially since I don't see the latter scenario as sustainable anyways.
I'd also disagree with people asserting this statement from MI is an attack on younger anglers. As an angler in my late 20s, I find a higher percentage of younger anglers receptive to limitations on technology to protect or maintain a resource than the older generation, who tends to view any limitation/regulation as an attack on their rights. I think this sentiment in general has driven the popularity of fly fishing for muskies, and, analogously, bowhunting for deer with the younger crowd, who recognize there is some value and sense of accomplishment in how you do something, not just the end result. Of course, there are older anglers that don't like any new technology and younger anglers that readily accept and are naturally inclined to take advantage of modern technology too. In any case, people should not be demeaned for using legal methods of fishing, which I don't believe the MI statement does anyways.
Edited by xcskier_hunter 5/20/2024 11:38 AM
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| gimruis - 5/20/2024 8:49 AM
ARmuskyaddict - 5/18/2024 11:10 AM
Kill and eat crappie with FFS OK, but Catch more muskies and release them ("possibly" kill them in the process) not OK.
That doesn't make any sense. Crappies and sunfish are generally not being released with this technology, especially in the winter during ice fishing. Muskies are being released. Most of us that specifically target muskies are very good about handling and doing it properly so the fish survives.
Panfish are the species on the losing end of this and its not even close. Constant, year round pressure and targeted by meat hunters. Bag limits are going to have to come down on them soon.
While not statewide, in WI a number of lakes have seen a bag limit reduction on panfish. The chain I live on has had that for 7 years now. The "meat" fishermen that used to hit the crappies hard in late winter no longer show up. They would fill a five gallon bucket with 6 inch crappies and did it with just regular flashers. | |
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Posts: 355
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Shooting ducks on the water, turkeys out of trees, pushing deer out of tiny bluffs or shooting over a bait pile (in Sask) lobbing an arrow into an elk at 70 yds... Sharpshooting muskies. All legal (here).
Ethical? For many folks and for sure for myself, not at all.
Legal does not equal ethical.
Do the deer, turkeys, ducks, elk care how they are harvested or wounded? Nope. Dead or wounded ethically or unethically is irrelevant to them.
It ultimately is a "fair chase" issue. One has to dig deep and consider why you are out in the woods or water to begin with.
If you are pro-sharpshooting you are allowed to go do it. If you are feeling queasy about going and doing it because it just doesn't feel right and/or that you know that others disapprove of it - then this step by MI is achieving what it is meant to do.
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/20/2024 12:31 PM
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Location: Contrarian Island | while ffs will never be outlawed I do hope the tactic of sharp shooting is illegal at some point in the near future... with stocking #s basically everywhere going down, and pressure only increasing I don't see ffs as a good thing .... I have also debated with friends for a long time it is over the line in my opinion of what is considered fair chase... | |
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| Some guys won't ever get the fair chase thing. From where I sit, sharp shooting just doesn't seem like it would be much fun. Muskies are easy to catch. There just aren't many of them. Not knowing if you'll catch one, or even see one is a big part of why a lot of us fish for them. You actually feel like you accomplished something when you get one to eat. FFS? Not so much... | |
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Posts: 108
| I look at the debate on FFS extremely similar to the debate when Vexilar unveiled its new ice fishing sonar and color changing flashers. Everyone thought that the fishery was doomed. How many would go ice fishing for panfish today without some sort of electronics technology? I am not sure I would. I get it, panfish and muskies are not comparable due to population, but the point is, the sky didn't fall when everyone thought it would.
The thing I don't understand is why it's so important for people to have to pick a side on FFS? What difference in your life does it really make how/if someone else is using it? If it is a legal piece of equipment to use, then I feel people are entitled to use it as they see fit and how it works for them. I own FFS and I use it for ice fishing, Panfish, walleyes, and I use it in the fall when sucker fishing muskies to know if there is a fish behind my suckers. I do not "Sharpshoot" as that is not fishing, from my perspective. If someone else chooses to use the technology to "sharpshoot", I guess that is their option, but I personally am not going to get upset by it. Why should "I" feel I have to choose how someone else enjoys their time on the water if they are within the law??
If Livesope is proven to have a negative effect on Muskie populations, make the effort to ban or boycott it out of existence like was more or less done with single hook sucker rigs. Let's have the DNR start to monitor the technology and its effects on different fish species and make logical conclusions based on actual evidence and data. Until then, I think many of us should watch our own bobber.
Brett Waldera
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Posts: 527
Location: NW WI | Brett- How would you study it accurately? I spose some lakes could be glassed and recorded as to how many anglers are actively pursuing muskies with FFS, and than compare that data with fish populations and monitor it over years to see how extensive the impact may or may not be. But I'm pretty sure Kirby can already attest to that data on V. Or, the DNR could go out sharpshooting themselves and record their catches and tag the caught fish to record delayed mortality while also contrasting their catch rate to creel survey data to form a figure as to what the "increased catch is".
Separately, almost sounds to me that in the future, as a happy medium...We all may be discussing something like "Catch limits". 3 fish per person netted a day, and your done. I can see the clickbait titles already. "WE CAUGHT OUR LIMIT IN THE FIRST HOUR!".
Edited by 7.62xJay 5/21/2024 8:54 AM
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Location: WI | I learned about CPR watching Simply Fishing on PBS when I got home from school. Bob always told me to do it at the end of the episode and I did. Education on the negative impacts of sharpshooting by groups like MI as well as visible leaders in the fishing community is the right approach. | |
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| North of 8 - 5/20/2024 11:30 AM
gimruis - 5/20/2024 8:49 AM
ARmuskyaddict - 5/18/2024 11:10 AM
Kill and eat crappie with FFS OK, but Catch more muskies and release them ("possibly" kill them in the process) not OK.
That doesn't make any sense. Crappies and sunfish are generally not being released with this technology, especially in the winter during ice fishing. Muskies are being released. Most of us that specifically target muskies are very good about handling and doing it properly so the fish survives.
Panfish are the species on the losing end of this and its not even close. Constant, year round pressure and targeted by meat hunters. Bag limits are going to have to come down on them soon.
While not statewide, in WI a number of lakes have seen a bag limit reduction on panfish. The chain I live on has had that for 7 years now. The "meat" fishermen that used to hit the crappies hard in late winter no longer show up. They would fill a five gallon bucket with 6 inch crappies and did it with just regular flashers.
Yes, there will be more of this coming in the future. I could see many of them becoming C & R only too.
My parents fish on a statewide amateur walleye circuit and a few teams are completely mopping up because they have multiple FFS/live sonar units. The rest of the circuit cannot compete unless they fork over 15 grand to upgrade. Its taking the fun out of it. This is not a pro circuit where sponsors pay for the gear either. | |
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| I agree it would be tough to conduct, even more difficult to convince anglers of the results one way or the other.
I don't think anyone can argue that FFS does not increase angler efficacy based on how it's been employed in fishing tournaments, looking at PMTT and particularly the major bass tours (not to mention crappie tournaments). You'd undoubtedly be severely handicapped to not have FFS while competing against those with it. Sure, there may be specific scenarios where it's useless but those seem be less common as the technology improves.
The next logical question is whether these increased increased angler efficacy negatively impact the musky population. I think once could argue that even with perfect handling and C&R there is some mortality, meaning anything that any increase in catch rate will hurt the population. But another argument would be that the fish will just adapt over time to the technology. To answer the question on whether the musky population has declined or just adapted with a scientific study is a bit more tricky because many musky populations are already on a downslide, so what'd you be trying to figure out is whether FFS increases the rate of decline. This is exacerbated by the fact that muskies in places like northern WI live 20+ years, so the time-scale of the study to definitively prove the negative effects of FFS might be so long that if FFS is proven to be negative it may be so entrenched that it's difficult to eliminate. This is why many states preemptively banned drones for hunting, rather than waiting for studies to determine their effect. I also doubt that Alaska used studies to determine that hunting on the same day that you fly in was negatively impacting populations.
One interesting way to study the effect of electronics in general would be take a set of lakes and designate some as electronics free and others with no limit on electronics and to compare catch rates and other population health metrics over time. This on its own would yield interesting data but what I'd also be interested to see is what would happen if the designations were then reversed. How would anglers with no electronics fare on waters that previously did limit them versus anglers using electronics on waters where they have been limited for an extended time period? If the relative success rates between the two groups remained the same then that'd be good evidence that FFS is not having a negative effect. However, population health metrics may be a more telling result to eliminate the initial performance bump any new tool provides before the fish have become conditioned. | |
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Posts: 613
Location: Michigan | “Fair Chase” is a concept that hunters have long promoted. This is a practice in that the hunter does not take game with an unfair advantage over the game animal. The same concept applies to muskie fishing.
Fair/unfair is always difficult to deal with as it's subjective to the person. One could argue having a 50k boat, 10 rod/reel combos, multiple graphs, GPS, internet information, etc already make it wildly unfair to the fish. | |
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| When you have a rifle and the animal doesn't, I'm pretty sure that's unfair already. I guess you could say certain ways are more "sporting" than others. | |
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| Boone and Crocket's principles of fair chase are interesting to look at and consider how they relate to technology in fishing (not necessarily just FFS): https://www.boone-crockett.org/principles-fair-chase
Some particular points of particular interest are:
"Defines 'unfair advantage' as when the game (fish) does not have a reasonable chance to escape". This is definitely a gray area as Jason rightly points out and may also depend on the ability of the angler.
"Measures success not in the quantity of game taken, but by the quality of the chase". Something I personally believe in and I'd suspect most musky fishermen believe in, since there are many fish that are far easier to catch than muskies.
"Embraces the 'No guarantees' nature of hunting (fishing)". If musky fishing was simple, would muskies be as prized as they are today?
"Uses technology in a way that does not diminish the importance of developing skills as a hunter (fisherman) or reduces hunting (fishing) to just shooting". Probably the most relevant point in regards to technology like FFS.
I think it's also important to point out the idea of "fair chase" is more of an ethic than a strict definition, and it was born out of a need to protect and recover game species that had been decimated by unregulated market hunting. By applying a fair chase ethic, it's possible for a larger number of people to participate an activity such as regulated hunting or fishing without harming the resource, creating user group that can ultimately advocate on the behalf of that resource in a mutualistic relationship.
Edited by xcskier_hunter 5/21/2024 2:17 PM
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Location: Duluth | Most the people I have talked to in person since the MI statement have responded something like this, "Well I don't think the way I use the tech is unfair." Which cool, but I think they are missing the point.
If it's available, it will be abused until there are real consequences. Or the new crowd wins and all of us outdated folks can move to a "purer" pursuit until we die. The future is not bright if the overall attitude is "I know it's a problem, but I'm not the problem." | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | 'I get it, panfish and muskies are not comparable due to population, but the point is, the sky didn't fall when everyone thought it would.'
I have seen ice fishing since the advent of sophisticated sonar literally strip entire year classes of fish from some of the lakes I fish. In one case the lake was totally ruined with very few predator fish left and all the pannies severely stunted. I'm betting the 'lake by lake' moves to limit panfish and predator fish harvest will become a thing on most lakes. Most of our muskie lakes are put and take, and stocking is already looking tough for many. It's already happened with strong support on some muskie waters by placing the size limit so high the likelihood of a harvested fish is statistically insignificant.
In the not-so-distant future I see a number of put-and-take lakes not getting much if any stocking, and the lakes that do taking on the pressure. I'm a glass-half-full guy and am still concerned. Muskies are crazy expensive to raise and stock, and the money and will just ain't there.
One more time....the issue is not the tech. It's sharpshooting by the definition provided earlier, which prompted the MI statement. We were quite aware some would react with -you can't tell me what to do'- and decided that was a good thing, as opposing opinions spark debate. | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | The position and rationale is spot on.
Saved this anecdote and thought a good time to tell as doves into Steve's.
I've seen some trophy pike fisheries decline rapidly - and never recover. In fact my musky partner and I always reminisce about a particular lake where a member of our group caught two 48" 30+ pound pike in an hour (back in the 90s). These were ice fishing fish. Power ice augers just started being popular, big baits were hard to come by.
We ruined it. We told a friend. Which was okay, but...
He told a friend, and then a friend of a friend. From one truck, to 10 trucks, the next year 20. A couple years later, you would be lucky to get a flag.
We for sure harmed some pike and kept a some small ones to boot - but not as bad as some of the other folks that didn't know what they were doing. Many just lost fish with whatever hooks and line they were using. Others were bonked by some folks who wanted to mount them or eat them - it was allowed then.
We though hmm, probably okay. Pike are resilient. Those big girls will be fine. Pike grow fast.
But they don't.
30 years on and we hope, but there is far too much educated pressure now. Probably some decent pike in there, but the run of good years we had are never to return. Whatever the equilibrium was with those big predators became unbalanced by their mortality.
We learned a lot from that. (xcskier_hunter - we were your age then - fyi).
It is one reason why we have a none over 75 cm rule in Manitoba today. My friend told this story to the biologists he managed and probably the minister when getting this reg signed off on. It's a good reg. It also allowed us to justify having an additional spring season opportunity.
Equilibrium unbalanced... Recovery is not something that it is going to come quick, if at all. I'm not willing to gamble with our musky fishery, and I'm not willing to have others gamble with it either. For what?
Thanks again to Muskies Inc. for taking this position.
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/21/2024 6:40 PM
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| I still don't really understand the argument here? Why is catching a muskie via sharpshooting any different that catching it by other means? To me this just seems to be splitting hairs. Muskie are sportfish and there are regulations in most states to protect the populations, and 95+% of the angler's fishing deliberately for muskies now practice C&R. So the argument is we shouldn't catch more fish? How do Guides, Tackle Manufacturers, Resorts, Retailers, and others who make a living in the fish catching industry feel about this argument?
Who causes more delayed mortality, the guide who handles 200+ fish a season or the guy sharpshooting with livescope who handles 40?
I am not saying I am in support of sharpshooting muskies, and I choose to not to fish for them that way, but I just don't understand why everyone thinks it's so important to pick a side on the topic at this point. I really seems like more of a jealousy type of thing to me. Joe Blow has an unfair advantage because he uses more technology than I do and he catches more fish. Where do you draw the line? Is it fair chase to fish for muskie trolling in OH with 6 lines? In MN I am allowed one line is all.
FFS is here to stay and we all have a choice to use it or not, and to use it how we see fit. If the argument about FFS is someone else might catch too many fish...I am not sure I understand that argument? I will bet that MEGA Side imaging puts more muskies in the boat for the average muskie angler than FFS. When do we start to worry about that?
Brett Waldera
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Location: Brighton CO. | There have been windows of great fishing over the years, but you name it over fishing, habitat loss, tons of different things as the saying goes "North gets farther North every year" And the smaller the body the more impact. There are too many of us and the more people the more regulation and it can't keep up. Do you remember in the 90's "the good ole days are now" Things are taking down turn now. | |
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Location: Athens, Ohio | Steve Goodman (God rest him!) had a song that said, "Besides the looking -for you know the finding's always tame, and the treasure's not in the taking, it's the loving of the game!" Think about that. m | |
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| I think sharpshooting is a target because it's a new technology that has opened the door to completely new tactics when most fisheries are already struggling. Personally, I'm just as irritated by pushes to legalize 3 line motor trolling where it's not currently legal in WI. I'd be less concerned by an angler sharp shooting from a kayak than someone motor trolling with 3 lines on a 500 acre lake in Vilas County. However, precedence tends to be given to traditional techniques versus new ones unless an older technique is proven to be clearly harmful (see single hook sucker rigs).
I also agree that the more muskies someone handles, the more fish will die, all else equal. However, do we prefer a world where musky fishermen are so effective that they feel obligated to not fish once they've landed x number of fish or one where the resource is thriving and the fishing challenging enough that people don't need to self limit and can fish as much as they want? I know many people do self limit or at least attempt to spread out their pressure but if FFS continues to improve without limits then muskie fishing may become a sport where you drive around lake to lake and only make casts to 45"+ fish to avoid going over some socially acceptable C&R limit. I also can't stand the argument that people with less time to fish than others should not need to limit themselves as everyone has their priorities in life. I probably hunt more than I musky fish and I'm often hunting when I could be musky fishing, but that does not mean I feel as if I should be entitled to use more effective fishing methods to make up for my lack of fishing time compared to others that fish more than me.
I think many guides would prefer there to be no sharpshooting (or FFS in general) from what I've seen. Probably not those that utilize it as their main tactic but any dumbing down of the sport is a negative for guides. Tackle manufacturers ought to be concerned too, as in bass fishing FFS has led to a reduction in the number of lures anglers use, with the priority placed on lures that are visible to the FFS. Search type baits are also less valuable as the FFS does the searching. In general, it's also in the fishing industry's best long term interest to have a thriving musky population and as many anglers to sell to as possible, not tools that dumb down the sport to where a single tactic dominates.
Regarding whether FFS is here to stay, I'd tend to agree but we have seen states like Arizona ban trail cameras after they saw how problematic they were on water holes. There were so many trail cameras and human activity associated with the trail cameras that many deer were limited to nighttime drinking. Thus, I could see state DNRs imposing limits on electronics if they could demonstrate it makes open water inhospitable to muskies (and other fish) or if musky fishing devolves into constant harassment of fish until they finally eat.
Edited by xcskier_hunter 5/22/2024 9:33 AM
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Brett, you don't have to pick a side. But if you are not for sharpshooting then you have picked one, you are just a bit more ambivalent than some of us.
I recommend you go through the threads including the one on PMTT that is in the deleted section. Plenty of info and links to videos covering topics on the why FFS it a line too far (yes, the other stuff, GPS everything, SI, brought us right up to it).
The "tragedy of the commons" argument has been brought up several times. A link to an article a quickly found about it here:
https://www.perc.org/1996/09/01/community-run-fisheries-avoiding-the...
The "against" crowd and now Muskies Inc has come to the conclusion that it is in the best interest of all of us musky fishers that we refrain from "sharpshooting," in all its forms. FFS is clearly a frontrunner as far as efficiency goes, but certainly one could use megaside, or even down-imaging in deeper scenarios and effectively do the same thing, but not as effectively as FFS with the immediate feedback.
In the previous threads we covered a lot of the ecology aspects, mortality, we have real personal observations and anecdotes of catches and of dead fish - ultimately these factors lead me and obviously others to the conclusion that we must invoke the precautionary principle with regards to "sharpshooting," whereby we instill a conservation ethic in our community to protect our musky fisheries, both in quality (size) and quantity, from irreparable harm despite the lack of scientific certainly.
There is no need to conduct a direct study: we have catch mortality rates for musky fishing in general, and plenty of information as to how effective and efficient sharpshooting using FFS on muskies and other species is. It is only going to get more efficient and ubiquitous over time. The math is clear. Do consider have far we have come in such a short time - this tech and tech that we haven't even conceived of is only going to get more effective in making things easier.
I think your point about guides is correct, they do catch a lot and have a good read on the waters they fish. If you listen to the musky podcasts (ie Backlash, Ugly Pike are two I listen to regularly) you will hear that most guides are against it. They are caught up in the "tragedy of commons" scenario where if the other guy is doing it, well I better do it too. This Muskies Inc statement will give them an "out" to get out of it. They need to get together and decide as a group to get off the FFS train.
No one is jealous of these kids coming up using this stuff. On the contrary, we try not to make them feel bad when we regale how we grew up in 80s and 90s.
Thanks for taking the time to bring up those points.
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/22/2024 11:38 AM
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Location: Contrarian Island | A guy who I know and trust told me about a guide in MN that has 3 units on his boat, he doesn't even put the trolling motor down, he drives around with the big motor in open water, spots muskies and has his clients cast at them . They caught one that was 20 or 30 feet down and it died. The guide "released it" ie, torpedo'd it down, the guy I know went over and tried to revive it..they are not sure if it lived..it was a big one. That is just one case where sharp shooting is having a very negative effect on the resource, a public resource, with limited #s of fish going in, if every guy drives around and jigs or casts at fish 20 to 40 feet down a higher % will die.. why should we care Brett.. ? I think this example is a good one.. do you care if guys are killing muskies by such tactics on the waters you fish? I would hope so.. most guys don't fish for muskies in mid to late summer when the water is 85 .. why? well we are trying to do our part to help the resource... I know guides on places like Vermilion that is all some do in June.. if we leave them alone in 85 degree water, why isn't the same being done not to drop a tube on their head when they are 40 feet down in the summer? | |
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Location: oswego, il | I heard an interesting comparison between FFS and bedfishing. The difference being you can see the fish on the bed. Based on what I've seen so far, fish will adapt to it. I've seen boats by me sit on schools, whip around and stay with them like a cheetah on a gazelle until no more bite and they search for another school. I've seen sharpshooters on 200 acre lakes up north musky fishing. It's been said you still have to make them bite but the feedback to make that happen is so much better.
Edited by ToddM 5/22/2024 11:21 AM
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| I have no problem with people doing it with fish high in the water column. Shouldn't be targeting ones sitting deep though. Just asking for trouble.
My favorite FFS use case is just having it in while casting structure. I see a lot more follows than I used to by just glancing at the screen. Often times they won't come all the way to the boat. Gives me confidence in spots without seeing the fish with my eyes. | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | To my point, it is only going to get worse.
https://youtu.be/7lW4OL90KO8?si=PafMvytjMcMW7olj&t=351 | |
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Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | BNelson - 5/22/2024 11:09 AM
A guy who I know and trust told me about a guide in MN that has 3 units on his boat, he doesn't even put the trolling motor down, he drives around with the big motor in open water, spots muskies and has his clients cast at them . They caught one that was 20 or 30 feet down and it died. The guide "released it" ie, torpedo'd it down, the guy I know went over and tried to revive it..they are not sure if it lived..it was a big one. That is just one case where sharp shooting is having a very negative effect on the resource, a public resource, with limited #s of fish going in, if every guy drives around and jigs or casts at fish 20 to 40 feet down a higher % will die.. why should we care Brett.. ? I think this example is a good one.. do you care if guys are killing muskies by such tactics on the waters you fish? I would hope so.. most guys don't fish for muskies in mid to late summer when the water is 85 .. why? well we are trying to do our part to help the resource... I know guides on places like Vermilion that is all some do in June.. if we leave them alone in 85 degree water, why isn't the same being done not to drop a tube on their head when they are 40 feet down in the summer?
That guide is a d o uch ba g, I thik we can all agree.
Honest question from someone who doesn't know: how pervasive is "sharp shooting". Is this something hundreds of anglers are doing, or a couple dozen? Not syaing bad isn't bad, but how widespread is this?
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Location: Contrarian Island | I think it will only get worse, while I do think it is done by a small % now. all the youtuber younger guys will see the guide noted above videos and want to go do that. FFS is fairly new, it's expansive overall but more and more will get it and more and more will abuse it. With the technology only going to get better and better it is just not a good thing for musky fisheries as a whole imo. Open water use to be a place that muskies could to some degree, hide, from the constant barage of lures, now it is the place that they are most susceptible to Sharp shooting... | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | BNelson - 5/22/2024 11:09 AM
A guy who I know and trust told me about a guide in MN that has 3 units on his boat, he doesn't even put the trolling motor down, he drives around with the big motor in open water, spots muskies and has his clients cast at them . They caught one that was 20 or 30 feet down and it died. The guide "released it" ie, torpedo'd it down, the guy I know went over and tried to revive it..they are not sure if it lived..it was a big one. That is just one case where sharp shooting is having a very negative effect on the resource, a public resource, with limited #s of fish going in, if every guy drives around and jigs or casts at fish 20 to 40 feet down a higher % will die.. why should we care Brett.. ? I think this example is a good one.. do you care if guys are killing muskies by such tactics on the waters you fish? I would hope so.. most guys don't fish for muskies in mid to late summer when the water is 85 .. why? well we are trying to do our part to help the resource... I know guides on places like Vermilion that is all some do in June.. if we leave them alone in 85 degree water, why isn't the same being done not to drop a tube on their head when they are 40 feet down in the summer?
Perfectly legal at the time and "unfortunate."
Inappropriate and unacceptable now.
I think we will look back at this Muskies Inc. statement down the road as a very wise position and ahead of other groups who will follow this lead.
Now need the Muskie Inc. no sharpshooting t-shirts, hats and boat wrap...
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/22/2024 1:03 PM
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| Some very good points brought up here and I agree with many of them. I do think the "guide" sharpshooting fish is an exception and not the majority. Thank goodness!! I think that is an extreme example to most respectable muskie anglers would not cross provided the technology or not. I don't think you need to regulate to the least common denominator, but more accordingly to the masses.
My position on this topic has been "Devil's Advocate". I am all about preserving our resources and I have been a Muskies Inc President for longer than 17-years. I have been on the forefront of creating new fisheries in MN, and generating increased stocking efforts in existing fisheries. I have fought anti-muskie groups such as "No More Muskies" and a guy who single handedly derailed the 20-year MN Muskie Program. I am about conservation and propagation of the muskie species.
I am making the comments and points that I am because just because the FFS technology exists, doesn't mean its the most detrimental thing out there today. GPS, Lake Maps, and MEGA Side Imaging all take up their place too. I would be pretty confident in the stance that GPS and Lake Chips kill more muskies by delayed mortality than FFS does. Think about that for a minute and what that technology has done to increase the amount of catches and handling on lakes like LOTW.
I believe if this is a worth taking a stance on...so are plenty other topics that add to delayed mortality. Some of them have been brought up above this post.
Brett Waldera
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Location: Chisholm, MN | Brett, the problem to me is that the DNR regulations, stocking and fishing pressure could "almost" keep up with technology before FFS. It was going downhill before FFS though. Now with FFS the species cannot keep up with how they are being managed. We have been seeing a decline in catches without the use of FFS and we will continue to do so until it's not fun anymore unless something changes. You maybe don't see that in your area as much because for some reason your lakes receive special attention from the DNR for stocking. Other places, not so much and it's noticeable. | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Thanks again, Brett.
The GPS (spot-lock) trolling motor by far the most useful innovation, and really the rest sort of piggyback onto it. Anchor in heavy current or waves? Jog this way, jog that way, record a route, follow a contour. No problem.
Yes, catch rates increased due to all these things and fishing made a lot easier. Increased catch rates equals additive mortality. But you are underestimating the efficiency potential of FFS and the potential damage I think. The scenario BNelson described is not unique at all. I've seen this where I'm fishing and Kirby is definitely seeing it where he is:
https://www.worldfishingnetwork.com/show/jimmy-houston-outdoors/vide...
This looks to be in comfortable conditions all around and good time to be filming (if you get my drift). Serious guys who are looking to get the one they want (by catching lots) are doing what serious guys do.
So there is the pool of muskies out in these open water scenarios - some of them are the classic structure fish out for a feed temporarily, some are pelagic all the time. Either way the mortality is additive to all the other fishing mortality that you describe, and unlike the structure based fish, they can't hide. You don't need to take a break, just keep driving. "There's one." No one is tired, no one needs a nap. Relentless. "Too small, let's keep looking."
"Hey, there is a mongo." "Try the bulldawg." "Try the tube." "Try a Bondy." "Maybe downsize." "It's going that way, let's get in front of it."
I've watched it. It is appalling.
There is a huge gap between sharpshooting with FFS and everything else.
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/22/2024 2:41 PM
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| Let's advocate for guides not being able to use it. Licensed guides have rules and regs they have to follow. After all, they fish way more than us, and are free-loading off the rest of our meager contributions to the muskie's part of the DNR funds. General tax moneys they pay do not go to muskies. | |
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| This is the best video i've seen that show the impact of FFS. It shows an excellent bass guide Josh Jones who chases huge bass with FFS. In this video he unwraps a new musky rod, unboxes a new musky reel, opens up a couple of new musky lures, puts new line on the reel. He uses FFS to locate a big musky and casts at it. He catches 3 50 inch muskies in 2 hours.
https://youtu.be/56Bkq0txu0o?si=FCJ_68zVhu755C8v
Edited by PaulB 5/22/2024 3:34 PM
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | ^^ Yup. So take a couple muskie guys who are on vacation and decide to keep going and extrapolate in that same scenario - and they don't tell anyone but the lodge owner (after a few Crown and Cokes probably). Those are the numbers that really got my attention as to the unsustainability of FFS.
Why I would want an open water refuge up here
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/22/2024 3:32 PM
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Location: Chisholm, MN | Angling Oracle - 5/22/2024 3:28 PM
^^ Yup. So take a couple muskie guys who are on vacation and decide to keep going and extrapolate in that same scenario - and they don't tell anyone but the lodge owner (after a few Crown and Cokes probably). Those are the numbers that really got my attention as to the unsustainability of FFS.
Why I would want an open water refuge up here
Doesn't even have to be muskie guys either. Just any kid with a scope. They are so desperate for a glory shot that they will pick up a floater and pose with it trying to pass it for a live fish. I've seen it. Now they can just scope 3 50's in 2 hours, and probably create a few floaters. | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Kirby Budrow - 5/22/2024 3:49 PM
Angling Oracle - 5/22/2024 3:28 PM
^^ Yup. So take a couple muskie guys who are on vacation and decide to keep going and extrapolate in that same scenario - and they don't tell anyone but the lodge owner (after a few Crown and Cokes probably). Those are the numbers that really got my attention as to the unsustainability of FFS.
Why I would want an open water refuge up here
Doesn't even have to be muskie guys either. Just any kid with a scope. They are so desperate for a glory shot that they will pick up a floater and pose with it trying to pass it for a live fish. I've seen it. Now they can just scope 3 50's in 2 hours, and probably create a few floaters.
The 20 cent leader at 3:12. Uhm... The shop should have helped him a bit more on that front.
In any event one can imagine there would be an increase in mortalities simply from neophyte handling and break-offs (there already is from targeting other species, but now we are talking actually targeting muskies using inadequate gear). | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | ARmuskyaddict - 5/22/2024 2:33 PM
Let's advocate for guides not being able to use it. Licensed guides have rules and regs they have to follow. After all, they fish way more than us, and are free-loading off the rest of our meager contributions to the muskie's part of the DNR funds. General tax moneys they pay do not go to muskies.
As far as taxes go, they are liable for the same taxes as anyone else. I fail to see how guiding is freeloading; it's work and a service other folks who don't have the gear, time, or whatever to pursue the sport on their own are willing to pay for, but I'm guessing you are just being 'unpleasant' on that one.
I'm back guiding this year after a few years off due to illness, but very little for muskie anymore, there's more work in multi-species. Guides here pay a license fee each year. I'll have to report guiding income and pay fed and state taxes like anyone else.
Much of our DNR funding comes from hunting and fishing licenses. With the dwindling number of hunters, I believe that the budget was forecast to have a 16 million dollar shortfall.
I think the MI statement covers what you are suggesting. | |
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| Not an FFS related statement, but Steve's statement about DNR funding and licenses reminds me of something I think needs to be fixed. In WI, the license for seniors like me is $7. Has been for years. I get that many seniors are on a fixed income but $7?
When I buy my license online, I always make a donation to the DNR Go Wild fund but given the huge number of us old farts fishing in WI, why not make it at least $15 and give the fisheries folks additional funds? My state rep's office said there has been push back when they discuss raising license rates. My response was that they should do what is right, not what the complainers want. I don't know if $7 would pay to stock one extended growth musky fingerling.
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Location: Contrarian Island | on the license thing. Todd Berge from the Capitol City Muskies inc got a question on this years spring hearings to increase the license fee from $20 to $30. It has been $20 since 2004 which is crazy when all we hear about at the DNR is budget cuts and the license fee hasn't been raised in 20 yrs?? | |
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| BNelson - 5/23/2024 12:00 PM
on the license thing. Todd Berge from the Capitol City Muskies inc got a question on this years spring hearings to increase the license fee from $20 to $30. It has been $20 since 2004 which is crazy when all we hear about at the DNR is budget cuts and the license fee hasn't been raised in 20 yrs??
I talked to a warden about this last year. He said fishermen even bring it up with him, how the fee should be increased. Not something as a state employee he can advocate for but he thought it interesting that fishermen bring it up unprompted. I have written both my state Rep and Senator. Response was basically, blah, blah, blah. | |
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Location: Roscoe IL | id like to see a muskie stamp, like there are trout or salmon. That way we have a dedicated pool of money for muskie stocking, and not just a line item on the DNR budget. Its the state fish. I live in illinios but do 98% of my fishing in wisconsin, id have no problem paying for a fishing license and a stamp, if the stamp money went directly to muskie. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | The WIDNR says that if a stamp-type program was implemented, the revenue would simply replace the amount spent now. No gain, unfortunately. | |
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Location: Roscoe IL | steve, but dont they use general funds on trout as well? i know most of the habitat improvement is from stamps though.
i
as far as livescope goes. I have it, and use it, but i wont sharp shoot or chase a fish around with it. Its a tool, and like anything else, it can be misused if the person doesnt have integrity. I havent seen it increase my catches over just using side imaging, but it has let me know that ive had follows where i didnt see the fish. | |
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| ILESOX, you don't know the WI legislature. Our gas tax didn't get raised for almost 2 decades. Now the legislature is bragging about all the road building going on, ignoring the fact that almost all is from the federal infrastructure bill. I do think that if we had a musky stamp, the legislature, as currently composed, would simply cut general funds to DNR by a similar amount. They won't even approve DNR secretary nominees. | |
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| Doug Wegner added his thoughts to this whole thing. Interesting watch/listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbtSteE2zpI | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba |
He did a very good job on covering a lot of the points we have touched on throughout these threads. | |
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Location: WV | thank god for muskies inc. | |
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Location: Michigan | So I'm more on the side of 'pro' FFS and think it's ridiculous states are possibly trying to ban it, but I definitely think this isn't fishing.
https://youtu.be/dmXb2sJe_Pk?si=Q2eWKCOCWIAVKTd2 | |
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Location: Contrarian Island | But thats how it is and will be used. Fair chase is not in some peoples ethics. | |
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| Couldn't you have used a different example than the Home Town Hereos Event. There's a lot to see if you look. The event is for Vets and First Responders. Come on man! | |
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Location: Michigan | Top H20 - 5/29/2024 11:58 PM
Couldn't you have used a different example than the Home Town Hereos Event. There's a lot to see if you look. The event is for Vets and First Responders. Come on man!
It was just a suggested video on my youtube feed which I happened to watch. I didn't search for 'FFS Videos' or anything, it just happened to be there. | |
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Posts: 2015
| The problem is fair chase is defined different by every sportsman, and ultimately it comes down to is it legal? Lots of things that are legal I’ll never do…you choose if you want to participate. I guess you can choose to look down on others that do legally what you would never do … to each there own. I really don’t care if ffs is used, I just won’t not why I muskie fish
1) you can shoot deer at 700 yards with a high power or worse yet over a bait pile is some states, give me a bow and time to pattern one animal
2) you can shoot pheasants with rifles 200 yards away (In some states), why? I want my dogs and a 20 gauge
3). You can muskie fish with suckers, I don’t know I’ve caught over a 1000 never used one never will.
If you don’t like the legal way you CAN chase a fish or animal ..all you can do is not participate | |
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Location: WI | BNelson - 5/29/2024 9:52 PM
But thats how it is and will be used. Fair chase is not in some peoples ethics.
Would abiding by a ban be in these same people’s ethics? | |
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| It was a poor choice to prove your point. I was a guide boat at the event, some of the Vets were disabled, one was fighting cancer and were unable to spend time casting.
It will happen again in July. FWIW, I do not have FFS in my boat. Thank you for giving the event exposure even if in a left handed way. | |
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| Top H20 - 5/30/2024 7:24 AM
It was a poor choice to prove your point. I was a guide boat at the event, some of the Vets were disabled, one was fighting cancer and were unable to spend time casting.
It will happen again in July. FWIW, I do not have FFS in my boat. Thank you for giving the event exposure even if in a left handed way.
Not a comment on FFS, just wanted to thank you for helping out at the event. | |
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Location: Michigan | Top H20 - 5/30/2024 8:24 AM
It was a poor choice to prove your point. I was a guide boat at the event, some of the Vets were disabled, one was fighting cancer and were unable to spend time casting.
It will happen again in July. FWIW, I do not have FFS in my boat. Thank you for giving the event exposure even if in a left handed way.
Dude, relax. It was nothing against the event, just a random example that happened to pop up in my youtube feed. | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | IAJustin - 5/30/2024 6:31 AM
The problem is fair chase is defined different by every sportsman, and ultimately it comes down to is it legal? Lots of things that are legal I’ll never do…you choose if you want to participate. I guess you can choose to look down on others that do legally what you would never do … to each there own. I really don’t care if ffs is used, I just won’t not why I muskie fish
1) you can shoot deer at 700 yards with a high power or worse yet over a bait pile is some states, give me a bow and time to pattern one animal
2) you can shoot pheasants with rifles 200 yards away (In some states), why? I want my dogs and a 20 gauge
3). You can muskie fish with suckers, I don’t know I’ve caught over a 1000 never used one never will.
If you don’t like the legal way you CAN chase a fish or animal ..all you can do is not participate
The "legal" way anything is decided by folks participating and deciding what is legal and what is not. The choice is not binary, do or don't do, it is if you don't like something get involved and do something about it.
The issue with muskies is that fishing with FFS is unsustainable given the trajectory of participants/users and the continued evolution of this and complementary technoglogies. The hunting analogies may be equivalent in terms of ethics, but with hunting it is not an issue with sustainability given there are limits/tag allocations. With muskies, once the populations are f'd (which they will be on the current trajectory), there is no short term solution. I don't think there is a short or long term solution in native fisheries given that my personal belief is in allopatric systems the muskies themselves manage their competitors (pike) and the large females that may targeted/susceptible in the sharpshooting scenario are probably the most important segment maintaining the population. They need a refuge.
The sooner folks have the epiphany that we need to put the kibosh on using FFS on muskies, sharpshooting them in all its forms, the more likely will be to head off a result that is unpredictable. Stocking is not and never will be a solution to this problem.
If anyone thinks walleye-centric biologists, managers are going to rescue muskie fisheries, they are delusional. I'm not saying that the don't care, they don't have the time, money or energy to be able to care.
We need to all agree the we need to protect these deep/open water fish. The Muskies Inc. statement I would say is the first step, but probably not the last in this process.
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/30/2024 10:24 AM
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| I don’t agree, so I guess we don’t all agree. Ban all fish finders then , I hated side image , before this refused to buy it. I hate that manufactures made TSS and guys try shooting turkeys at 70 yards… people have pounded open water V fish for years before this… a caught muskie comes down to handling and guess what in many systems every large fish is getting caught annually many times multiple times before FFS…. Teach good handling it’s not going away | |
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| I still don't understand why we think muskie fishing with FFS is "unsustainable" to the population. People are not targeting muskies for harvest. The muskie crowd is arguably the most devoted group of C & R anglers out there. Fish are taken care of and released with upmost care.
Sitting there with a big sucker is much worse for a fish. Even with a quick strike rig. Ban live bait instead for muskies. | |
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Location: Contrarian Island | the tactic of 'sharpshooting' for muskies very well could be illegal in the not so distant future. Other tactics are banned for example snagging fish is. While FFS is not going away maybe some regulations will be put in place in the future. I do agree with Angling Oracle that the sustainability of many fisheries comes into question with how much 'easier' they will be to catch . with a very small % of guys using it now overall I don't see things getting better for the sport because of it... musky fishing should be a challenge and not just driving around spotting one and casting at it. maybe I'm just old now and think that time on the water should be how a guy learns to catch muskies, not a video game? | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | gimruis - 5/30/2024 10:29 AM
I still don't understand why we think muskie fishing with FFS is "unsustainable" to the population. People are not targeting muskies for harvest. The muskie crowd is arguably the most devoted group of C & R anglers out there. Fish are taken care of and released with upmost care.
Sitting there with a big sucker is much worse for a fish. Even with a quick strike rig. Ban live bait instead for muskies.
The is from: Gord Pyzer, Outdoor Canada (in case the link doesn't work down your way.
"If we could reduce the handling mortality of big muskies, like this beauty being released by Lake of the Woods guide, Darcy Cox, by only four percent we would increase the muskie population by a staggering 70-percent
Crossman and Casselman were also able to show that the benefits of returning large muskies unharmed to the water resulted in an increase in the mean length of the fish, which was precisely the news that muskie anglers wanted to hear.
But the cleithrum study also showed something else.
The scientists calculated muskellunge mortality rates and compared them to the maximum age, to see if the age of the trophy fish had changed over time. And they found that that the maximum age of muskies may be decreasing. In fact, they believed that the maximum age of the fish may have decreased by 2 years—from 23 to 21 years of age—during the study period.
Now, the difference of a couple of years may not sound significant. But remember that fish spawn throughout their lives, the biggest muskies lay more eggs than the smaller fish, and that the mammoth muskellunge nearly always result from the very largest year classes.
When we view it in this context, Casselman and Crossman concluded that we would need a 70 percent increase in annual recruitment to ensure the same number of fish reach their maximum age and thus, maximum trophy size.
Now, let me read your mind.
I bet you’re wondering, if 99-percent of muskies are being released, how could the age of the oldest, trophy size fish be decreasing?
Two likely reasons: the ranks of the muskie fraternity are swelling at the same time that our knowledge base is better than ever before. There are quite simply more of us muskie anglers, we’re better skilled, better equipped and we’re catching more fish. And, while we’re putting them back, catch-and-release only works if the fish survive.
Or, to put it the way good my friend and legendary muskie angler, Dick Pearson puts it: ego kills.
Take a look at any social media site these days and you know what he means.
Gotta’ give Dick credit, too, for walking the talk. He wrote the amazing, Muskies on the Shield, one of the most comprehensive “how to” books on muskie fishing, but if you recall the front cover, it doesn’t feature an angler holding a muskie as you would suspect, but rather a beautiful Lake of the Woods sunset. I know, because I took the photo and gave it to Dick.
He has caught more big muskies than almost any angler on the planet, and yet, almost every time I call him for a photo to illustrate a feature on which I am working and have interviewed him, he tells me he doesn’t have any. Like I said, Pearson walks the talk. He keeps his fish in the water at all times, and handles them exactly like what they are: the proverbial geese that lay the golden eggs.
And if we all did the same thing this fall, and for the rest of our muskie fishing careers, and in the process reduced the handling mortality of the oldest and biggest fish by just four per cent, we would initiate the same effect as if we had increased the annual recruitment of muskies by a staggering 70 per cent.
Let’s give Casselman and Crossman the last word on the subject: “The largest trophy muskellunge in the population are usually the oldest individuals. The largest year classes produce the greatest number of old individuals; hence, extremely large year classes are required to produce the largest, oldest trophy muskellunge. If catch-and-release methods can be improved to reduce mortality, they would have the same effect as increasing recruitment and would help maintain year-class strength, longevity, and the size and number of trophy fish in the population.”"
We don't need anymore information, studies, nothing. It is already figured out by folks who have done the legwork.
CPR is all fine and dandy, but more fish caught equals more dead fish, especially in the open/deep water scenarios and with more ill-equipped anglers just out for the ego shots. | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | gimruis - 5/30/2024 10:29 AM
I still don't understand why we think muskie fishing with FFS is "unsustainable" to the population. People are not targeting muskies for harvest. The muskie crowd is arguably the most devoted group of C & R anglers out there. Fish are taken care of and released with upmost care.
Sitting there with a big sucker is much worse for a fish. Even with a quick strike rig. Ban live bait instead for muskies.
The is from: Gord Pyzer, Outdoor Canada (in case the link doesn't work down your way.
https://www.outdoorcanada.ca/wanna-double-the-population-of-mammoth-...
"If we could reduce the handling mortality of big muskies, like this beauty being released by Lake of the Woods guide, Darcy Cox, by only four percent we would increase the muskie population by a staggering 70-percent
Crossman and Casselman were also able to show that the benefits of returning large muskies unharmed to the water resulted in an increase in the mean length of the fish, which was precisely the news that muskie anglers wanted to hear.
But the cleithrum study also showed something else.
The scientists calculated muskellunge mortality rates and compared them to the maximum age, to see if the age of the trophy fish had changed over time. And they found that that the maximum age of muskies may be decreasing. In fact, they believed that the maximum age of the fish may have decreased by 2 years—from 23 to 21 years of age—during the study period.
Now, the difference of a couple of years may not sound significant. But remember that fish spawn throughout their lives, the biggest muskies lay more eggs than the smaller fish, and that the mammoth muskellunge nearly always result from the very largest year classes.
When we view it in this context, Casselman and Crossman concluded that we would need a 70 percent increase in annual recruitment to ensure the same number of fish reach their maximum age and thus, maximum trophy size.
Now, let me read your mind.
I bet you’re wondering, if 99-percent of muskies are being released, how could the age of the oldest, trophy size fish be decreasing?
Two likely reasons: the ranks of the muskie fraternity are swelling at the same time that our knowledge base is better than ever before. There are quite simply more of us muskie anglers, we’re better skilled, better equipped and we’re catching more fish. And, while we’re putting them back, catch-and-release only works if the fish survive.
Or, to put it the way good my friend and legendary muskie angler, Dick Pearson puts it: ego kills.
Take a look at any social media site these days and you know what he means.
Gotta’ give Dick credit, too, for walking the talk. He wrote the amazing, Muskies on the Shield, one of the most comprehensive “how to” books on muskie fishing, but if you recall the front cover, it doesn’t feature an angler holding a muskie as you would suspect, but rather a beautiful Lake of the Woods sunset. I know, because I took the photo and gave it to Dick.
He has caught more big muskies than almost any angler on the planet, and yet, almost every time I call him for a photo to illustrate a feature on which I am working and have interviewed him, he tells me he doesn’t have any. Like I said, Pearson walks the talk. He keeps his fish in the water at all times, and handles them exactly like what they are: the proverbial geese that lay the golden eggs.
And if we all did the same thing this fall, and for the rest of our muskie fishing careers, and in the process reduced the handling mortality of the oldest and biggest fish by just four per cent, we would initiate the same effect as if we had increased the annual recruitment of muskies by a staggering 70 per cent.
Let’s give Casselman and Crossman the last word on the subject: “The largest trophy muskellunge in the population are usually the oldest individuals. The largest year classes produce the greatest number of old individuals; hence, extremely large year classes are required to produce the largest, oldest trophy muskellunge. If catch-and-release methods can be improved to reduce mortality, they would have the same effect as increasing recruitment and would help maintain year-class strength, longevity, and the size and number of trophy fish in the population.” - GORD PYZER.
AO: We don't need anymore information, studies, nothing. It is already figured out by folks who have done the legwork.
CPR is all fine and dandy, but more fish caught equals more dead fish, especially in the open/deep water scenarios and with more ill-equipped anglers just out for the ego shots.
I believe FFS should be banned and not going to give quarter on that because it is only going to get better and thus exacerbate the problem more rapidly.
The "no sharpshooting' statement by Muskies Inc. is a good start.
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/30/2024 10:56 AM
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Posts: 2015
| Correct, please push Canada for an October only season, I promise you less muskie will get caught! Or we should all limit ourselves to only catch 2 or 3 muskies per year, that should help a lot too! | |
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Posts: 267
| Howdy,
To Pyzer’s point, and to reiterate what I said in the other FFS thread this spring, simply going to a mandatory barbless hook regulation for all fish would have a significant impact on improving fishing for the better.
Take care,
Ruddiger | |
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| gimruis - 5/30/2024 11:29 AM
I still don't understand why we think muskie fishing with FFS is "unsustainable" to the population. People are not targeting muskies for harvest. The muskie crowd is arguably the most devoted group of C & R anglers out there. Fish are taken care of and released with upmost care.
Sitting there with a big sucker is much worse for a fish. Even with a quick strike rig. Ban live bait instead for muskies.
there are three issues at hand here:
-wealth inequality of modern times
-legal vs moral standpoints
-the effect on the fishery
issue one:
the growing disparity in current generation's ability to procure their own assets is an increasingly severe problem. can you fish without underwater optics? absolutely. can you fish without a watercraft? absolutely. can you reliably pursue one of the most complex and elusive freshwater species on the planet effectively without them? herein lies the moral standpoint.
issue two:
many people have a knee jerk response to possible legislative pursuits towards underwater optics. this is understandable, as the judges and politicians may not hear, understand, and ultimately interpret the intent in a way that is truly beneficial to the fishery.
the moral/ethical standpoint is the gray area in which we currently stand. I can't tell you or anyone else how to interpret your way of fishing on public water as one way or another. I don't think it's a stretch to say that many people may not share my own perspective on what is considered fair chase - in fact, the very concept of "fair chase" may not be a concept at all to some on the water.
there is a juxtaposition at play here: the nature of the "hunt" for this species, and the increasingly effective technology at which to find them. notice how the concept of fair chase remains an entirely moral choice - the fish could not comment, and while some anglers may refrain from muddying the 'sanctity' of their pursuit, others may not concern themselves with the idea at all and simply pursue them as effectively as modern technology allows.
which leads to the third point:
there is simply no way for anybody on any side of this technology to say that an increase in fish handling will NOT increase the rate of fish mortality.
there is simply no way for anybody on any side of this technology to say that underwater optics do NOT increase the amount of fish found, and therefore handled, and therefore increase the mortality rate.
the truth about the fish itself? the mystery, the difficulty, the enigma? the truth is that they're just another apex predator. there aren't as many of them and they don't feed mechanically. at the end of the day they are just another fish. some will be smarter than others and remain in areas that are overlooked or out of reach and remain uncaught - until somebody finally throws something in its face enough times that it responds. some are more aggressive than others and will readily bite presentations in their radius, and will be found with increasing presence via underwater optics, and subsequently handled more than they already were. we now find ourselves back at the initial statement of this third point.
I do not think it is a stretch to say the above is already happening whether it is noticed or not. You don't have to get into the legality of the technology to see that the increasingly effective use of said technology will inevitably poison the entire fishery, for everybody involved whether they use it or not. barbless hooks and state of the art c&r techniques will not change this outcome.
at the end of the day, this is a question of how much are we willing to impose ourselves on an increasingly closed system - the fish can't speak on its behalf. the resources to pursue the fish for the decades to come for others than ourselves is in question. and forgive me here, but if a fishery dies due to mismanagement in ANY way, especially before any kind of legal intervention was necessary or even possible, is the moral handwringing over whether or not we can hold the collective standard towards muskie fishing as more than a meritocratic "**** you, I got mine" the best we can do? | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | IAJustin - 5/30/2024 10:58 AM
Correct, please push Canada for an October only season, I promise you less muskie will get caught! Or we should all limit ourselves to only catch 2 or 3 muskies per year, that should help a lot too!
You don't want folks shooting turkeys at 70 yds but you are okay with FFS? Enigmatic, you are.
If you can catch large numbers of muskies traditionally then good on you.
If you are not using FFS or in waters (ie Sab??) where FFS doesn't really make sense, then why are you allying with those that are fishing where it works and where it will have an effect?
I would rather you not debate at all if your debate is I don't want to debate. When I go musky fishing I want to see (and maybe) catch big muskies. That is what I'm debating.
If we continue on the this trajectory, yes, musky fishing up here will be 2 or 3, notch your license and a short season.
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| While many of serious musky fishermen seem to take handling seriously, there is also plenty of evidence that many don't, such as credible stories of floaters in Minnesota that are linked to guides using this tactic in open water. Guides of all people should demonstrate the most care for the resource. Also, in the video linked in this thread where the fisherman catches three 50+ inch muskies his FIRST time musky fishing you see him lay the fish down on the carpet of the boat. You'd hope a YouTube fishermen with a huge following would educate themself about musky handling before trying to catch them but apparently that is too much to ask. I would have even less hope his followers, who are mostly bass fishermen, will be much different.
I also personally believe that C&R is not a cure-all for anything goes in regards to catching fish. By that logic C&R should be open year round and snagging fish should be legalized. However, I think many realize there is some mortality associated with C&R even in ideal scenarios, and when all signs point towards reduced natural reproduction combined with reduced stocking, increased angler efficacy is not sustainable. What particularly concerns me are lakes that still have natural reproduction, since, if lost, that is much tougher to replace than a 100% stocked population.
Edit: Seems like others expressed similar views to mine before I could finish writing.
Edited by xcskier_hunter 5/30/2024 11:58 AM
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Tyendinaga - 5/30/2024 11:14 AM
at the end of the day, this is a question of how much are we willing to impose ourselves on an increasingly closed system - the fish can't speak on its behalf. the resources to pursue the fish for the decades to come for others than ourselves is in question. and forgive me here, but if a fishery dies due to mismanagement in ANY way, especially before any kind of legal intervention was necessary or even possible, is the moral handwringing over whether or not we can hold the collective standard towards muskie fishing as more than a meritocratic "**** you, I got mine" the best we can do?
Well put, Tyendinaga,
It is happening with all the big predators everywhere now: marlin, murray cod, barramundi, zander, wels - even big non-predators like sturgeon and for snagging paddlefish. Carp are wary, musky are just hard to find - until they are not, which is what this spotlighting (sharpshooting) is.
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/30/2024 11:39 AM
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| I just don’t agree with your position on banning it , it’s a slippery slope and yes I fish water about as close as you can get to your location, I’m sure ffs would be very successful, as fact two guys were bragging about how well they did sharpshooting over 80 feet of water…. And yes I out fished them… my 27 caught in a week were probably in as much danger as the 18 they caught | |
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| IAJustin - 5/30/2024 11:33 AM
I just don’t agree with your position on banning it , it’s a slippery slope and yes I fish water about as close as you can get to your location, I’m sure ffs would be very successful, as fact two guys were bragging about how well they did sharpshooting over 80 feet of water…. And yes I out fished them… my 27 caught in a week were probably in as much danger as the 18 they caught
I'm with you. In the Wegner video, he touched on something that I've often thought about with how deep should you fish in general? Like, there's plenty of reefs I've fished that top out at 18, but my boat is in 30. Should I do that? That's done without FFS as well. I don't know where those fish are coming up from.
Should we only be fishing in under 10 feet of water? 15? What's an ethical spot vs an unethical spot regardless of the use of FFS?
At least if someone is in 40 feet and is using FFS, you can leave any fish laying super deep alone. | |
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Location: Contrarian Island | IA Justin....take away their ffs maybe they catch 5? More fish caught equals more dead that cant be debated. Its a simple numbers game. There will be less fish each yr due to it = not good for the future.
Edited by BNelson 5/30/2024 1:37 PM
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | BNelson - 5/30/2024 12:04 PM
Take away their ffs maybe they catch 5? More fish caught equals more dead that cant be debated. Its a simple numbers game. There will be less fish each yr due to it = not good for the future.
I assume you are referring to IAJustin's post with the 27 to 18 ratio? Yes, probably 27 to 5 if they were newbies without a milk run depending on the density there.
The hours/years of experience per fish learning how to fig 8, spot layout, weeds, rock, sand, where fish lie under certain wind, current, water level conditions, clouds, rain, sun, what lures to use and when - compare that to the FFS open water types just showing up, drive, find, sharpshoot. No talent, no effort, just a matter of covering ground until the next one.
IA Justin, look, I get that if those guys are out doing that they are not hitting the same spots you are - we have seen that too, reduced pressure on spots, but these fish need a break. The really big blondies you see once and a while spend their time out there most of the time, certainly dusk to dawn (the ones Gord is referring to). If educated anglers are out there doing that you know what their ratios would be - I would bet fish per unit effort very high. But honestly, the educated FFS sharpshooter guys probably not wasting too much time on small fish nor reluctant ones, they are sharpshooting when the time is right and putting the hurt on the ones that keep the population going strong.
Not sustainable.
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/30/2024 2:56 PM
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| OK, I understand a higher mortality with more fish caught using live sonar. I can't refute that. Science also says that live bait results in a much higher mortality than artificial lures do. I don't know how many muskie anglers out there are against FFS but fine with using a big sucker. Heck, in some states you can target muskie year round and use a dorsal spined fish for bait like a perch, sunfish, or crappie. Tell me that isn't killing fish.
But I would still argue its a heck of a whole lot better than harvesting fish with this technology. Like panfish, primarily crappies during the winter. | |
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| If the issue is truly the concern about increased fish catches and delayed mortality, then I would highly suggest we lobby to ban map chips. I am very confident that map chips are responsible for more muskie catches on lakes like LOTW than FFS is. I have FFS and I do not "Sharpshoot", but I have told my buddies I will give it up in a heartbeat if I had to choose between that or map chips or even MEGA SI.
You ask any seasoned muskie angler what is a key to catching more muskies and 90% of them will tell you "boat control".
Its a numbers game as was mentioned above and the more efficient you are...the more muskies you catch.
Which tool do you think is more valuable to a muskie fisherman...map chips and GPS, or FFS? I know which one I am choosing!
Brett Waldera | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Just to clarify, AGAIN, after all the spin, MI's statement encourages responsible use of new tech, not banning, eliminating, or whatever else can be made up. | |
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Location: Hayward, Wisconsin | Wow! What Gord says covers so many things besides FFS. It pretty much zero's in on just what is the most important thing in muskie fishing...proper handling (which includes having the proper tools to do the job).
While I personally don't like the FFS thing, if we could ask those using it to refrain from targeting muskies in deep water, it would be a great help.
For all, please learn proper handling techniques and take minim photos. After reading Gord's great quotes there can be no reason not to believe proper handling can only HELP our great muskie fisheries! | |
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| I don't think you could limit map chips, since map chips are essentially just a map combined with GPS technology. To limit map chips you'd have to ban smartphones on the water since you can accomplish the same with the Navionics phone app. Banning map chips would be essentially like banning the use of OnX Maps or Google Earth in hunting (which I have seen people claim we should do), since even if would make hunters less effective, it's not possible.
However, that has not stopped states from limiting trail cameras, and particularly cell cameras (see AZ, UT, NH, KS, MO) and drones, which are more analogous to FFS than map chips/GPS technology.
To limit FFS you'd likely need to apply some sort of limitation on transducers, which is much more feasible than banning someone from carrying a phone with them on the water. I'm not saying that transducers would need to be banned altogether, but that there could be some limit on what they can transmit. Enforcement would be difficult but not completely impossible.
Edited by xcskier_hunter 5/31/2024 9:54 AM
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Location: Chisholm, MN | You don't even need a map chip if you have a scope | |
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Posts: 78
| It all comes down to ethics. One of my favorite quotes of all time.
Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.
Potter Stewart | |
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Posts: 355
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Brett Waldera - 5/31/2024 8:09 AM
If the issue is truly the concern about increased fish catches and delayed mortality, then I would highly suggest we lobby to ban map chips. I am very confident that map chips are responsible for more muskie catches on lakes like LOTW than FFS is. I have FFS and I do not "Sharpshoot", but I have told my buddies I will give it up in a heartbeat if I had to choose between that or map chips or even MEGA SI.
You ask any seasoned muskie angler what is a key to catching more muskies and 90% of them will tell you "boat control".
Its a numbers game as was mentioned above and the more efficient you are...the more muskies you catch.
Which tool do you think is more valuable to a muskie fisherman...map chips and GPS, or FFS? I know which one I am choosing!
Brett Waldera
Brett, it is truly about that.
My question to you is do you think that catching "too many" muskies is an issue?
I think you do think that, but it you don't, then there is nothing that can be said to convince you that FFS is a problem than needs a solution. No one is suggesting banning anything else, and it is not going to happen given we are talking here about a musky issue, not a rec fishing or boating issue.
I say "ban" as I believe that will protect our native musky populations. I am pragmatic enough to realize that a ban is unlikely, but I have no evidence that suggests that the tech will be used responsibly and that our natural reproducing musky are safe from overexploitation; in fact to this point my encounters and feedback from the lodge owner regarding its use for muskies have been entirely negative.
Obviously you are very influential so I'm not sure what more we need to do to get your support other than the collective wisdom of all the experienced folks who have weighed in on the topic here, on podcasts, YouTube, etc.
Maybe there are other solutions, but I don't know what they could be.
To answer your question - the GPS trolling motor is by far the greatest advance overall (ie spot lock, jog) in terms of fishing efficiency for me personally (for walleye, catfish, pike, musky, lake trout and smallmouth).
Edited by Angling Oracle 5/31/2024 1:06 PM
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Location: SE/WI | Kirby Budrow - 5/31/2024 12:32 PM
You don't even need a map chip if you have a scope
Technically u just need a blank SD Card...
I can use my SI transducer on my Garmin Echomap and drive around and record/scan lakes and make a custom map if one doesn't exist for that body of water or it doesn't seem too be accurate enough. Just need to insert a SD card so it can record and saves it for you. It's called Garmin quickdraw.
https://youtu.be/GM9DYMLP_x0?si=p81k__0or77xeHVi
I have the Navionics North Lakes 6 states chip in the Garmin and have Lakemaster chip in my Bird, no complaints with either really so haven't needed to use it much but it is a pretty cool feature. | |
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Posts: 2015
| Angling Oracle - 5/31/2024 12:49 PM
Brett Waldera - 5/31/2024 8:09 AM
If the issue is truly the concern about increased fish catches and delayed mortality, then I would highly suggest we lobby to ban map chips. I am very confident that map chips are responsible for more muskie catches on lakes like LOTW than FFS is. I have FFS and I do not "Sharpshoot", but I have told my buddies I will give it up in a heartbeat if I had to choose between that or map chips or even MEGA SI.
You ask any seasoned muskie angler what is a key to catching more muskies and 90% of them will tell you "boat control".
Its a numbers game as was mentioned above and the more efficient you are...the more muskies you catch.
Which tool do you think is more valuable to a muskie fisherman...map chips and GPS, or FFS? I know which one I am choosing!
Brett Waldera
Brett, it is truly about that.
My question to you is do you think that catching "too many" muskies is an issue?
I think you do think that, but it you don't, then there is nothing that can be said to convince you that FFS is a problem than needs a solution. No one is suggesting banning anything else, and it is not going to happen given we are talking here about a musky issue, not a rec fishing or boating issue.
I say "ban" as I believe that will protect our native musky populations. I am pragmatic enough to realize that a ban is unlikely, but I have no evidence that suggests that the tech will be used responsibly and that our natural reproducing musky are safe from overexploitation; in fact to this point my encounters and feedback from the lodge owner regarding its use for muskies have been entirely negative.
Obviously you are very influential so I'm not sure what more we need to do to get your support other than the collective wisdom of all the experienced folks who have weighed in on the topic here, on podcasts, YouTube, etc.
Maybe there are other solutions, but I don't know what they could be.
To answer your question - the GPS trolling motor is by far the greatest advance overall (ie spot lock, jog ) in terms of fishing efficiency for me personally (for walleye, catfish, pike, musky, lake trout and smallmouth ).
Good stuff from Brett, and why it’s a slippery slope, Oracle you want to fight the good fight? Get everyone to go back to paper maps and flashers. I catch lots of open water fish on a lot of lakes including the Winnipeg river system. I do it through experience, does it suck someone with no experience would outfish me with technology strictly open water sure, I don’t care though. Same as some guy might shoot the goobler im hunting at 70 yards, I’m set on my Hoyt and 10-20 yards in the decoys, it how I like to do it….Fun tidbit.. After I caught my 57” from V in 2012, a well known guide and I were talking back at the lodge, he’d been seeing that fish on SI the last few days, in fact he and clients were in front of me 30 minutes before the bite. I’ve hated advanced electronics since about 2009, why I’m over it…I don’t want to know what’s in front or to the side of me, to Brett’s point some guys have been really dialed into SI for the last 15 years and it probably puts another 50-100 fish a year in the boat for them…I like the hunt …honestly I’m good to go back to paper and a flasher … I can run the Winnipeg without either, I often have no electronics on fishing, I think it may spook fish. Anyway, will som fish in Canada be caught in Big Sand, Clearwater Bay, Crow, West Arm of Eagle, on and on that had a refuge sure… release them right boys! Ramble over  | |
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Posts: 324
| "I like the hunt …honestly I’m good to go back to paper and a flasher … I can run the Winnipeg without either, I often have no electronics on fishing, I think it may spook fish. Anyway, will som fish in Canada be caught in Big Sand, Clearwater Bay, Crow, West Arm of Eagle, on and on that had a refuge sure… release them right boys! Ramble over "
Exactly!!Absent the mystique,difficulty,hard earned experience,etc muskies become just another fish to me.It's the hunt not the catch.Iajustin,love to share a boat sometime. | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | IAJustin, as I said before, I'm okay with going back to the Q-beam to get around on those waters (and bring a mini tent if we don't get back). We fish the same way, same places up here obviously, but we diverge on the optimism on the additive mortality rate of catching those open water and deep dwelling fish will have on the long term sustainability of the population. Sure, if all of us caught less (to Brett's point and yours), it would be better, but we are not controlling these other things (other than Eagle with the night ban). Those with the skillsets to sort out the patterns are also those most likely to be best equipped to ensure fish get handled and released properly. Some of the folks "sharpshooting," are, and some are not, and to be frank, many of these are folks are not tourists as it were (ie. not enamored by scenery or bear sitings, only how big and how many). The additive mortality overall on these big open water fish, to Gord Pyzer's point regarding the effect of tiny percentage shifts in mortality rates, is not sustainable. It is not like these fish only have to survive being caught one time, they cumulatively have to survive being caught essentially EVERY time if CPR is to be effective.
The Muskies Inc. statement is a very good first step. Hopefully it is sufficient.
The message has been created, up to us now to carry and send it.
Edited by Angling Oracle 6/1/2024 10:46 AM
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| Use your money to find a way to identify, educate and address baro trauma. It does zero good making useless statements about a technology that is not going away. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | 4amuskie - 6/4/2024 12:28 PM
Use your money to find a way to identify, educate and address baro trauma. It does zero good making useless statements about a technology that is not going away.
First, the statement from the MM EC cost zero $. As we discussed at length on Facebook, I disagree. with your take on the MI statement. We are, as discussed, asking anglers to seriously consider the possible impacts on the sport FFS and emerging new tech pose, nothing more.
One gentleman has called the statement hypocritical and really got up in my face on FB.
MI states we disseminate muskellunge information and are the largest fishing and conservation organization in the world, dedicated to the conservation of muskellunge.
I'd argue that the subject should motivate MI to do our best to create substantive discussion on issues like the advancement of tech and possible impacts on the sport.
Those who take the statement personally and attack it are one edge spectrum we expected to speak out loudly. Those who take the statement as intended are the other. The discussion continues. So far, so good.
In the end, it's always going to be a personal choice. | |
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Location: Brighton CO. | We all use or used some type of Depth finder over the years with some of the following, given depth, how fast is the boat going, GPS, surface temperature, spot lock and on and on. And myself I have a Cline finder (temp gage where I can lower it down and see temp changes in the water column) We also have talked of how large do Muskies get?
Question: What are we seeing? Anyone seeing very large fish? How deep? Any relation to the Thermocline? and how deep is the Thermocline? For the record I haven't been in the north country during summer in years I come in the spring, Early fall or late fall. I bring my temp gauge in the early fall to see if the water has turned yet. | |
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| Just me thinking out loud about this.
I get the issue(s) concerning FFS and muskies. Totally.
I never thought I'd have FFS. But recently a unit was donated to my boat. I've now used it for walleyes and smallmouth.
The technology is simply amazing. What it did for me was reinforce what I already knew. I was in the right spots, throwing the correct baits.
And it was really cool telling my wife where to cast and then watching a bass eat her bait on the Livescope.
I'm going to take the scope out on my local lake for muskies. See what I see. And I'm going to document what I see. I'll even document what I think I'm going to see before the trip. Then I'll compare notes. Maybe I'll be surprised and it shows me fish that I didn't know were there, but I really doubt it.
I haven't learned anything new yet, concerning FFS. Just reinforced what I was doing already. What I did notice is that I was able to eliminate water quickly, which led to being on better spots and ultimately fish that helped increase my catches of eyes and smallies.
We shall see on muskies. I still have little want or need to cast a bait and watch it come in on a screen versus focusing on the cast. But maybe that changes.
No real dog in this fight, other than i was against the technology until it was gifted to me. So maybe my initial reaction to the technology (negative) was more about the purchase price than the actual product itself. | |
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Location: Chisholm, MN | vegas492 - 6/6/2024 2:09 PM
Just me thinking out loud about this.
I get the issue(s) concerning FFS and muskies. Totally.
I never thought I'd have FFS. But recently a unit was donated to my boat. I've now used it for walleyes and smallmouth.
The technology is simply amazing. What it did for me was reinforce what I already knew. I was in the right spots, throwing the correct baits.
And it was really cool telling my wife where to cast and then watching a bass eat her bait on the Livescope.
I'm going to take the scope out on my local lake for muskies. See what I see. And I'm going to document what I see. I'll even document what I think I'm going to see before the trip. Then I'll compare notes. Maybe I'll be surprised and it shows me fish that I didn't know were there, but I really doubt it.
I haven't learned anything new yet, concerning FFS. Just reinforced what I was doing already. What I did notice is that I was able to eliminate water quickly, which led to being on better spots and ultimately fish that helped increase my catches of eyes and smallies.
We shall see on muskies. I still have little want or need to cast a bait and watch it come in on a screen versus focusing on the cast. But maybe that changes.
No real dog in this fight, other than i was against the technology until it was gifted to me. So maybe my initial reaction to the technology (negative) was more about the purchase price than the actual product itself.
I hope you report back with this idea. It's a good way to go about it. Although I think you'll be surprised at what you think you know. I guess it depends where you fish but I know I was. | |
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| Safe to say eliminating water quickly is one of the main tenants of this technology? | |
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| ...and to nobody's surprise, the complications regarding the subject revolve around the complete lack of empathy and compassion for the environment and the fish, because "**** you, I got mine." | |
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| Tyendinaga - 6/7/2024 10:19 AM
...and to nobody's surprise, the complications regarding the subject revolve around the complete lack of empathy and compassion for the environment and the fish, because "**** you, I got mine."
So, you are against it because of cost? I was against it because of cost versus reward. So far I've used it for eyes and bass. Can't say that I've caught more fish. Can say that it has increased my confidence when fishing for those fish.
I don't get the whole notion that someone with FFS lacks empathy and compassion for the environment. Care to elaborate?
I work my butt off for my local chapter running events, writing grants and doing a whole host of other duties just so that we can keep stocking our local lakes. I feel like I do more than my fair share of heavy lifting to keep this resource going.
Unsure how me having FFS someone makes me lack empathy and compassion for the resource.
But here is what I will do. I'll write my random musings on here concerning my adventure with FFS on my local lake. Spoiler alert, I still feel like it's best application is ice fishing. I can't wait to go whitefishing with that thing, if we ever get ice.
I also feel like it could be a great tool when vertical jigging muskies.
I'm not as confident about sharpshooting. I troll those fish now, I know they are there, I know how to get at them. I'm not convinced that on my body of water FFS will make that large of a difference, but we shall see. | |
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| I do acknowledge your participation and involvement in the actions that you describe. The bodies of water that are impacted by these efforts are inarguably better off as a result.
What I am pointing out is:
A: your opinion of the technology changed once you acquired it, immediately noticing the impact on your on-the-water efficiency
B: you immediately demonstrate use cases where its efficiency is most applicable(ice fishing)
C: the very suggestion to use FFS to vertical jig for muskies, is by very definition, sharpshooting
In every scenario I have outlined above, you stand, almost inarguably, to catch more fish than a person not utilizing this tech for the sole reason that you KNOW whether or not the fish are there. Which means that you will handle more fish, which means that you will have a larger role to play in both pressuring the body of water and possible delayed mortality cases. There's a good chance some of those walleyes and bass were sitting in water you were never going to look twice at without transducer tech. Is our right to know WHERE the fish are more important than the sustainability of the practice?
My point in all of this, is not to defame your character, but to ask you, and anybody who utilizes this technology, WHY should we knowingly practice behavior that will undoubtedly create a decline in an environment? WHY is the legal right to utilize commercially available products more palatable than the consideration of the long term damage to the environment these products will undoubtedly create?
If we caught a fish every cast, this sport, hobby, passion, would lose almost all contextual basis. And for muskie especially, the hunt, chase, and pursuit is an integral part of the chance to even come across one.
We have proverbially crossed the rubicon when it comes to finding these fish with what is available now. That's a huge loss culturally. I don't exactly find the idea that "well, it's legal regardless of your ethical concerns" comforting when it's hard to argue handling MORE fish will not cause a thin population to thin further, for every person fishing a body of water.
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| Mam. Lots to unpack there.
I caught as many eyes and bass with the tech as I've caught in the past without it. No more. No less. Maybe because I know how to use side imaging well already for those applications. All the FFS did for me was reinforce what I already knew.
Musky wise I already vertical jig for them. I know what my down imaging and side imaging need to show me in order to get me to jig as I know the fish will be there. When jigging I already use a Vex and or down imaging to see my bait and fish around the bait. FFS is just another view for me.
None of this is new.
Cruising a break line and looking for fish will not be new either. Just a different view. Maybe it helps me bag some extra fish. Maybe it won't. Guess we will see.
Personally I've handled my fair share of fish. With all the release tools I have and with how I fish and release fish in warm water I'm not worried about killing a fish. No moreso than without the tech.
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| Lot of interesting information, thoughtful opinions from many view points. I don't plan on buying FFS but if I did, the one observation in the thread that caught my eye was checking on what, if anything, is chasing a sucker around. I think that would be really neat. Probably a dumb reason to buy, but if I did, that would be it.
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| Earlier you said "What I did notice is that I was able to eliminate water quickly, which led to being on better spots and ultimately fish that helped increase my catches of eyes and smallies," so if you actually "caught as many eyes and bass with the tech as [you've] caught without it," that would signal the fishery is in worse shape than it has been historically.
Since you personally are investing time into stocking fish you are likely a net positive for muskies, so none of this is a criticism of you in particular.
However, what I find particularly frustrating is people that use stocking as their only solution to increased angler efficacy and the fish mortality that comes with it. First, stocking cannot keep up as is so either way we are in an unsustainable situation. Second, in native lakes that still have natural reproduction, I don't believe it is sound conservation practice to use stocking as tool to counteract increased fish mortality. Is there any species humans have ever been able to breed that survived better than their wild counterparts? It'd be one thing if these wild and stocked fish never intermixed but I think it's clear they do to some extent. Once these wild populations are lost they may be gone forever. We've been incapable of recovering lost salmon runs. We thought we could enhance mallard populations with domestic ducks and now it's near impossible to find a mallard in the Atlantic Flyway without game farm DNA. Wild turkey restoration was a failure until people started capturing wild birds for relocation.
Anyways, this is tangential to the topic but the amount of people unwilling to self-limit that claim just stocking more fish is a solution are making a dangerous assumption in my opinion. I'd rather see people finding ways to improve musky reproductive success where it's been observably reduced reduced over time. This is what trout fishermen have been successful in doing with river restorations. Perhaps we should also take a page out trout fishing's book and treat stocked and unstocked waters with different regulations. In Wisconsin this could look like different limitations on class A waters versus class B and C waters. I could accept this compromise but I have a hard time accepting zero technological limitations in the pursuit on 100% wild and native musky waters. I know some may argue we already irreversibly ruined the genetics in these places but I still think it's a worthy goal.
On another note, it looks like Iowa will not be allowing game cameras of any kind on public land and will also make it illegal to use cell cameras on both public and PRIVATE land for hunting. Does anyone think it'd be harder to enforce some sort of electronics limit on PUBLIC waters than it is to enforce a cell camera rule on PRIVATE land? Many people say it's not feasible to limit electronics in fishing but I don't see it that way. Also, I'd strongly suspect that Iowa will remain the best whitetail hunting state in the country for years to come and technological limitations will not reduce the demand to hunt there one bit.
Edited by xcskier_hunter 6/7/2024 3:23 PM
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Location: Duluth | Tyendinaga - 6/7/2024 12:03 PM
If we caught a fish every cast, this sport, hobby, passion, would lose almost all contextual basis. And for muskie especially, the hunt, chase, and pursuit is an integral part of the chance to even come across one.
We have proverbially crossed the rubicon when it comes to finding these fish with what is available now. That's a huge loss culturally.
I couldn't agree more. It's the part that hurts the most. | |
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| CincySkeez - 6/7/2024 3:38 PM
Tyendinaga - 6/7/2024 12:03 PM
If we caught a fish every cast, this sport, hobby, passion, would lose almost all contextual basis. And for muskie especially, the hunt, chase, and pursuit is an integral part of the chance to even come across one.
We have proverbially crossed the rubicon when it comes to finding these fish with what is available now. That's a huge loss culturally.
I couldn't agree more. It's the part that hurts the most.
I can't see that that method catching on, or sticking around very long if it does. No8 brings up the method of watching a sucker to see if anyone is following it. That would be fun. It would bring some excitement to a method of fishing that isn't all that entertaining. I'd do that. But sharpshooting? What's the point? Even with traditional methods, you basically have 2-3 chances at a fish.
1. If it wants to eat you're gonna catch it before you've even see it
2. If it's "on the fence" it's going to follow your lure and if you're both lucky and have good figure 8 skills, you might catch it
3. You sometimes have a 3rd shot - different bait, different retrieve, slower, faster, different angle...
4. After that it's burnt. You can come back at sunset, or when the weather changes, tomorrow, during the next major, etc. It might still be around, might not. But you'd have caught it by now if you were going to.
We're fishing for these things for a whole other reason. You're not looking to fill a frying pan or the freezer. If it was just about catching fish, there's a lot more of every other species of fish out there and they require a lot less gear and a lot less effort to catch.
I recognize the potential for abuse and the damage that could cause the fisheries, but using FFS to find and catch muskies goes against what fishing for them is all about. Ethics, morality, fair chase, all valid points there, and as conservation minded anglers most of us get that. But the bottom line is what fun would it be to fish this way? And why would anyone do it if it wasn't fun? | |
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| I'd be a little careful on the whole "look at suckers" with FFS thing.
One thing I did notice on the bass when using FFS. Some fish would just bolt when that FFS hit them. Like they scurried really, really fast. (I did not notice fish scurrying away when fishing walleyes in the spring.)
Since our encounters with bass are more numerous, I didn't much care about the fish that got out of Dodge, quickly. But when musky fishing? Kind of the last thing I'd want to do is hit a fish hunting a sucker with those pings.
I know myself, and I'll probably make a quick sweep here or there when musky fishing suckers. But I'll have that unit turned off 98% of the time. Turn it on quick for a sweep and then shut it down.
Just my $.02. | |
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| Dead water seems to have been brought up since I mentioned it. I'll expand.
When bass fishing, I eliminate dead water all the time. I can do it visually, I can do it with side imaging and down imaging. I've done it for years.
FFS didn't all of a sudden lead to me eliminating dead water. In fact, I'd say it made me go through areas slower when looking at the screen. In the past, I'd set the side imaging to 80 feet, then cruise outside areas I wanted to fish. If I saw fish I'd come back and fish. With FFS, it was a much slower crawl to see those spots and get the same information. At least it was for me.
Some bass spots that I fish are not very big. Either they are there, or they are not. Spring time fish.
Maybe that changes with the summer, but typically I "scout" an area before I fish it.
Then there is musky fishing and "dead" water. I fish a lot of weeds. Not just edges, but weeds. I won't even put that thing in the water in weeds. There is simply no point.
Summer time and fall, I'll troll more than cast. Another application where I won't even have that thing in the water. It won't pick baits up out that far. And with how I have it on the boat, it would be a pain to keep that pole vertical in the water.
Just random musings...... | |
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Location: Des Plaines, IL | I look toward the Amish on this discussion in some ways. The Amish are allowed to use modern amenities where it is necessary/essential for them to make a living. I just got new doors from ProVia (outstanding) made by the Amish, but they are absolutely using machining/power tools to create these.
I have an almost four and seven year old. I would guess I get to fish 20-30 days most years if I'm lucky. There are many days I catch nothing. What FFS allows me to do is find fish location quicker and know that I'm not just casting at nothing all day. I'm not there to find a fish, follow it and cast at it all the time. But I'm absolutely looking for where that fish is relative to weeds, how they are moving, etc.
Personally, I've never become as proficient with side imaging and saying "that's a fish" but I absolutely know what I'm seeing on a live sonar feed. When I'm trolling, I can find depth curves of baits easily by pointing it behind me (awesome for this). I can point it forward to make sure I'm staying on a break, a weed edge, etc.
I just want to catch some fish once in a while, I'll gladly put in my time. I hope that my kids can find some enjoyment out there with me too. And for as much as I loved going out with my grandpa and uncle, and I do remember just the trips even if we didn't catch any, I remember the successful ones "better."
Generally, I've found the musky community to be so strange and off putting in a lot of ways. For instance, we are talking about preserving this resource, but I am pretty confident that some arguing this would argue the exact opposite when it comes to other areas of conservation or life. Here's a great example: smoking is bad for you. There is nothing good about smoking a cigarette. In fact, it has negative impacts on public health and economics through increased insurance premiums. Should we ban cigarettes? Personally, I don't smoke them, never have and never will. But if we can't even ban something that's so clearly bad, how the heck can we argue for a ban on fishing electronics?
I understand the perspective of people that don't want to use FFS or hate it. I hate horror movies. I don't watch horror movies. I don't think that people who watch them are bad people. I think the judgement of others that seems to accompany this debate makes it far worse. As others have stated, it's important to be ethical about this. But who's ethics? We live in a society that has been consumed by consumption. "Free market economics" drives the American experience. There's a great book out there by Michael Sandel called What Money Can't Buy - The Moral Limit of Markets. I'm rereading it right now and find it very appropriate for this conversation (he talks explicitly about hunting in it).
If I ever get to the point of harassing a single fish all day, trying to snag it, etc. then I hope somebody calls me out and beats me up. But if I'm just out there trying to get one to bite and using FFS as my own version of what others do proficiently with side scan, then I'd hope that people would understand that even if it's not their cup of tea. | |
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| Nicely said.
There is a difference between a blanked statement of FFSS is "bad" and FFS used to harass, follow and potentially snag a fish in the face is "bad".
The issue to me isn't technology, it is how the technology is used.
Guess I don't know many people who would drive around for hours at a time looking for a fish while having 10's of thousands of dollars of FFS on their boat, just to make a couple of casts and call that fishing.
But, the other side, clearly things like that have happened and are happening on some lakes in the US. I don't know how it should be legislated or restricted. I do believe, though, that usage is a personal choice. | |
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Location: Chisholm, MN | OF course, if it wasn't having a negative impact on fishing in many ways I wouldn't care. But it does. Vegas, driving around sharpshooting is very predominant in MN. It's all some people do.
Dbach, somebody smoking barely affects me. But a bunch of people destroying the fisheries that I love directly affects me and future generations. | |
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| vegas492 - 6/10/2024 12:22 PM
Nicely said.
There is a difference between a blanked statement of FFSS is "bad" and FFS used to harass, follow and potentially snag a fish in the face is "bad".
The issue to me isn't technology, it is how the technology is used.
Guess I don't know many people who would drive around for hours at a time looking for a fish while having 10's of thousands of dollars of FFS on their boat, just to make a couple of casts and call that fishing.
But, the other side, clearly things like that have happened and are happening on some lakes in the US. I don't know how it should be legislated or restricted. I do believe, though, that usage is a personal choice.
Some people are definitely just driving around, but so long as they aren't targeting fish that are crazy deep, I don't have a problem with it. If you're focusing on fish in the top 15 feet of the water column, knock yourself out.
I've done it. Don't do it all the time because casting is more fun. And never to fish that are deep. Like you said personal choice is what's important to me.
Most musky fishermen have all the right release tools and do pretty well on handling fish. I'm not gonna worry about the 5% of donkeys who have no regard to anything. Life's too short. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | One more time to make sure those who are just adding to the last few posts know that MI's statement asks for conservation-minded ethical use of FFS, not zero use or a ban. I helped with the statement and I use Humminbird Mega Live for boat control all the time. Never have and never will drive around looking for muskies, but that's me. | |
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| Yesterday, saw some real old school fishing. Heading out in the afternoon, I saw two middle school aged boys under a bridge with short sticks. I wondered what they were doing, but as I approached saw they had fishing line on the sticks. One boy had not even bothered to take the little side branches off. No bobbers, no apparent weights, just a baited hook. As I passed under the bridge, one of the kids caught a nice bluegill.
The had a large, multi-tray tackle box, so guessing they had rods somewhere but decided to try and catch fish in the rocks/boulders right next to the bridge abutments.
The short rods allowed them to drop the line right at their feet.
I fished all afternoon and caught one small pike that managed to get hooks from all three trebles. Hope the kids had fun and keep fishing. If we don't have fun, should get a new hobby. | |
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| Kirby,
I don't fish your neck of the woods. Also, I have no reason to doubt you at all. You've seen what sharpshooting can do and has done to fish and the lakes in general.
Personally, that doesn't interest me at all. Sharpshooting. I also haven't seen it used where I fish yet, though admittedly, I fish far less for muskies now than I did in the past.
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Posts: 567
| FWIW I saw a guy on FB stating he released his 200th muskie last weekend . A WV guy fishing out of state waters .. I have no clue where he fishes but wouldnt want it being on any lake I fish .. and yes he post pics to prove the catches . One guy . 200 muskie . June 15th or so .. SMH . Thats not fishing to me and in no way can this be good for any lake or river | |
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Location: Brighton CO. | A lot of years ago a guy on the lunge log was releasing 25 Muskies a DAY and it caused a lot of buzz, it was true but fish were caught in private stocked lakes. (I think it was in West Virgina/Ohio area) | |
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Location: Duluth | https://www.clarionledger.com/story/sports/outdoors/2024/06/21/lives...
Ahead if the curve, or just stupid yokels resistant to tech. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin |
That was inevitable. And there will be more of it. | |
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Location: E. Tenn |
Probably the easiest bodies of water to limit out on big crappie... no electronics needed.
In fact during the spawn, on Arkabutla, a lot of folks don waders, simply walk out to the brush piles and stake beds with cane poles, and limit out in no time... Even got to participate a couple times..
Edited by miket55 6/22/2024 8:55 PM
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Location: E. Tenn | miket55 - 6/22/2024 9:51 PM
Probably the easiest bodies of water to limit out on big crappie... no electronics needed.
In fact during the spawn, on Arkabutla, a lot of folks don waders, simply walk out to the brush piles and stake beds with cane poles, and limit out in no time... Even got to participate a couple times..
Biggest was 19"..
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| ManitouDan - 6/21/2024 1:45 PM
FWIW I saw a guy on FB stating he released his 200th muskie last weekend . A WV guy fishing out of state waters .. I have no clue where he fishes but wouldnt want it being on any lake I fish .. and yes he post pics to prove the catches . One guy . 200 muskie . June 15th or so .. SMH . Thats not fishing to me and in no way can this be good for any lake or river
Yeah that’s me, so there is a limit to how many we are allowed to catch now days? Yes I use FFS along with a lot of other tools that help me put fish in the net. See you just see the results, the rest of the story is I average 1 musky every 6 hours fished. You do the math, I spend a lot of time on the water. But I have and use FFS and catch musky so makes me a bad guy. Whatever! I can tell you the #1 thing that helps me catch a lot of musky, time on the water consistently, allows me to stay on fish and a pattern. I take care of the fish as best possible and donate to the minnow fund every year and am a member and support each musky club in the state. If people would spend half as much time trying to catch musky as worrying about how someone is fishing they would probably catch a lot more and have a lot less stress in their life. I musky fish because I love it and that is it.
The reason I post pics on that FB page is because, that is a requirement of their rules to submit a fish.The reason I’m in a WV club, that is where I’m from and have a lot of friends in that club, it also encourages them as a club to engage the WV DNR to support the musky stocking program, when they see the success you can have if you state has an amazing stocking program. | |
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Location: Duluth | ManitouDan - 6/21/2024 1:45 PM
FWIW I saw a guy on FB stating he released his 200th muskie last weekend . A WV guy fishing out of state waters .. I have no clue where he fishes but wouldnt want it being on any lake I fish .. and yes he post pics to prove the catches . One guy . 200 muskie . June 15th or so .. SMH . Thats not fishing to me and in no way can this be good for any lake or river
The fact that the season doesn't close down there is a significant factor. Also those are put and take allopatric fisheries.
Also, dang that dude is putting in work.
Edited by CincySkeez 6/24/2024 12:43 PM
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| No closed muskie season? That's interesting. So the fish are harassed all year round, including while they are trying to reproduce. That isn't getting my approval. | |
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| No closed season down this way. There is little to no natural reproduction in the lakes, they are flood control lakes. The ODNR see the musky stocking program as a put and take. That is why they have no size limit on them. Musky guys aren’t keeping them anyways. But Ohio has as far as I know the best musky stocking program there is and it’s been this way for a long time. In the 9 program lakes in the state they stock 1 advanced fingerling per acre in each lake every year. | |
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Location: E. Tenn | OH Muskyman - 6/24/2024 7:24 PM
That is why they have no size limit on them.
Ohio has a 2 fish 30" size limit per day... kinda sucks but its better than nothing. | |
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| miket55 - 6/24/2024 10:44 PM
OH Muskyman - 6/24/2024 7:24 PM
That is why they have no size limit on them.
Ohio has a 2 fish 30" size limit per day... kinda sucks but its better than nothing.
I don't think that's the case anymore. 1 fish a day no size limit. I believe their view is the muskie fishery is for everyone to enjoy, as a put and take fishery. If a kid catches a small one or a non-hardcore muskie guy reels into one and wants to take it home to enjoy them they want them to have that opportunity. Not saying I agree whole heartedly but that seems to be their viewpoint. I would think with increasing costs and difficulty of raising advanced fingerlings it might be worth reconsidering even to a 1 a day 40" minimum.
This brings up an interesting perspective that I think the viewpoint of ffs would differ greatly for natural reproduction lakes up north vs southern reservoirs that are supported 100% by stocking and the dnr itself calls the program a put and take fishery. Majority of guys fish all year no matter the temps, the state has no size limit, lots of guys using (gasp) boga grips and vertical holds for every pic. For these fisheries does it matter anymore or less? | |
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| guys are allowed to fish anyway they want as long as following the law .. but there are many ways to skirt the law , and many times tech is ahead of the laws . My opinion , just an opinion , I've followed many muskie fishing legends -- for several decades as they come and go . I've known 1 popular guide and fished with him before he exited college 20 plus years ago .( he writes many articles and speaks at many shows) My point is I'm no newcomer .. and I've never heard of anyone coming close to catching a muskie every 6 hours without the help of FFS .. no one catches muskie like that . Ever . Period . So its not simply " I put my time in " or I'm really in tune with the pattern " or good stocking its FFS . Trying to sell it as anything other than FFS is disingenuous IMO. Imagine 10 guys catch a 2000 out of your states stocked lakes .. you think thats a good thing ? I'm not on board . | |
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| ManitouDan - 6/25/2024 11:37 AM
guys are allowed to fish anyway they want as long as following the law .. but there are many ways to skirt the law , and many times tech is ahead of the laws . My opinion , just an opinion , I've followed many muskie fishing legends -- for several decades as they come and go . I've known 1 popular guide and fished with him before he exited college 20 plus years ago .( he writes many articles and speaks at many shows) My point is I'm no newcomer .. and I've never heard of anyone coming close to catching a muskie every 6 hours without the help of FFS .. no one catches muskie like that . Ever . Period . So its not simply " I put my time in " or I'm really in tune with the pattern " or good stocking its FFS . Trying to sell it as anything other than FFS is disingenuous IMO. Imagine 10 guys catch a 2000 out of your states stocked lakes .. you think thats a good thing ? I'm not on board .
Im very close friends with a local guide, he legit averages 1.2 fish a day on a bad year and 2.5 fish per day on a good year guiding 120ish days a season. Been doing it for the 12 years we been friends. The most advanced electronics he has is a sonar/gps combo.
Same friend would go to Canada and his boat would catch 25-50 muskies in a week, with the same electronics.
There are places and anglers who can put up HOF numbers year in and out, and been doing it for a long time. Some areas can handle that, some areas are more fagile. Keep that in mind before thinking that your experience in musky fishing is the same across the landscape, that is said to go both ways. | |
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| ManitouDan - 6/25/2024 10:37 AM
guys are allowed to fish anyway they want as long as following the law .. but there are many ways to skirt the law , and many times tech is ahead of the laws . My opinion , just an opinion , I've followed many muskie fishing legends -- for several decades as they come and go . I've known 1 popular guide and fished with him before he exited college 20 plus years ago .( he writes many articles and speaks at many shows) My point is I'm no newcomer .. and I've never heard of anyone coming close to catching a muskie every 6 hours without the help of FFS .. no one catches muskie like that . Ever . Period . So its not simply " I put my time in " or I'm really in tune with the pattern " or good stocking its FFS . Trying to sell it as anything other than FFS is disingenuous IMO. Imagine 10 guys catch a 2000 out of your states stocked lakes .. you think thats a good thing ? I'm not on board .
I don't think it's a good thing. I'm sure 10 guys do catch 2k fish in a year. 1 guide I think caught 400 last year alone. I've found that over the years, as long as it's legal I don't really care anymore. Used to bother me guys catching all these fish mid summer with really hot water temps in particular but anymore it is what it is. I wouldn't doubt a guy could put a fish per 6 hours if he's staying on the bite. Before kids I used to fish lots of club tournaments and outings and can remember one body of water where a trolling bite picks up. Guy caught 15+ fish in 2 days. 2 rods, not even using line counters, just knew the water well. I guess my point is sadly, our waters aren't as protected bec they are essentially artificially stocked and maintained for the pleasure of fisherman. So what impact does ffs matter for these waters id wonder? I'm not saying we shouldn't practice conservation and take care of the fish but is the impact to these waters as significant to natural reproducing lakes? | |
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Posts: 567
| Just curious as far as a guide catching 400 .. I'd guess thats in a season, not by June 15 or so , and that including fishing with 1-2 clients each and every day ? And yes hot periods happen , 15 fish in 2 days happens .. but 200 by mid June doesnt . Lets be honest .. its targeting or sniping fish , whatever you want to call it . Guys chasing fish with their screens . | |
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| I can't speak to to the guy catching 200 by mid June. Other than maybe sucks for the guys like me who used to be out there all the time, but kids family life took priority and my trips are much fewer and far between, so maybe I have less success if catch rates have increased for others. That's probably always the case to some extent but more drastic with the help of ffs perhaps (more time on the water equals more fish.) I guess another push for ffs for guys like me who used to be out there every week no matter the weather for years, now times more limited until kids get older, should I use ffs to help me get into more action until the time comes and I'm back on the water all the time? | |
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Location: Chisholm, MN | jburns - 6/25/2024 1:48 PM
I can't speak to to the guy catching 200 by mid June. Other than maybe sucks for the guys like me who used to be out there all the time, but kids family life took priority and my trips are much fewer and far between, so maybe I have less success if catch rates have increased for others. That's probably always the case to some extent but more drastic with the help of ffs perhaps (more time on the water equals more fish.) I guess another push for ffs for guys like me who used to be out there every week no matter the weather for years, now times more limited until kids get older, should I use ffs to help me get into more action until the time comes and I'm back on the water all the time?
Basically, you don't have to do any work with FFS. So for the next few years you just sharp shoot and realize how easy it is. Then when you have more time you'll have pressured fish to cast at without FFS. You may find it's just too much work and go back to the FFS. Only now you have plenty of time. But your catch rates didn't go up because the fish have been beat up for so long that they really don't bite anything anymore. | |
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| I don't quite understand the concept of "put and take" with muskie stocking. The "take" part is confusing to me. Do people target them with the intention of harvesting and eating them? That's what they did 40 years ago when they had the Leech Lake Massecres. Seems like we should know a little more about the subject now.
Put and take stocking with trout and walleye makes sense. They're targeted for harvest. Muskies being targeted for food doesn't appeal to me. And I'm not really sure why it would appeal to anyone else either. | |
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| No one really "takes" the clubs work hard to support stocking these Ohio lakes. I think the state looks at it and references in such a manner as , it's for everyone and if someone keeps a small fish because it's a trophy to them, well thats ok because the fishery is for everyone to enjoy in their own way. Especially because it's an artificially supported fishery when you boil it down.
Kirby, if I do or don't use ffs won't those fish be pressured and beat in that timeframe regardless of how I fish. Apparently there are guys catching 200 fish in these lakes solo by mid season (good for them) and guides going to the same lakes putting up big numbers as well. Sounds pretty pressured with our without me getting on the water in meager spare time. Seems like ffs would be a reasonable option for someone like me. Assuming I'm not sharp shooting just hitting my old milk runs and seeing if there are fish present while fishing them regardless. | |
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| Kirby Budrow - 6/25/2024 2:07 PM jburns - 6/25/2024 1:48 PM I can't speak to to the guy catching 200 by mid June. Other than maybe sucks for the guys like me who used to be out there all the time, but kids family life took priority and my trips are much fewer and far between, so maybe I have less success if catch rates have increased for others. That's probably always the case to some extent but more drastic with the help of ffs perhaps (more time on the water equals more fish.) I guess another push for ffs for guys like me who used to be out there every week no matter the weather for years, now times more limited until kids get older, should I use ffs to help me get into more action until the time comes and I'm back on the water all the time? Basically, you don't have to do any work with FFS. So for the next few years you just sharp shoot and realize how easy it is. Then when you have more time you'll have pressured fish to cast at without FFS. You may find it's just too much work and go back to the FFS. Only now you have plenty of time. But your catch rates didn't go up because the fish have been beat up for so long that they really don't bite anything anymore. Bingo! It's kind've sad but I think this is the direction many if not most fisheries are going. I'm not complaining at all but I'm so lucky that I got to experience MN fishing from 2004 to 2016. The unbelievable fishing that my fishing partners and I experienced pre-livescope will be hard to beat. | |
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Location: SE/WI | gimruis - 6/25/2024 4:05 PM
I don't quite understand the concept of "put and take" with muskie stocking. The "take" part is confusing to me. Do people target them with the intention of harvesting and eating them? That's what they did 40 years ago when they had the Leech Lake Massecres. Seems like we should know a little more about the subject now.
Put and take stocking with trout and walleye makes sense. They're targeted for harvest. Muskies being targeted for food doesn't appeal to me. And I'm not really sure why it would appeal to anyone else either.
Put and take stockings are because of zero to limited natural reproduction on bodies of water. So we stock them to keep building the population over the years. Most bodies of water that I fish are 48-50" and even 54" limit nobody is taking. One body of water has a 40" limit and can tell you that there were definitely people taking them to eat and bragging about it years ago. Same body of water that was stocked since late 70's was also pillaged by the DNR for the Lake Geneva Musky Program, where they took anything they could net over 40" to Geneva. Combination of the two really destroyed the strong population it had and flipped the musky/pike ratio for the worse. | |
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| Baby Mallard - 6/25/2024 7:17 PM
{...}>Bingo! It's kind've sad but I think this is the direction many if not most fisheries are going. I'm not complaining at all but I'm so lucky that I got to experience MN fishing from 2004 to 2016. The unbelievable fishing that my fishing partners and I experienced pre-livescope will be hard to beat.
I think that's more to do with those initial year classes of fish growing up in a system with no competition for resources. And when they started to get big in the early 2000's it was a fishery like few had seen before followed by the great unwashed public descending onto those lakes like a plague. If you could remove all the muskies and remove all the anglers, and re-stock fish in the same numbers as before it would probably be as good as it ever was. Might have to re-stock some forage though.. | |
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Location: Chisholm, MN | esoxaddict - 6/25/2024 9:16 PM
Baby Mallard - 6/25/2024 7:17 PM
{...}>Bingo! It's kind've sad but I think this is the direction many if not most fisheries are going. I'm not complaining at all but I'm so lucky that I got to experience MN fishing from 2004 to 2016. The unbelievable fishing that my fishing partners and I experienced pre-livescope will be hard to beat.
I think that's more to do with those initial year classes of fish growing up in a system with no competition for resources. And when they started to get big in the early 2000's it was a fishery like few had seen before followed by the great unwashed public descending onto those lakes like a plague. If you could remove all the muskies and remove all the anglers, and re-stock fish in the same numbers as before it would probably be as good as it ever was. Might have to re-stock some forage though..
Addict, have you fished northern minnesota much the last 5 years? | |
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Posts: 2024
| If there was a new lure calling in the fishies and everyone was catching 4 a day, you boomers would be all over it. Paying $300 a pop for it. Instead, here ya are griping about technology advances. What happened to the discussions about the best reel for double 10s?
Ban the guides using it. Simple, easier to enforce, and will save a majority of the fish from being harassed and delayed mortality.
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| To everyone using FFS for "ethical " purposes, such as eliminating non productive water. When you find fish, do you turn the unit off? Asking for a friend. | |
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| I think the main issue with the increased technology like FFS is not that technology is inherently bad but rather that, unless musky populations are growing along with the new technology, it becomes a net negative on the population and you can end up worse off in the long run. If increased technology was helping musky fishing, you'd expect to see the quality of musky fishing and catch rates continually increasing over time but that is clearly not the case in most places. I think most logical anglers would trade reduced technology for the fishing quality of 15-20 years ago.
Regarding limiting just guides, I'm not sure that would do that much considering I'd suspect that the percentage of total muskies caught by guides has shrunk over time as the average angler is far more knowledgeable and equipped than they were historically.
If bait technology was developed that created some electronic vibration muskies could not resist and it was combined with future iterations of FFS that could locate every musky in the lake that would be problematic and I'd suspect most fishermen would support limitations on it. There are already hook and line number limitations in most places.
Edited by xcskier_hunter 6/26/2024 11:05 AM
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Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs |
Basically, you don't have to do any work with FFS. .
Really? Is it possible you're stretching this a BIT?
Work you need to do:
Spend $3K+ for FFS set up
Have a boat to put FFS on
Travel to lakes that have muskies (they're not everywhere)
Know or learn where the fish are that you're going to sharpshoot
Find the fish
Find fish that will open their mouths (yes, F-ing with them MIGHT get them to eat eventually, but a fish that doesn't want to eat, won't eat. Seen it with a live sucker enough times to know there is no sure fire way to get them to eat)
Drive hooks in when they do eat.
Fight fish without losing the fish.
Not F up the net job.
OR, am I wrong and pulling up to the ramp with FFS on your boat causes all adult muskies to immediately race to the ramp to sacrifice themselves? If so, I need to sell some stuff to get up to date! | |
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| I’ll just use 1 of the 3 program lakes I live close to as an example. Lake is 3,200 acres, gets stocked each year and has for a really long time at 1 advanced fingerling EACH year at 1 per acre. Not all survive, some are killed, kept ect. But there are easy 5,000 plus 30”+ musky in said lake. Lake has a huge shad population that more than supports the rest of the fish.
To the above question about seeing sizes increase, in the last 3-4 years in my chapter the average size has increased and with more big fish each year. Stocked lakes vs natural reproduction water is different in my opinion in parts of this debate.
For comparison the first year living and fishing in OH, I did not have FFS also didn’t know anything about the lakes or have anyone helping me, I averaged 1 musky per 8.1 hours fishing. I spent almost all of that year on one lake breaking it down and learning it and what the musky we’re doing. Year 2 I spent majority of my time on lake #2 learning it, with the occasional trip back to lake #1. That was hard to make myself do, but I sure learned a lot kept a very good log notes ect. That I still refer to sometimes. Sometime in year 2 I got FFS, fast forward to year 4, I’m averaging 1 per 6 hours on the water.
Edited by OH Muskyman 6/26/2024 12:33 PM
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Location: Chisholm, MN | Slamr - 6/26/2024 12:17 PM
Basically, you don't have to do any work with FFS. .
Really? Is it possible you're stretching this a BIT?
Work you need to do:
Spend $3K+ for FFS set up
Have a boat to put FFS on
Travel to lakes that have muskies (they're not everywhere)
Know or learn where the fish are that you're going to sharpshoot
Find the fish
Find fish that will open their mouths (yes, F-ing with them MIGHT get them to eat eventually, but a fish that doesn't want to eat, won't eat. Seen it with a live sucker enough times to know there is no sure fire way to get them to eat)
Drive hooks in when they do eat.
Fight fish without losing the fish.
Not F up the net job.
OR, am I wrong and pulling up to the ramp with FFS on your boat causes all adult muskies to immediately race to the ramp to sacrifice themselves? If so, I need to sell some stuff to get up to date!
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Yup, daddy bought the boat, truck and sonar. Or not...either way there was no "fishing related work". And anyone who knows anything about muskies in MN knows where to find them. None of the other things you describe are work. Setting the hook is not work. It's fun. You get to skip all the work involved like time on the water, constant casting, figuring out the spots. The spots are figured out for you, first by someone giving you the spot, then dialing it in on the sonar which takes no time.
Slamr, have you been to MN and tried sharp shooting? I really don't think you understand how easy it is. It's really like shooting fish in a barrel. Seriously, you can plop a bait down on 100 fish in a day in the right conditions and lake and catch 10 with maybe a year or two of experience vs how you know how to fish. I assume you have been fishing muskies for a very long time and have gained the experience to have a few really good days in a given year. Maybe you catch 3 fish and that's an excellent day of fishing. As it should be. It's nothing like that now. Nothing about FFS is fair to the fish but unfortunately it's very difficult to catch fish on Vermilion without it now. I don't even blame people for using it. But it has been detrimental to the fish and takes the fun and mystery out of muskie fishing. I've said it before but you can almost do a population estimate in a basin in one day of fishing with the scope. Grid it and count. Of course you will not find all of them, but when most of them are in open water in certain times of year it would be pretty accurate.
Now the reports I'm hearing from leech sound like Vermilion was a few years ago. The poor lake has floaters all over and people just driving around scoping. 10 years ago nobody even fished leech in june because they thought the fish just didn't bite. But they found them now and survival is poor. And that's the motherland of Minnesota muskies on target to be destroyed.
Edited by Kirby Budrow 6/26/2024 1:22 PM
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Location: Contrarian Island | Yah I think the guys that aren't against sharp shooting are either A, very selfish, and / or B not looking into the future. I have been hearing stories of big dead floaters from Sharp Shooters this season and that is with a small % of the guys out there doing it, wait til most are doing it.. you'll have a bunch of rich kids with 3 scopes on their boat sharp shooting and big dumb fish choking down tubes and we'll see more and more dead ones... with stocking pretty much everywhere going down, and this new sharp shooting bs running rampant, the population is bound to decline ... It is not a good thing long term. at all.. pretty much every guide in northern WI and MN now has multiple scope units and that is pretty much all they are doing currently... sad.
it is as close to shooting fish in a barrel as can be... I truly hope the DNR does make the tactic of sharp shooting illegal some day.
Edited by BNelson 6/26/2024 1:42 PM
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Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | Just to clarify: I am against sharpshooting.
I'm also against:
-fishing when the water temps are above 80 degrees
-fishing below spill ways
-sucker fishing with a single hook.
-bonking legal sized fish
BUT none of these things are banned.
Education on how catching deep water fish harms them...that could fix the issues you're seeing. Trying to ban FFS from Joe Angler is just not going to happen. | |
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Location: Contrarian Island | I disagree. I believe a law could be written to ban the tactic. | |
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Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | And while I'm with y'all to educate the masses against FFS sharpshooting in deep water...saying this:
Yup, daddy bought the boat, truck and sonar. Or not...either way there was no "fishing related work". And anyone who knows anything about muskies in MN knows where to find them. None of the other things you describe are work. Setting the hook is not work. It's fun. You get to skip all the work involved like time on the water, constant casting, figuring out the spots. The spots are figured out for you, first by someone giving you the spot, then dialing it in on the sonar which takes no time
You sound like an old man saying "the youngins didnt have to work for it like we did". Maybe focus more on the reality of the harm deep water catches put on fish versus in shallower water. Just sayin' | |
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Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | BNelson - 6/26/2024 2:48 PM
I disagree. I believe a law could be written to ban the tactic.
Maybe, but enforcement? Not sure how often you see the DNR up in MN, but in 30 years of muskie fishing (badly) I've been stopped maybe 6 or 7 times for even a license check. And once for too many weeds on my trailer...while driving down the road....chasing Worrall down the road....to a tune of $215.
Just saying it might be easier to legislate it out by showing the negative affects the perpetrators are cuasing the showing that this is an "unethical way" to fish.
MI and all the muskie fisherman who would contribute to the legal case might not equal the lawyering Garmin, Lowrance, Humminbird etc can put up. | |
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Location: Chisholm, MN | Slamr - 6/26/2024 2:50 PM
And while I'm with y'all to educate the masses against FFS sharpshooting in deep water...saying this:
Yup, daddy bought the boat, truck and sonar. Or not...either way there was no "fishing related work". And anyone who knows anything about muskies in MN knows where to find them. None of the other things you describe are work. Setting the hook is not work. It's fun. You get to skip all the work involved like time on the water, constant casting, figuring out the spots. The spots are figured out for you, first by someone giving you the spot, then dialing it in on the sonar which takes no time
You sound like an old man saying "the youngins didnt have to work for it like we did". Maybe focus more on the reality of the harm deep water catches put on fish versus in shallower water. Just sayin'
Is that not what this whole conversation has been about? The point is that it's easy and anyone who has access to the technology can do this. | |
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| If states can regulate trail cameras and drones for hunting then they can regulate electronics usage in fishing. In the age of the smartphone it's not nearly as easy to get away with breaking the law as it used to be.
Perhaps if enough muskies are getting killed in June due to targeting them deep in open water with FFS the state DNRs will respond by delaying the musky season opener to July 1. I'd rather see limitations on technology that enable long seasons but maybe others would rather have no technological limitations and shorter seasons. | |
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Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | '
Is that not what this whole conversation has been about? The point is that it's easy and anyone who has access to the technology can do this.
Then we need to work about 10000X harder on education, fund raising for stocking/education/habitat restoration because the world is changing. You have more power in your hands (mobile phone) than the lunar lander had and that is only going to become more and more prevalent.
The idea of "working for something" when there's a technology that skips the work is dying as tech advances, AI leads us to Skynet, and we all live on our screeens.
50 yrs a go, you caught a legal, you killed it. Now, we "know better". Just really believe the answer is education, not working to ban something. | |
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Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | xcskier_hunter - 6/26/2024 3:20 PM
If states can regulate trail cameras and drones for hunting then they can regulate electronics usage in fishing. In the age of the smartphone it's not nearly as easy to get away with breaking the law as it used to be.
Perhaps if enough muskies are getting killed in June due to targeting them deep in open water with FFS the state DNRs will respond by delaying the musky season opener to July 1. I'd rather see limitations on technology that enable long seasons but maybe others would rather have no technological limitations and shorter seasons.
Agreed!
But, I guarantee that the DNR/State Gov't is going to need data to support any change.
Oh, to the point of this whole long-@sssed thread: if this is really hurting the resource, the DNR or whatever governing body has the right to legislate this is going to need to see actual data to support your cause. NOT SAYING THE EFFECT ISN"T THERE but I've read a lot (I won't say all) of this thread and other than one person self identifying as a person that catches a ton of fish (good on ya, btw), I have not seen any actual DATA to support what you want to have changed.
"floaters all over", killing the resource, makes the fishing too easy, destroys the ethos of muskie fishing....all these things are scary but without data, it's hearsay and I doubt that's going too far in the hall of gov't.
Yes MI and muskie anglers advocating as a unified body to force change COULD happen, but I'm just not a believer that the muskie fishing community is either A. large enough or B. unified enough to be able to make these kinds of legal changes at a speed that would make any of us happy.
AND, you get data from studies and planned data collection (surveys, etc). That costs money. Raising money takes time and a unified effort.
OR, we could all, IN A POSITIVE, manner teach the benefits of better fish handling and selective catching methods (ie. dont drag'em out of 30' of water). In the age of social media, message boards, newsletters, podcasts, blaa blaa blaa, sending the message of how to use this tech responsibly you could start this tomorrow.
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Location: Contrarian Island | Slamr you go to Eagle right. Hire any of thr guides that are using it and see for yourself. Lots of those guys are sharpshooting too. | |
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| There is data that shows musky populations are struggling relative to where we want them in a lot of places. Clearly that is not only the result of FFS/sharpshooting but I think it could be logically argued that making anglers more effective will do nothing to reverse, and likely exacerbate this trend.
Furthermore, states did not wait to see how drones affected hunting harvest rates before banning them, so the idea that there must be definitive proof a technology is detrimental to a resource before limiting it is not necessarily true. If anything, waiting to implement regulations is problematic as once people have accepted the technology it becomes much harder to limit it retroactively.
Realistically, a study might have to be conducted over 20 years to see whether the technology is having a negative effect on muskies as they can live even longer than that.
I do agree that educating people on correct handling makes sense in conjunction with any regulations but I'm not really sure that will be enough on its own.
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Location: Duluth | xcskier_hunter - 6/26/2024 5:19 PM
There is data that shows musky populations are struggling relative to where we want them in a lot of places. Clearly that is not only the result of FFS/sharpshooting but I think it could be logically argued that making anglers more effective will do nothing to reverse, and likely exacerbate this trend.
Furthermore, states did not wait to see how drones affected hunting harvest rates before banning them, so the idea that there must be definitive proof a technology is detrimental to a resource before limiting it is not necessarily true. If anything, waiting to implement regulations is problematic as once people have accepted the technology it becomes much harder to limit it retroactively.
Realistically, a study might have to be conducted over 20 years to see whether the technology is having a negative effect on muskies as they can live even longer than that.
I do agree that educating people on correct handling makes sense in conjunction with any regulations but I'm not really sure that will be enough on its own.
Unfortunately the precautionary principle is a foreign concept, bad pun and all. | |
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Location: Chisholm, MN | Slamr - 6/26/2024 3:26 PM
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Is that not what this whole conversation has been about? The point is that it's easy and anyone who has access to the technology can do this.
Then we need to work about 10000X harder on education, fund raising for stocking/education/habitat restoration because the world is changing. You have more power in your hands (mobile phone) than the lunar lander had and that is only going to become more and more prevalent.
The idea of "working for something" when there's a technology that skips the work is dying as tech advances, AI leads us to Skynet, and we all live on our screeens.
50 yrs a go, you caught a legal, you killed it. Now, we "know better". Just really believe the answer is education, not working to ban something.
How can you teach the "professionals" who are the ones beating the fish down the most? They have been ridiculed steadily all over social media and they don't care. I'm not going to name names but you have heard of most of them I bet. But one of them did kill a legal for recognition. He claimed it just died. But fish rarely die in November and it happend to be the state record. Hmmmm | |
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Location: Contrarian Island | Weighed it first to be sure. 
Edited by BNelson 6/27/2024 8:26 AM
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| "How can you teach the "professionals" who are the ones beating the fish down the most? They have been ridiculed steadily all over social media and they don't care. I'm not going to name names but you have heard of most of them I bet. But one of them did kill a legal for recognition. He claimed it just died. But fish rarely die in November and it happend to be the state record. Hmmmm"
Guides and youtubers are promoting FFS the most. Require guides to have licenses and double, triple, heck, even quadruple any reasonable fees they pay to go directly to stocking. They take advantage of a basically free resource to earn a living. Any sales taxes they pay do not go towards muskies. I understand the costs of running a business, the taxes go to the state, which do not fund DNRs, much less direct muskie stocking. Bump up the cost of a license, or require a muskie stamp. Any rod in the boat 8 foot and over requires the stamp, unless it's a catfish rod. Bass guys are typically topped out at 8 feet, so much less confusion. Maybe require a musky stamp for a boat to have FFS on it.
I was on Vermilion a week and a few days last year. Not 1 floater spotted... The sky hasn't quite fallen... yet. I may change my mind mid July though.
All this arguing, and I fear the possible realities are, and neither is desirable for musky fishermen:
1-Allow FFS to continue and see a slow crash in muskie populations, due to delayed mortality. Along the way to that crash we get an even more educated fish that are more difficult to catch.
2- Ban FFS and see a vast decrease in new fishermen and fisherwomen being recruited to the sport. Which will lead to a further decrease in stocking and eventual crash in stocked lakes.
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | It's up to you guys and other like-minded folks who sort of have the inside-knowledge as to the negative effects to take if forward and push with the folks with influence. Organized stakeholders have the power (which is that they represent a multiplier of folks that are quietly in the background but have the same view). As far as legislation, Garmin et al. has 0 votes when it comes to the folks who ultimately make policy. All the power is with you - you are the primary stakeholders, not Garmin.
In a case of something like a resource that is very slippery to get meaningful data (ie catch rates going up, not down - and really hard to interpret), really the folks that know what's going on are those on the ground (water) as it were. THERE IS NO NEED FOR ANOTHER STUDY - the data is already available to make a very well educated prediction on the outcome. None of the posts are arguing with the concept that there is not going to higher mortality rates on big fish - entirely the arguments are the A and B arguments outlined by BNelson. I would argue there is a C group as well, that just hasn't seen a tube deep in the throat of a big muskie - these pelagic fish are there to eat, not strike a bait in reaction mode. I would call this group the skeptical uninformed. They need to trust the Kirbys and the BNelsons who know what's going on - I mean you really don't need much to see much more than the little clip of Jimmy Houston. Like any deer hunting show - they don't show the unshowable: gut-shot deer or in the case of muskies shows or videos, big muskies caught in the gills or exhausted floaters that are going to die off camera.
Really all that is happening is you are kicking a decision that needs to be made NOW down the road. It will be too late. For what? Freedom to use what you want? You already don't have the freedom to do what you want: they are called fish regulations and seasons and catch and size limits. Ban it, don't accommodate it.
PS.. Need a Facebook reporting page dedicated to musky floaters - pike included. Nothing more helpful to a cause than visual aids.
PSS Earlier in these threads I mentioned that a lodge owner asked me what I thought of FFS (a few years back). I had my thoughts about it then (same as now) given I could see how effective it could be in certain scenarios. "What can we do?" I took the Muskie Inc Statement to him a week or so ago. He gave me a sort of chagrined look, laughed. "Too harsh?" He laughed hard.. Well his response was he couldn't believe that is wasn't more strongly worded*. Showed him the Jimmy clip. He then on his own time checked out Maina's discussion and really appreciated Scott Keiper's views on it. Point being is this is a wise fellow that has seen it all and so I can reliably say that he would want the Muskies Inc statement to be much more strongly worded.
*new edit
Edited by Angling Oracle 6/27/2024 10:08 AM
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | 'Well his response was he couldn't believe how weak it was.'
Show me another conservation organization that took ANY stand. I promise you that statement has cost us membership, a risk we were willing to take, as conversely, it may encourage others to join. Insulting the effort won't help the cause.
There's your idea of how to handle FFS, and then there is what is reality and WAY more likely to happen. Our stance is the one a non-profit may take in the US and offers a realistic solution, and from the posts here (yours included), it's working exactly as we hoped. Without MI, muskie conservation would not be where it is today.
Southern states are already reacting to FFS by dropping crappie limits dramatically. There's the likely legislation expected for other species as the tech progresses.
Reality might suck, but it is what it is. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | 'He claimed it just died. But fish rarely die in November and it happend to be the state record. Hmmmm"
There's more to that story, and that particular fellow presented an issue not related to FFS at all.
Read the posts here and the last AO post, the MI statement is working and social pressure is already being applied. | |
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| I really don't see your second scenario as that likely. Musky fishing is as popular as ever and after Larry Ramsell's podcast with Meateater I bet there will be another non-negligible jump in musky fishing interest. Additionally, one of the biggest areas of growth is in fly fishing, which is evidence that some portion of anglers is already self-limiting to increase the challenge of musky fishing. Much of this interest is from younger anglers too. Thus, I think it's far more likely that the future of musky fishing hinges on healthy fisheries, not unlimited technology being allowed.
Also, I personally struggle with the idea that the solution to increased technology in waters with native and naturally reproducing muskies is increased stocking. I believe these populations are far more valuable than musky lakes that either historically had no muskies or a non-fishable populations. In the latter scenario, I see stocking as a much more reasonable solution, however, it still probably makes sense to enforce some limitations on these waters considering we're already struggling to satisfy stocking demands.
Edited by xcskier_hunter 6/27/2024 9:35 AM
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | sworrall - 6/27/2024 9:17 AM
'Well his response was he couldn't believe how weak it was.'
Show me another conservation organization that took ANY stand.
Look at my profile and you will see what my position is with MI. There's your idea of how to handle FFS, and then there is what's reality and WAY more likely to happen. Our stance is the one a non-profit may take in the US and offers a realistic solution, and from the posts here (yours included), it's working exactly as we hoped. Without MI, muskie conservation would not be where it is today.
I revised the wording as comes off a bit harsher than intended.
I personally think the stand is a good start. One has to start somewhere.
I was surprised by his response as well given he is not really even a musky fisherman (he hosts lots of them), but the Jimmy Houston video really shocked him and he went and studied it further on his own volition. I think that was a signal from him to us (my musky partner is consistently involved in defending hunting/fishing access, conservation issues up here) to push ahead and explore where to go with it. The Muskies Inc. stance will help in that. We will be back there in a couple weeks so will hopefully discuss it further.
I really appreciate what you and Muskies Inc. have done and it is a courageous move given sort of the mixed views on what to do from some folks who certainly want their musky fisheries to be sustainable, but still sympathetic to those who use FFS as they want.
Edited by Angling Oracle 6/27/2024 10:10 AM
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Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | BNelson - 6/26/2024 4:54 PM
Slamr you go to Eagle right. Hire any of thr guides that are using it and see for yourself. Lots of those guys are sharpshooting too.
Totally sure you're right.
BUT, I really believe that to get this movement of either banning the tech or moving to get muskie fisherman to stop the deep water mortality we have to have data that supports fish are dying.
If the argument is that "it makes muskie fishing TOO easy" and that's why it should be banned, that's not going to fly. Maybe the world has turned to being more "instant gratification" focused versus working for a goal, but telling the DNR you need to stop letting people use this because it helps people catch fish (the exact reason the DNR/MNR manage the fisheries), the DNR is going to ask to have you put on a seminar so that they have more happy people using the resource.
Bad news. that's their goal, to have more people be able to catch fish. | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Slamr, if you want to make it "easy" to catch trout you put out a bobber with a minnow, worm, grasshopper, maggot. Trout that are naive to lures are suckers for spinners, little crankbaits. Trout are dumb in the same way muskies are.
Trout fisherman and their regulators decided that in certain places best to make it "harder" to catch them: fly fishing only, barbless flies, no streamers, no nymphs, flies of a certain size, single flies only, etc. Quality, not quantity.
Muskies are just another fish to everyone else - they are just really special to us, the musky angler. We can make the rules as we want if we have the will to do so.
Edited by Angling Oracle 6/27/2024 11:22 AM
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | xcskier_hunter - 6/27/2024 9:32 AM
Also, I personally struggle with the idea that the solution to increased technology in waters with native and naturally reproducing muskies is increased stocking. I believe these populations are far more valuable than musky lakes that either historically had no muskies or a non-fishable populations. In the latter scenario, I see stocking as a much more reasonable solution, however, it still probably makes sense to enforce some limitations on these waters considering we're already struggling to satisfy stocking demands.
We need only to look at the St Lawrence (the Larry) and Lake Simcoe to see where things can go. Simcoe had muskies, trying to bring them back but they won't take. The lake already has a new predator equilibrium. The Larry had VHS - wiped out a lot of the fish way back when. Mr. Ramsell probably can give better insight as to where it is at. I read some of the studies where they are seining for the last year classes, very hard to find. Again, probably in tough with new equilibrium and goby introductions. VHS and stocked fish (homogenous genetics), not a recipe for long term sustainability.
We are at the fork in the road: take the safe, sure road and get where you want to go, or go the risky route, the one that the tipsy stranger in the backseat says it will be a lot of fun, but a lot of experienced folks at the intersection are telling you not to go...
Edited by Angling Oracle 6/27/2024 10:22 AM
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| If your goal is to protect the fish which you keep throwing out - there are 101 ways to do that that would be 1000% more effective than banning FFS.
Edited by IAJustin 6/28/2024 9:57 AM
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| IAJustin - 6/28/2024 9:51 AM
If your goal is to protect the fish which you keep throwing out - there are 101 ways to do that that would be 1000% more effective than banning FFS.
I agree.
The idea that someone would be against the use of FFS and for the use of a big sucker to muskie fish is completely contradictory. Clearly the use of live bait causes a higher mortality than the use of artificial lures and dozens of scientific studies have backed that up.
Increased stocking, improving water quality, and reducing damage from wake boats would go a heck of a lot further for muskie populations than banning new technology being used solely for catch and release.
Now if we're talking FFS through the ice for crappies, that's a completely different ball game. Those fish are targeted solely for harvest, not release. And there's a lot more people doing it too. | |
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| The goal is to protect the fish but it's simpler and, in my opinion, makes more sense to limit emerging technologies and methods versus retroactively banning traditional methods that are more effective. By your logic we should focus on banning boat motors rather than regulating FFS.
I don't personally fish with suckers or have any interest to but the fact that it's an entrenched tradition has some inherent value compared to emerging methods that even in their infancy (it will only get better) are proving extremely effective and anecdotally harming fisheries (not to mention the fact that FFS is often combined with sucker fishing).
Most importantly, none of your solutions are either/or scenarios. I personally have supported wake boat regulations but that does not mean I don't support limiting technology that makes anglers more effective as I don't believe our fisheries can sustain a growing number of musky anglers that are increasingly effective. If we actually want a greater number of anglers that are engaged musky advocates, we need sustainable and healthy musky fisheries to support them.
Edited by xcskier_hunter 6/28/2024 12:26 PM
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| Xcskier, Bnelson and Kirby -- I agree 100% with your positions and statements .. its going to hurt the fish !!!! and fishery .. There is going to stunted sixes , thinner fish , and fish that are waaay harder to catch in the near future .. As for the work thread that Slamr put out I just dont buy it .. its not work to go in debt , or be fortunate enough to pay cash for FFS .. ( it hard to work if you fish 20 days a month ??) yeah slingin' lures is work , but its far less if its throwing 8-10 cast at a fish on your TV . Surely the entire community agrees fish get educated and conditioned .. still some think its a good idea .. to hook and boat a much much higher % of fish in a system .. like a tremendous increae that happened in a 2 year period . and think it wont eventually harm the system . | |
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| Banning and limiting boat motor size has already been done, in many places... very good thought to really protect the fish, now we are getting somewhere!!! Anyone else for a 10hp limit on LOTW?
Edited by IAJustin 6/28/2024 2:28 PM
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| Not a comment on FFS or the statement. Friday evening just at dusk, noticed a guy in a large boat fishing in front of my place. Large unit on bow, 2 on the console and then a live scope and screen on side of boat, behind the passenger seat. Had all four units on, could see because of how dark it was. He was fishing by himself, and from boat position, seemed to looking down the weed line with the live scope and casting parallel to the weed line. Was moving the boat slowly, in and out from shore.
Is that common placement of the live scope and screen? Have not seem them used, so curious about it. Also a little surprised he would leave all the units on. Must have a separate battery just for the screens I guess. | |
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Location: S.W. WI | gimruis - 6/28/2024 10:40 AM
IAJustin - 6/28/2024 9:51 AM
If your goal is to protect the fish which you keep throwing out - there are 101 ways to do that that would be 1000% more effective than banning FFS.
I agree.
The idea that someone would be against the use of FFS and for the use of a big sucker to muskie fish is completely contradictory. Clearly the use of live bait causes a higher mortality than the use of artificial lures and dozens of scientific studies have backed that up.....
*******
Edited by Rudedog 7/1/2024 7:02 AM
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Location: S.W. WI | I call B.S. on this statement. ^
I have caught probably near a hundred on suckers, and 10 times that many on artificial lures. In 20 plus years- Not One Time have I been concerned about the survival of a sucker fish I have caught. I have probably killed 5 for sure on bucktails, and many more very deeply hooked on various lures over the years that I was very concerned with. But I am sure I am just lucky, right?
These studies you refer to are obviously for single hook swallow rigs. (Not allowed in WI.) Wisconsin has a law you must use "Only Quick set rigs" or offset circle hooks on any live bait over 8". No swallow rig single hooks allowed.
Quick set rigs with suckers are Safer than lures for fish survival in my opinion, and also of most experts in our sport.
To compare it in any way to FFS CRAP is a joke. Chasing a fish around with live radar, (like using a Drone to hunt deer) is nothing like anything else and should be stopped. | |
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Location: Brighton CO. | I thing on mortality only about 1 in ten dead Muskies float! (something about a being a lean fish I don't remember why) If we use Quick strike rigs properly they don't hurt Muskie populations at all. One it's done in the cold water period, and I've never seen a hook by a Muskies eye. How many times when fishing with a lure with three hooks do you see a hook by or in a Muskies eye? I know one guide who will not use a BullDawg because Muskie swim up and inhale them. Any time we hook a Muskie we have a chance to kill them! Fact of the matter who wants a lake full of Muskies if we can't fish for them. There's a lake by a State Park by my home where half the Lake is off limits to fishing and boats. It works well for the fish. It's good to have fishing preserves too. I know places in Wisconsin where you can't fish so many feet below a dam. | |
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Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | Honest question to those against FFS (and again, I'm against sharpshooting both ethically and it seems like a lame way to fish).
Are you
A: FFS should be banned from muskie fishing because increased catch rates cause long terms disruption to the fish population?
B. Sharpshooting (as defined as catching open water/deep water muskies) should be banned?
Not poised for the attack, honestly curious. | |
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Location: S.W. WI | chuckski - 7/1/2024 8:59 AM
..... I know one guide who will not use a BullDawg because Muskie swim up and inhale them. .
That is bogus too. in that case all small lures that often get engulfed should be illegal.
Pretty sure I know that guide. He threw a 5" Curly Sue and frowned on me throwing a Mag Dawg. That's a Joke! | |
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Location: Chisholm, MN | Slamr - 7/1/2024 9:20 AM
Honest question to those against FFS (and again, I'm against sharpshooting both ethically and it seems like a lame way to fish).
Are you
A: FFS should be banned from muskie fishing because increased catch rates cause long terms disruption to the fish population?
B. Sharpshooting (as defined as catching open water/deep water muskies) should be banned?
Not poised for the attack, honestly curious.
C. I don't know what the answer is but something needs to be done. I don't think a ban would happen but I would be happy if it did. I'm very happy about the muskies inc position statement. More of that kind of thing helps.
If anyone watched Doug Wegners video on this he states that fishing open water muskies could be dangerous WITHOUT FSS. That's because you have no idea how deep the fish is that you may be catching. With it, and with restraint, you can avoid catching deep fish. I agree with that. But with the scope, too many fish are being caught for the sustainability of the species in Minnesota. All due to Youtubers seeing how easy it is to be a hero with the scope. There really is no easy solution. | |
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| Rudedog - 7/1/2024 7:02 AM
I call B.S. on this statement. ^
I have caught probably near a hundred on suckers, and 10 times that many on artificial lures. In 20 plus years- Not One Time have I been concerned about the survival of a sucker fish I have caught. I have probably killed 5 for sure on bucktails, and many more very deeply hooked on various lures over the years that I was very concerned with. But I am sure I am just lucky, right?
These studies you refer to are obviously for single hook swallow rigs. (Not allowed in WI.) Wisconsin has a law you must use "Only Quick set rigs" or offset circle hooks on any live bait over 8". No swallow rig single hooks allowed.
Quick set rigs with suckers are Safer than lures for fish survival in my opinion, and also of most experts in our sport.
To compare it in any way to FFS CRAP is a joke. Chasing a fish around with live radar, (like using a Drone to hunt deer) is nothing like anything else and should be stopped.
Except not every state with muskies prohibits the use of a single hook with a live sucker. Most people are not using a quick strike rig unless they have to.
Let the bobber go down, wait 10 minutes, set the hook. That method of fishing has been around for a long time and has been proven to kill a lot of muskies. There is no scientific study out there proving that the use of FFS kills more muskies. Your evidence is purely anecdotal based on your own, and only your, experience.
Edited by gimruis 7/1/2024 3:17 PM
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| Which states allow single hook sucker rigs? And are they circle hooks? I have a brother in law who is a commercial fisherman in Alaska and for decades had a long line license for salmon, using circle hooks. Thousands of salmon over the rail and I asked if they were ever hooked anywhere but the mouth and he just scoffed and said "why else would you use circle hooks?" | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | 'Most people are not using a quick strike rig unless they have to.
Let the bobber go down, wait 10 minutes, set the hook. That method of fishing has been around for a long time and has been proven to kill a lot of muskies. There is no scientific study out there proving that the use of FFS kills more muskies. Your evidence is purely anecdotal based on your own, and only your, experience.'
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Intentionally fishing a sucker that way has been seriously not cool for a long time. That debate took place right here well over a decade ago. If we are successful, and we will be, it will also be 'not cool' to catch muskies sharpshooting. If it's 'not cool' and it's being done to brag about it, that will probably not be very fulfilling in the end.
If catch rates are increased tremendously sharpshooting, and of course they are, then the accepted average mortality rate after successful release clearly indicates a LOT more muskies will die. With limited stocking in some areas across the range and none in others and the indications that it's not going to improve quickly, that's a concern for anyone except the person looking to impress with wild numbers of fish caught. When even sharpshooting numbers dwindle, we'll all be left with diminishing populations and a sport with a serious social disease with a lot of finger pointing going on. Not rocket science to figure that out.
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| Steve, I'm sure MI in Minnesota has been in touch with MNFish, what is their stance on FFS? | |
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Location: Contrarian Island | I totally agree with Kirby and others who look at simply the numbers being caught going up as a bad thing. It is easy to notice all the guides and 'friends' I have on facebook out sharpshooting this year and their numbers increasing dramatically. There are guides who a couple yrs ago were bragging about 2 fish days now having 5+ fish days routinely. Gee shocker they show pics of the multiple Livescope screens with a simple scroll thru their pics... if we can agree delayed mortality by a certain % IS real and legit, whether that is 5% or 10% it really doesn't matter. The simple # of fish being caught is dramatically being increased by even the relatively small % of people out sharp shooting currently.. wait until that % is 75% or more... we will see a crash in a vast majority of the fisheries in the next 5 to 10 yrs I firmly believe that. will me and others be right? we'll see... imo the stocking can simply can not keep up with the delayed mortality... It is crazy to me how many big fish I am seeing posted on Fbook by sharpshooters in the last month.. that can't be a good thing... why is "more" in our society somehow always deemed better? more caught is not a good thing as it relates to the future populations of the lakes unless stocking is increased and we all know how that goes....
Edited by BNelson 7/1/2024 6:17 PM
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Location: Duluth | Not throwing a cast until a screen tells you to is loser s***, don't know where I would be today if I knew some of those strikes were going to happen. | |
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Posts: 2015
| BNelson preaching we should all catch “less” muskies, I’ve heard it all now. | |
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Posts: 159
| Sworral, I agree. I don't fish with a sucker, period. Whether its with a single hook or a quick strike rig. I find it to be boring and expensive. A decoy sucker here is upwards of 15 bucks for EACH one and its only a one time use. There's a reason they do not allow it in muskie tournaments. Because all you do is sit there and wait.
Stating that one opposes the use FFS but is fine using a decoy sucker which clearly has resulted in a higher mortaility rate makes zero sense and there seems to be several individuals that fall along these lines.
BTW I don't use FFS. I'm not completely opposed to it, I just don't want to fish like that. I stare at a screen long enough at work, no need to do it for the majority of time on the water. I could install it in my boat next week if I wanted to.
Increased stocking and habitat improvement would go much futher to bolster muskie populations than banning FFS. | |
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Location: Contrarian Island | Catching less muskies cheating ya Justin. | |
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | No mystery here:
https://www.outdoorlife.com/fishing/minnesota-record-black-crappie/
There is no difference between FFS (for any species) and spotlighting deer.
Sure you can use it ethically, the same way we used to navigate on LOTW in the dark when only had a spotlight find the buoys to get home, but some folks will not use a spotlight ethically, and some folks are definitely not going to use FFS ethically.
No one that despises FFS now is going to suddenly come around to the deflection arguments (ie. other things cause mortality too, we can stock more, create better spawning habitat, I'm good at releasing fish, barbless, 10 hp motors, yadda, yadda, yadda). It is transparent to the FFS "antis" what it is and what it will become: nothing good.
BNelson is right regarding the musky fishery decline, although I think he is a bit generous on the timeline for some of the lakes where it is being used in a significant way already.
Needs to be banned.
The Muskies Inc. statement is a good start.
Edited by Angling Oracle 7/2/2024 12:53 PM
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| IAJustin - 7/1/2024 10:45 PM
BNelson preaching we should all catch “less” muskies, I’ve heard it all now. ;)
I'm doing my part catching less I tell ya what. | |
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Location: Duluth | Angling Oracle - 7/2/2024 12:47 PM
No mystery here:
https://www.outdoorlife.com/fishing/minnesota-record-black-crappie/
There is no difference between FFS (for any species ) and spotlighting deer.
Sure you can use it ethically, the same way we used to navigate on LOTW in the dark when only had a spotlight find the buoys to get home, but some folks will not use a spotlight ethically, and some folks are definitely not going to use FFS ethically.
No one that despises FFS now is going to suddenly come around to the deflection arguments (ie. other things cause mortality too, we can stock more, create better spawning habitat, I'm good at releasing fish, barbless, 10 hp motors, yadda, yadda, yadda ). It is transparent to the FFS "antis" what it is and what it will become: nothing good.
BNelson is right regarding the musky fishery decline, although I think he is a bit generous on the timeline for some of the lakes where it is being used in a significant way already.
Needs to be banned.
The Muskies Inc. statement is a good start.
If anything, this guys is doing his part to raise awareness. Another fish that "wouldn't release" I guess.. | |
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Location: Des Plaines, IL | The thing that kills me is that I know some very vocal people calling for regulation or banning of forward facing sonar, but those same people will be the first to yell at me about "freedom", "free markets", and "capitalism" when I want regulations put in place to save the lives, or make life better for, other human beings.
I did not get to target muskies from the early 2000s to the mid 2010s very much. I was in high school and college, and just starting a career, getting married, etc. Should I be mad at all the people who crushed it on Vermilion during that time because they "caught too many fish"? Where was the regulation of side imaging and double tens that helped catch rates increase? At least I'm told that those two things drastically changed the game.
Here's a side imaging video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTq1Tmwr4ko Should we also ban this tactic? I would assume people agree this is increasing catch rates, yes? And I know the response will be something like: "it's different, you can't actually see the fish moving" or something along those lines. But if the result is the same, and that fish is caught, how different is it really? I'll take a look at the historical example of prohibition. We passed a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT to get rid of alcohol (which, by the way, was actually probably a good idea based on the research that shows alcohol consumption is very much not good for humans). Spoiler Alert: it did not go well. How's the "war on drugs" going? But I do agree with people, that progress for progress' sake is not always good. More is not always better. But we live in a world that rewards those things monetarily, unfortunately, and our culture is obsessed with status and money. I'd be happy to see reasonable regulations put in place, but I honestly have no idea how that would be enforceable. Like I've stated previously, I love live sonar for trolling and boat position. It is incredibly helpful to know what's in front of me instead of behind me. I am better with my boat position because of it. I can find the trolling depth of any bait I run with relative ease now. Those two things alone are worth it for me. And those two things have helped me catch fish. I have never once pulled up to a spot and used live sonar to watch my bait in front of a fish. Personally, that's not something I'm interested in. But if someone else wants to do that, and abides by limits and regulations, than who am I to tell them they can't? I know Vermilion is being used as an example. Stocked dropped off dramatically, catch rates increased, and now I consistently hear about how tough it is. But would it still be that tough if there had been more steady stocking for the entire time and there wasn't a decade stretch of people absolutely crushing it on that lake? What if instead of a great 10 years, we had a good 30 years? Again, I didn't get to personally experience any of that, so I'm just going by things that I have read about the "golden era" of MN musky fishing. | |
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Location: Brighton CO. | The Vermillion and Mille Lacs fish were pretty much left alone when they were growing up after the first stockings. (everyone drove by on the way Northern Minnesota and Canada.) | |
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Location: Madison, WI | IAJustin - 7/1/2024 10:45 PM
BNelson preaching we should all catch “less” muskies, I’ve heard it all now. ;)
For as long as I've been on this forum, he's been bragging about his success and how many muskies he catches as year/month/day/hour whatever! Now all of a sudden we all need to limit or catch rates to reduce handling fish. Joke! | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | danmuskyman - 7/3/2024 10:15 PM
IAJustin - 7/1/2024 10:45 PM
BNelson preaching we should all catch “less” muskies, I’ve heard it all now. ;)
For as long as I've been on this forum, he's been bragging about his success and how many muskies he catches as year/month/day/hour whatever! Now all of a sudden we all need to limit or catch rates to reduce handling fish. Joke!
Ok that's enough. Context is everything and personal attacks suck. | |
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Location: Contrarian Island | Not limiting it at all Dan. But there is a line in my opinion where its simply NOT fair chase. Sharp shooting is just that. By the looks of Slamrs poll most agree...If you dont agree I could care less. Guessing you are a livescoper....
Edited by BNelson 7/4/2024 9:49 AM
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Location: WI | In complete agreement with what Steve said.
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Location: SW Ohio | BNelson - 7/4/2024 10:42 AM
Not limiting it at all Dan. But there is a line in my opinion where its simply NOT fair chase. Sharp shooting is just that. By the looks of Slamrs poll most agree...If you dont agree I could care less. Guessing you are a livescoper....
I’m not a “livescoper”, just dammed tired of people who don’t like something saying ”ban it”. Everything used as a “reason” to ban FFS has been nothing but assumptions yet held to be true. Sounds a lot like liberal politics nowadays. This all started with one team catching 10 fish on Eagle River and PMTT banning it the next tourney mid-season. No one said anything about Spencer catching 10 fish on Webster or LSC throwing and ripping pounders in previous tourneys. Yet they used technology to find and target those fish.
The same arguments were used when compound bows came out then the crossbows. “The deer will be slaughtered! Ban them!”. Were deer more killed? Sure but more people hunted. The DNR adjusted seasons and limits. There are far more deer today than when compound bows came out. FFS is just today’s easy scapegoat. Whadaya want to ban next? | |
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Location: Duluth | OH Musky - 7/4/2024 5:20 PM
BNelson - 7/4/2024 10:42 AM
Not limiting it at all Dan. But there is a line in my opinion where its simply NOT fair chase. Sharp shooting is just that. By the looks of Slamrs poll most agree...If you dont agree I could care less. Guessing you are a livescoper....
I’m not a “livescoper”, just dammed tired of people who don’t like something saying ”ban it”. Everything used as a “reason” to ban FFS has been nothing but assumptions yet held to be true. Sounds a lot like liberal politics nowadays. This all started with one team catching 10 fish on Eagle River and PMTT banning it the next tourney mid-season. No one said anything about Spencer catching 10 fish on Webster or LSC throwing and ripping pounders in previous tourneys. Yet they used technology to find and target those fish.
The same arguments were used when compound bows came out then the crossbows. “The deer will be slaughtered! Ban them!”. Were deer more killed? Sure but more people hunted. The DNR adjusted seasons and limits. There are far more deer today than when compound bows came out. FFS is just today’s easy scapegoat. Whadaya want to ban next?
You do realize that if something isn't done our fisheries are headed for the highly regulated scenario you created in the other thread. Of course that doesn't matter to most because they'll be dead or too old to fish.
The fishing isn't getting better, habitat is not improving and there is more targeted pressure. No way around the fact that more handling equals more mortality. | |
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Location: Madison, WI | There is an easy solution for everyone concerned about more handling of fish - quit. If you stop handling any fish, and so does everyone else who thinks we're in jeopardy, it offsets whatever you're worried about. But that's not the case is it. You're not really concerned about the fish, just want everyone to fish your way. You guys want to continue to catch more and bigger fish, just as long as nobody else does too with a method you don't like. If I use a livescope and catch 10 fish this year, but you don't and catch 25, you've harmed the fishery more than I have by your own admission! I don't agree with crossbows in archery season, but they get the same number of tags I do | |
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Location: Madison, WI | There is an easy solution for everyone concerned about more handling of fish - quit. If you stop handling any fish, and so does everyone else who thinks we're in jeopardy, it offsets whatever you're worried about. But that's not the case is it. You're not really concerned about the fish, just want everyone to fish your way. You guys want to continue to catch more and bigger fish, just as long as nobody else does too with a method you don't like. If I use a livescope and catch 10 fish this year, but you don't and catch 25, you've harmed the fishery more than I have by your own admission! I don't agree with crossbows in archery season, but they get the same number of tags I do | |
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| Question: How is sharp shooting for any species of fish different than shining for Deer at night? Wasn't the anti shining laws put in to protect Deer herds? Why are there limits in fishing and hunting? Wasn't it done to limit the take and hurting the resource? Why is it illegal in most areas to use a AR-15 on full auto to hunt? Why in most states is there a limit on the number of rods / lines one person can fish?
Doesn't it all come back to "fair chase" and preserving the resource? | |
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Location: Chisholm, MN | danmuskyman - 7/4/2024 7:54 PM
There is an easy solution for everyone concerned about more handling of fish - quit. If you stop handling any fish, and so does everyone else who thinks we're in jeopardy, it offsets whatever you're worried about. But that's not the case is it. You're not really concerned about the fish, just want everyone to fish your way. You guys want to continue to catch more and bigger fish, just as long as nobody else does too with a method you don't like. If I use a livescope and catch 10 fish this year, but you don't and catch 25, you've harmed the fishery more than I have by your own admission! I don't agree with crossbows in archery season, but they get the same number of tags I do
The difference is if you didn't use the scope you'd catch 1-2 fish and the other guy still catches 25. That's over 30% less fish caught than if you had used the scope. 30% less pressure. 30% less fish stung and possibly harmed. I'll take that any day.
Don't you think that 30% more pressure nationwide would have a negative impact on fish?
Obviously just pulling numbers out of nowhere here but you get the idea. If I had to guess it's more like 70 percent or more in reality.
Edited by Kirby Budrow 7/5/2024 8:18 AM
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Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | The arguments for FFS are certainly interesting, to be generous
Casselman laid out the data with regards to big trophy muskies and the effects of fishing pressure.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321945561_Muskellunge_Popul...
"To ensure sustainable trophy Muskellunge populations, fish younger than 15 years should not be exposed to fishing mortality and older fish should not have a fishing mortality rate that exceeds the rate of natural mortality."
The situation in your heavily fish lakes by FFS now is that as more big fish are dying, the pressure on the remaining fish increases. In normal fisheries your probability of encounters (and ergo catching) normally would decrease, and with less success by the anglers their effort would decrease. With FFS though your rate of decrease of probability of encounters does not decrease at the same rate as traditional methods of fishing (ie structure/trolling) given you are covering more water spotlighting with FFS efficiently - you are going to encounter fewer fish but at a lower rate than you would fishing traditional spots/methods. Ultimately this means that the decline in CPU by participating anglers will decline slower than for traditional methods, and thus not signal to fishery managers that the fishery is collapsing.
Here is Ricker (1975) again. Take some time to peruse catch curves, exploited versus unexploited, selective fishing mortality of older fish.
https://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/library-bibliotheque/1485.pdf
If Ricker a bit much, the video link below makes it a fair bit simpler to comprehend. When we consider the mortality of bigger, older muskies, basically you are not going to have many (and eventually none) if this FFS keeps up and gets more advanced and more anglers enter a fishery that would have never conceived of doing so prior to this tech which dumbs it down to spotlighting the lake.
https://youtu.be/NTxMqhqlLUE?si=Tw0lyxbJQRecwM5h
The 5:29 decline is happening now and only going to get worse. The reality is that the entry into the fishery as a "musky angler" and contribute to the FFS catch requires as much knowledge as the bass guy who caught the three 50s in 2 hours without any prior musky experience. The level of difficulty of traditional methods was a barrier to entry to the musky fishery and has kept musky fishing pressure comparatively significantly lower, and the efficiency of the methods employed significantly less effective than what FFS is and will bring. Combine that with the fact that the fish that are targeted in FFS in open water were in what one considered a refuge by default. Add in the increased mortality rate per fish caught due to baurotrauma, heat shock, and deep hooking (given they are feeding, not striking out of instinct). Equals a big, big problem.
For the "pro FFS," some of these things may not apply to you or the waters you fish, but they do apply to the rest of us and the waters we fish. This is not about the tech, this is about sustainability. We need to all figure this out, and so far the solution seems very easy to recognize.
Edited by Angling Oracle 7/5/2024 9:40 AM
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Location: Chisholm, MN | Exactly. If the fishery was not affected and everyone had the same opportunity to catch a good amount of big fish then there would not be a complaint. It's the FACT that muskie fishing sucks now and will never recover that is enraging many of us.
I remember one morning we caught 4 fish over 45 off the same rock spine within about 20 casts on vermilion. This was in 2012. That's when the open water casting bite started to catch on. Everything went downhill from there and now with the scope it's to the point where you're lucky to have a couple encounters in a day without a scope. | |
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| So to Kirby's point fisheries can be ruined with or without FFS, SI did a good job of that on V, Miltona and others MN Lakes WAY before FFS came out!..people driving around "hey look at all these open water fish"...lets put 4-6 people in a boat and troll headlocks. Same could be said on DL area lakes and other lakes sucker fishing...those of us the HATE sucker fishing know that the lure bite got worse..Heck i hear the sucker'ers out there saying many times they follow my sucker for 20 minutes before the poor stupid fish decided well this has hooks but im really hungry.. Danmuskyman is correct IF your true intention is to protect your beloved muskie - Go catch 2 a year and stop, then know... you - yourself are not adding to delayed mortality. | |
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Location: Chisholm, MN | Yeah you're right about the decline before the scope. We all knew that. This is just one more thing. A finishing shot. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Remember when folks used to say, 'That's why they call it 'fishing', not 'catching'?
That's the rub with me.
I own the tech (big time) and refuse to misuse it because I call myself a conservation-minded person. That's ME, and to me that's all that matters. You a sharpshooter? OK, just don't expect me (or others like me) to be all impressed with your next big muskie. Doesn't mean I don't like you personally or think you are a 'bad person', we simply don't share the same beliefs regarding this issue.
I also own a LOT of guns some very old and some relatively new and refuse to misuse them. Why do I own guns? Because I want to and I can, and I'll be the last person to even- a-little-bit cause the loss of that.
I have faith that this will shake out somewhere down the above road. Until then, some of those who have taken 'sides' will eventually be proven wrong and some right, and that record will be right here for referral. | |
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| Not owning the tech and not knowing many who use it for musky fishing, don't really feel qualified to judge it. But, I do appreciate the many sincere and thoughtful comments that have appeared in this thread. As an old guy, I will stick with what I do for musky. But, I may consider some form of FFS for panfishing. Grandkids getting to an age where they will enjoy going out and catching fish is important to keep their interest.
As to any kind of lobbying of legislators, I am going to keep bugging mine about protecting our resources, fighting invasives, keeping the manure out of our lakes and rivers, wells, etc. To me, that is a real crisis. Dead zones in Lake Michigan, caused by runoff, quagga mussels in Lake Michigan have reached the point in some areas where the shells of dead mussels are many feet deep and preclude the growth of native grasses, essential to native fish. Just a couple of issues with implications for centuries to come.
Edited by North of 8 7/5/2024 1:54 PM
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| sworrall - 7/5/2024 1:20 PM
Remember when folks used to say, 'That's why they call it 'fishing', not 'catching'?
That's the rub with me.
I own the tech (big time) and refuse to misuse it because I call myself a conservation-minded person. That's ME, and to me that's all that matters. You a sharpshooter? OK, just don't expect me (or others like me) to be all impressed with your next big muskie. Doesn't mean I don't like you personally or think you are a 'bad person', we simply don't share the same beliefs regarding this issue.
I also own a LOT of guns some very old and some relatively new and refuse to misuse them. Why do I own guns? Because I want to and I can, and I'll be the last person to even- a-little-bit cause the loss of that.
I have faith that this will shake out somewhere down the above road. Until then, some of those who have taken 'sides' will eventually be proven wrong and some right, and that record will be right here for referral.
By mis-use you mean you have no problem locating and pounding a school of Crappies every guide trip but you draw the line at taking more then the limit? What did you do before FFS, how in the world did you ever catch a Crappie?
I'm still looking for MnFish's stance on the subject (FFS). Muskie Inc. must work closely with them. Can you post what you know. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | 1) I only guide when my son needs help with a large group, that being 3 days this year, and we fished a shallow lake where the pannies are heavy cover related. No FFS in use.
2) I have not used FFS to 'locate a school of crappie' in a very long time after discovering the tech usually just confirmed what I already knew, and
3) Most of the panfish I catch are in heavy cover, not good FFS territory
4) I never have been one to keep more than we can eat in a couple sittings, usually around a dozen
Someone run over your pet turtle? | |
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| Nope, just curious why you would need or want FFS. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I don't 'need' FFS or 360. I have it because using and discussing it is part of my job. Therefore, I do my best to balance my job with my personal responsibility to the resource. Much of the time I'm on the water I have the sonar set to 2D or flasher mode.
The MI statement was crafted primarily by a gentleman in a committee formed for that purpose, and I feel it's spot-on no matter what I'm fishing for. | |
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Location: SW Ohio | CincySkeez - 7/4/2024 6:38 PM
OH Musky - 7/4/2024 5:20 PM
BNelson - 7/4/2024 10:42 AM
Not limiting it at all Dan. But there is a line in my opinion where its simply NOT fair chase. Sharp shooting is just that. By the looks of Slamrs poll most agree...If you dont agree I could care less. Guessing you are a livescoper....
I’m not a “livescoper”, just dammed tired of people who don’t like something saying ”ban it”. Everything used as a “reason” to ban FFS has been nothing but assumptions yet held to be true. Sounds a lot like liberal politics nowadays. This all started with one team catching 10 fish on Eagle River and PMTT banning it the next tourney mid-season. No one said anything about Spencer catching 10 fish on Webster or LSC throwing and ripping pounders in previous tourneys. Yet they used technology to find and target those fish.
The same arguments were used when compound bows came out then the crossbows. “The deer will be slaughtered! Ban them!”. Were deer more killed? Sure but more people hunted. The DNR adjusted seasons and limits. There are far more deer today than when compound bows came out. FFS is just today’s easy scapegoat. Whadaya want to ban next?
You do realize that if something isn't done our fisheries are headed for the highly regulated scenario you created in the other thread. Of course that doesn't matter to most because they'll be dead or too old to fish.
The fishing isn't getting better, habitat is not improving and there is more targeted pressure. No way around the fact that more handling equals more mortality.
I agree that the fishery is under attack but FFS is the least of what we should be concerned about. It’s just a scapegoat for pent up frustration. Declining water quality, inefficient management practices and steadily declining stocking programs are hurting the fishery more than FFS is. Reduce seasons (oh, the horror), increase licensing fees or introduce musky stamps (people will reduce their gear size and “bass fish” for them thus circumventing the fees). Want to decrease handling? Decrease the number of people fishing for them. Make it economically cost prohibitive. The only the rich and exalted will be able to fish for them, not you or me.
As for the comparison of spotlighting deer to FFS, the deer don’t have a chance. They never see or hear the bullet coming. They don’t have a choice whether or not to eat the bullet. You still need to convince a musky to eat. If they come out with remote control lures that attack the fish then you have a fair comparison.
If these fish are that treasured, maybe we all should just stop fishing for them. I doubt anyone here would agree with that drastic a measure, though. | |
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| Brian Hoffies - 7/5/2024 3:44 PM
sworrall - 7/5/2024 1:20 PM
I'm still looking for MnFish's stance on the subject (FFS). Muskie Inc. must work closely with them. Can you post what you know.
I don't know anyone from any chapter, that has worked at all with MNFish. Reach out, see if you get any response from them. Some of them as individuals speak with or work with some individuals that are MI or MMPA members, but not as representing MNFish. It's a bit of a strange "organization" and is quite short on any specifics of what they want or how to go about it, and not very responsive to inquiries. I doubt that MI national has any relationship with that organization.
Edited by TCESOX 7/5/2024 7:25 PM
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Location: Chisholm, MN | The whole maybe we should stop fishing for them thing is so childish. You solve nothing or contribute to the conversation. The point is we want to keep fishing for them and not have the fishery destroyed. | |
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Posts: 58
| The spotlighter saying my bullet still needs to hit the deer and the sharpshooter saying the musky still needs to eat my bait | |
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Posts: 633
Location: Madison, WI | I have never actually caught a musky using my livescope, it's just not the way I fish. But apparently it's a piece of cake! this thread makes me wanna go sharpshoot one over 50'. Think I'll fillet it up as well. I'll post the recipe when I'm done.
A lot of you guys screaming the sky is falling have no problem positioning your boat in any depth as long as your casting shallow. Who cares if the fish you catch shot up off the bottom 40' down as long as you don't have a scope. No no, not for you, your SI, DI, gps, auto chart, and 360 are all you need! No cheating!! | |
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Location: SW Ohio | I guess since the live scope is so awesome, and guaranteed to catch fish, I need to take the money I'm saving for a new kicker and buy a LS setup before they are all gone. Also, just to pee off everyone that doesn't like them and wants them banned. After all, if I'm going to be accused of and condemned for sharpshooting, I may as well have the equipment that allows me to do just that. I have far less years ahead of me than behind me so I should make the best of them. tick tock, tick tock... | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Context is everything, with a decent dose of reality sprinkled in. And to remind those who (again) have apparently forgotten the OP, MI has never suggested anything but ethical use of the tech.
No one should accuse you of sharpshooting unless you are, and if you are not and someone does, simply ignore it or correct the misconception. Easy! | |
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| Ok, so I have a couple questions I’ve really been wanting to ask since Muskie Inc statement came out but haven’t knowing most will not be able to be civil about it. Here it goes…
If the real concerns with FFS is that musky are dying/getting killed from being caught at a higher rate. Why is it that Muskie Inc still says that all fish to be entered into your log must be measured, while suggesting using a bump board is the best and most accurate way? I understand for a trophy size, but really we have to measure every 36” fish? Just how many are killed from flopping around in the boat because someone is trying to measure an average fish? And this happens to everyone not just the inexperienced. The same with the club tournament measurements and pictures, this is always fun when solo, whole fish in pic, tag on fish back up to take pics and fish flops…and is in the boat floor. Been there done that, unfortunately.
Next question, I see that the Muskie Inc FB page has new post about every day or two with someone’s catch usually. While I’m all for celebrating someone’s success, I have never seen any FB post or videos or statements on proper handling ect. I find that really strange since the organization is so concerned about conservation, one would think those would be a a frequent topic for Muskie Inc. I see it as a missed opportunity, to help educate those that are new or really don’t know the best ways to net handle, measure, release and help revive if needed.
I have and use FFS, while some will agree and disagree. We are all here for the same reason, we love musky and fishing for them. One more thing to remember, there is nothing we do while trying to put one in the net that is healthy for them either.
Edited by OH Muskyman 7/7/2024 2:40 PM
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | MI refers to the website a lot, and answers a ton of questions and challenges via Messenger. Facebook is top three most of the time in recruiting new members. The goal of that page is community building and bringing in content from many of the Chapters. Fisheries, research and youth are the subject matters frequently from those Chapters, and FFS has been discussed recently. We actively promote seminars the Chapters are hosting and many discuss proper release tactics. If you belong to a MI Chapter you already know how that info is frequently discussed at the Chapter level.
If you have concerns about the Lunge Log, please feel free to contact the Executive committee via email, the email addys are listed in the Magazine. Your concerns will be addressed for sure, this is a seriously dedicated group of volunteers. One of my favorite posts is the 'Catch and Release Works' entry where a fish had been caught multiple times over a couple years.
One of the challenges of any active social media page is acquiring content, although it's getting better every month. We literally beg the Chapters in the Newsletter Amy Keys puts out monthly to actively participate on each Chapter's Facebook page and share with MI. That page is posted to most every day, I know because I'm the one managing it. That's 365 or so I need every year. If you (or anyone else here) has subject matter you'd like to see published there, simply hit me up via Messenger or contact me directly and I'll make it so!
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| Thanks for the response Steve. Speaking of catch and release, last night I caught a 47” that I also caught in May. Not un common, but non the less awesome to see.
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Location: SW Ohio | sworrall - 7/7/2024 3:34 PM
Context is everything, with a decent dose of reality sprinkled in. And to remind those who (again) have apparently forgotten the OP, MI has never suggested anything but ethical use of the tech.
No one should accuse you of sharpshooting unless you are, and if you are not and someone does, simply ignore it or correct the misconception. Easy!
You’re right, Steve. But some jump on a single post without reading the complete thread. For the record, I do not own a LS system. I do have multiple SI graphs (HB and Garmin) but only two transducers (bow and stern)that I use to find fish. I take exception that MI has included SI with LS as it is not live but a snapshot of what was there. If SI can be used for spotlighting or sharpshooting, I’m not yet smart enough to figure it out.
My last post was my tongue in cheek way of poking at those who want a complete ban. I'm really have been conflicted on whether a LS system or a new kicker would be more beneficial and add to my productivity. My time on the water is extremely limited, more so this year, and I’ll be #*^@ed to have anyone try to tell me I can’t use a technology that has not been deemed illegal, regardless of their beliefs. Some of the comments on this and the other thread are borderline psychotic…..”I have an AK…”. Really? Why was that not called out? Are there really some who would go to that extreme or is it more cowboy keyboarding? Maybe it’s time to table the discussions as those on the “it’s bad” side are not going to convince us on the “leave your hands off it” side. You can’t regulate morality. You can try to educate but it up to the audience to accept it. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | 'I take exception that MI has included SI with LS as it is not live but a snapshot of what was there. If SI can be used for spotlighting or sharpshooting, I’m not yet smart enough to figure it out'
SI and 360 both can be used to target fish, I actually did it with a school of crappies a couple years ago on Boom Lake and shot a video of the process. I used the Mega Side Imaging and then the Mega 360 to locate open water schools and select one by size, then headed toward them using the 360 until I got over the top of them with 2D. As the school moved along we tracked and followed them until they had been, for the most part, all caught and released, breaking up the school. Add Mega Live and tracking them is much more accurate and fast. Add Target Lock and the process is complete. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuQSmjoJOj4
Most of the Sharpshooters are using SI and ML to locate the muskie and lock in on it. Not hard to see what FFS does to compliment. It's that process, just driving around until a fish is located and isolated, and then targeted with repeated casts, that we refer to in the MI statement, not the dozens of other more ethical uses for the tech. I use it to keep me on weedlines and structure better than ever before. I won't use it to sharpshoot a school or single fish, but that's me.
That said, we had family company up this weekend for a graduation and took two of them crappie fishing this morning. 4 of us caught and released over a hundred fish, with the average 'keeper' at 10 to 11", and kept 13 for a family fish fry tomorrow. Keith ran the boat from the middle with a remote for his Terrova Quest and never used anything but 2D sonar all morning. | |
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