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Posts: 178
| Sometimes a story can be more informative than all the speeches and Power Point presentations in the world. Here's one I'd like to share:
THE JOURNEY
Imagine for a moment that you are a young female Leech Lake strain muskellunge, only 12 inches long. A well-meaning human has released you into Grindstone Lake in Sawyer County, Wisconsin. It is mid September. Where might you go? What might you do?
After cruising along the shoreline for awhile, you find yourself near the Grindstone Creek outlet. You’re attracted to the flow and to the shallow waters of the creek teeming with minnows just the right size for you to eat. You enter. You feed.
You gradually drift downstream with the slow current and find yourself entering another big, clear lake – Lac Courte Oreilles. The creek was getting uncomfortably cold. You head for deeper, warmer water to spend the winter.
With the coming of spring, you enter the warming shallows and begin to feed aggressively. There are minnows, perch, and even recently hatched northern pike to eat. You grow. You have a couple close encounters with large hungry pike, but you’re lucky. You escape. By fall you are 20 inches long.
In late September you find yourself again at a stream outlet. The flow beckons you, and the abundant prey fattens you for the long winter ahead. But the shallow, flowing water gets uncomfortably cold. So just before ice-up, you drift down out of that channel into Little Lac Courte Oreilles.
You endure another long winter. But when spring finally arrives, you take a spin around your new home and find that you are now big enough to eat a wider variety of fish. You still must beware of bigger predators, but you’re fast becoming one of them. You feed. You grow. By fall, you are 28 inches long. You have little to fear from other fish.
You spend the next three years right there in Little Lac Courte Oreilles – feeding and growing. You make the mistake of attacking a strangely wounded fish on the surface of the water one summer. You find yourself pulled against your will to the surface where a strange creature holds you out of the water momentarily, then releases you. You’ve dodged another bullet. Your photograph hangs on a wall somewhere, with 38 inches written beneath it.
The following spring, a strange new urge makes you restless. You instinctively move toward flowing water and find yourself again drifting downstream. You enter the Billy Boy Flowage. It is shallow and warm compared with most waters in the area. The new urge is becoming overwhelming, but there are no others of your kind in the area. Your instinct is to move toward flowing water to find them.
The water moves you faster as it overflows a large fixed structure. Before you realize it, you have passed over the Billy Boy Dam and plunged several feet into the deep pool immediately below. You are surprised but unhurt. Soon you realize you are not alone. There are others like you here – others who have made the same journey.
You cannot all stay in the same small place, or soon there will be no food. You move down the Couderay River – a shallow stream with few deep pools. Large suckers are abundant and you feed well, but there is little deep water. You are uncomfortable living in such a shallow place after spending most of your life in a deep lake.
You forget the urge for a moment and keep moving downstream, hoping to find deeper water. Finally you find it – the Chippewa River. This is more like it. You lazily drift with the current, feeding on suckers and resting in deeper pools. The urge has gone away. You don’t quite understand what that was all about, but it does not matter.
As fall approaches, you again seek deeper, calmer waters to spend the winter. You travel many miles downstream and finally find your way into Lake Holcombe. Finally, a place to rest for awhile. You are now 42 inches long and have only one predator to fear.
Winter passes. As the Chippewa River rises and warms the following spring, the urge you felt last year becomes even more insistent. Every fiber of your being compels you to swim upstream. You move, far and fast. You keep moving upstream until you reach a great barrier – the Arpin Dam on the Chippewa River.
In the great pool below the dam you again encounter others of your kind. And now the urge is overwhelming. Several males escort you to the shallow, weedy margin of the river where you relieve yourself of the heavy load of eggs that developed over winter.
You are exhausted. You rest in the deep pool for a couple weeks. Finally, hunger compels you to move downstream to feed on abundant suckers. You have completed a ritual that will be repeated annually for the next several years. Your journey is over. You are home.
Or so you thought. A couple years later, a skilled angler fishing from a large boat in the Holcombe Flowage fools you into thinking that one of his lures is something you should eat. For the second time in your life, a strange creature forces you out of the water.
The strange creature admires your large size, your silver color and striking spots. He wants to see you and your kind in his favorite lake. So this time, instead of releasing you, he places you into a small box with flowing water. At 46 inches in length, you barely fit.
A full hour passes. You sense movement, but you have no real understanding of your situation. Finally the lid on the box opens, and you are gently removed and placed into a lake again.
This place is a mystery to you. It does not smell like anyplace you have ever been. You have entered Dairyland Flowage in the Flambeau River system. There you will spawn several times with others of your species, but not of your strain. Your grandchildren may not be fit to survive and reproduce because some of the most useful genes of their parents got scrambled during the mixing of strains. But you don’t care. Your days are numbered. Your journey is almost over.
THE END
Dave Neuswanger
Fisheries Team Leader, Upper Chippewa Basin
Wisconsin DNR, Hayward | |
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| The author of that story seems to have a lack of trust of Wisconsin residents and Fisherman.
At the same time there is another story being played out by a large Muskie in the Dairyland flowage.
The big male Muskie cruised a 6 foot deep reef in Dairyland. At nearly 53 inches in length he seemed out of place with all of the smaller Muskies around. The spring time was always a somber time period for this musky as as his sheer sized scared away all of the much smaller female Muskies away. Still at 21 years of age, he recognized that he was the last of a dying breed and the urge to spawn was now stronger than ever.
Legend has it that years ago this part of what used to be a river was solely inhabited by large fish of his size. It seems that starting several generations ago (1950’s) a strange thing began to happen. Each fall several thousand muskies that were a bit different would enter this lake. Always where the men and their boats would also enter the lake. At first these little odd little muskies were welcomed. They were scoffed at by the larger muskies, as these new muskies never even reached full size. They even spawned earlier than they were supposed to, and their young showed exceptional survival. Had the larger Muskies known then what they did now, they would have feasted on these new Muskies each fall, but alas….. they had not. And now the future of these large growing muskies was certainly doomed as it had been several years since this male Muskie had found one of it’s own to mate with.
For untold generations these large growing Muskies had only one enemy with which to contend with – Man. It seemed now that Man was finally going to win the battle as it had opened the battle on two fronts. Man was removing only the large growing Muskies by tricking them to eat wood sticks painted like fish, but where man had proven victorious was when he started planting thousands of these strange little muskies that could not grow, supplanting the future generations of these large growing fish. Some of these Muskies even masqueraded as the large growing strain, apparently they were some cross bred mutant created in some laboratory by evil human beings. As these small growing Muskies were now nearly the only type of Muskies in this lake, even man had begun to perceive these small muskies as normal. Some men that claim to be much smarter than others even started claiming these muskies were "native".
At one time the Muskies that inhabited this river were among that largest that had ever lived. They were the match for any man that came to pursue them, even those that brought along guns to finish the battle. (He did not know that man had designed a program that protected the smaller ones because they were cheaper to raise) But now they were being overtaken by these smaller Muskies that even man would not kill. It was a sad spring indeed as this large male Muskie realized that he would be unable to find a suitable mate to pass on the traits that had made this predator the dominant fish in this drainage for over 10,000 years. Feeling very sorry for himself, he watched as a boat of fisherman approached….
All of a sudden, from above - the largest muskie he had seen in several years appeared to fall from the sky or the boat. He quickly caught her scent and recognized that it was a female muskie of the large growing type that once inhabited this water…..There was still a chance that the large growing muskies had a chance to maintain their rightful place in this ecosystem….Only time will tell.
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| Of course, that "poor little fish that didn't" actually died en route to the Chippewa River, having beached itself on one of the newly emergent bars of the Couderay River. These bars had been recently exposed following the ripping of the neglected downstream dam in Radisson, which created water levels and rapid changes not conducive to realistic survival.
Coupled with the drought of 2005, the "little fish that couldn't possibly have" spent most of its short life wondering why habitats that existed for LONG stretches of time were being tampered with by the creatures from above under the auspices of better science and management practices.
THE END.
Epilogue:
The other little fishies got a clue and went the "other way" entering Whitefish, where the ciscoes fattened them up to HUGE proportions so they stayed there forever enjoying an abundant food source, taunting anglers locally and from abroad that travelled to Sawyer County Wisconsin delivering significant quantities of cash and thereby sustaining Mom & Pop establishments which were about to go down the drain due to the massive relocation of hard-working musky enthusiasts who went elsewhere in order to maximize their experience and income.
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| Dave,
I want to try to see your point in this story, but one thing came to mind. You hint at the possibility of outbreeding depression... one quick question though... in the lakes in MN where there is both a MS and WI strain present, has there been documented instances of this or do they spawn "with their own"? From what I have heard, it seems that the two strains have coexisted well in MN. | |
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Posts: 178
| MuskyMonk - 2/18/2006 8:58 PM
Dave,
I want to try to see your point in this story, but one thing came to mind. You hint at the possibility of outbreeding depression... one quick question though... in the lakes in MN where there is both a MS and WI strain present, has there been documented instances of this or do they spawn "with their own"? From what I have heard, it seems that the two strains have coexisted well in MN.
Monk, I wish I knew the answer. I know both strains exist and grow large in Mille Lacs, but that's the extent of my dual-strain knowledge. Do you know of other lakes in Minnesota where both strains exist in significant numbers today?
Your question about spawning segregation (either in time or space) is interesting too. Does anyone out there know the answer? I think it's reasonable to expect cross-breeding between the strains, mostly because it occurs between northern pike and musky to a limited extent (resulting in tiger muskies). Theoretically it would happen more between strains than between species. I'm guessing there is overlap in spawning time and habitat that would result in hybridization. But I doubt this has been documented for these two musky strains (Minnesota DNR biologists, please correct me if I'm wrong.)
Would such hybridization cause outbreeding depression? That's always a risk if there is enough breeding between strains and it happens for several years. But I'm certain that outbreeding depression itself has not been proven to occur between muskellunge strains, yet. Such proof would require rigorous genetic testing of parents, their first-generation offspring, and their second-generation offspring; and THEN there would have to be a documented reduction in some aspect of performance (growth, survival, disease-resistance, reproduction, etc.) for the second-generation offspring. We're talking big bucks to test and demonstrate such a phenomenon. I worry about it only because some good experiments with other species have shown it to be real. My friends who specialize in genetics are very serious about it, and I listen to them.
In the fictional story, the two different strains end up living in the same small river together. It's not like a huge Minnesota lake or the St. Lawrence River where diverse habitats favor segregated spawning. Fish of different strains in the Chippewa River probably would not be able to avoid one another in the limited available spawning habitat. | |
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| Since when have ANY spotted muskies inhabited ANY water in NW Wisconsin?
DN, I think I understand what you are trying to say. I think the point was made well enough, and I'd say not at all in a 'condescending' tone. Monk, good questions, I'd like to know the answers to those questions as well, here's hoping Dr. Sloss can shed some light there. By the way, WMRP, I'd back off being too critical of the work to be done by the lab in Stevens Point if you want to keep presenting yourselves as interpreters of scientific information. Interpreting 'loosley' and applying it to suit, and then insisting that new scientific work by a scientist in possession of one of the most complete set of markers ever assembled using techniques that were not even imaginable a few years back is a waste rings of brass, and that in the 'ball' catagory. Rings pretty hollow. | |
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| Dave,
If outbreeding depression is the overriding concern, then in my mind there is only ONE thing to do. Find that fast growing strain that might still be left in the Chip and STOCK IT. It would be an absolute shame if it was there and we didn't get to it before it was gone for good. | |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Could someone define 'strain' for me, and define 'pure'. When speaking to geneticists and biologists here and across the Muskie's range, some asked the same questions regarding the conversations on this board. What makes ANY 'strain' 'pure? What does 'pure' mean? Why is 'pure' better? Isn't the small shoepac muskie strain 'pure' in evolutionary terms? I need to understand this concept better. Let's nail down the actual description of what a 'strain' of muskies is VS what it's widely perceived to be. Is it possible there are dozens or even hundreds of 'strains' of muskies in Wisconsin and across the muskie's range as seems to be the insinuation? Is the 'strain' in Lake George that hits 50" pretty quickly and in good numbers different from the big Wisconsin muskies on Mille lacs or in Pelican, or in my little 200 acre lake X that produced 3 over 52 last year, in the presense of a huge pike population? Is the spotted muskie in Wabigoon markedly a different 'strain' than in Leech or Lake St Clair? Why is the St Lawrence the place Dr. Cassleman says has the upper 1% confidence limit to produce the next world record at as much as 73#, and Wabigoon is not as likely to with a UCL at 56#? Strain? Genetics? Why is Georgian Bay not the choice? Strain? genetics? Why is it Dr. Casselman say that a muskie needs to get 'old' to really get huge, and also says that there are waters that will NEVER produce 'big' fish, no matter the variables? I listened to so many of the presentations at the symposium, and they all pointed in a logical direction unless I am just too stupid to 'get it'. Did I hear all of that incorrectly? Is Dr. Casselman wrong? Would ANY lake produce huge muskies if the 'strain' was 'right'? Are the biologists and all us laymen loony, and all we have to do is stock some fish from the St. Lawrence in Pelican and forget the 50" size limit proposal? Hang the freaking fish from Leech, those are pins compared to the St. lawrence fish, let's stock THOSE! Why NOT? The leading Muskie authority in the world says those are the best fish, right? Or am I being too simplistic?
And WHY is Leech Lake almost devoid of muskie anglers these days? Murph tells me he has the lake near to himself. That, folks, is the legendary HOME of THE muskie, so why are you fishing ANYWHERE ELSE?
Sorry, this is confusing at times. I need Sponger.
Sometimes being in Clear Lake, Iowa in February is just too much. | |
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| Isn't that what Dr. Sloss' is suppose to be doing for us over the next three years? You may very well be correct in that there could be HUNDREDS of strains out there. And you could be correct that certain lake/strain combination produce great results... your Lake X and its fish... as well the big momma's that have been known to grow big and fast on the Chip. And if low and behold we find that those two fish are one and the same, then we might start to have something. Question... have you told Dr. Sloss about your Lake X? From what you have been telling us, that might be a good one to test.
Again, I have yet to hear an argument against what is so bad about finding ANY strain, be it from WI or MN, that grows big and fast, identifying it... and stocking it? At least where I fish in Sawyer county, I would like to see a change. And I'm not alone. If given that choice, I would venture to say that 95% (or better) of us that fish in Sawywer county would like to see the opportunity. Thats a fact. If others in the state don't want the change, thats fine by me. But the past stocking choices have not produced results in our lakes that have no excuse otherwise. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I don't see anyone arguing that a change in micro-management of some lakes isn't badly needed in some waters across the state. I think changes moving toward that goal have already been announced or are already underway on many, and many of those programs were pushed by the public. But that's not the main question being argued, far as I can see, the introduction of Leech Lake fish is, right? I already know where the fish in Lake X were from, Minocqua 'strain'.
And yes, Dr' Sloss's work will do much for the muskie management world, and that not just in Wisconsin. That's why I personally feel it's a tremendously important project, and vehemently disagree with trying to minimize or dismiss that work. But that's just my personal opinion. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, WI | Lets assume there is, (was in Wisconsin, as there is no arguing the strains here have been mixed) is it the strain that gives the ultimate length limit or is it the lake. Or is it a combination of both. My guess is it’s a combination of both.
Are these strains really that different, see my question on this topic in this forum.
The way I see it a strain is nothing more than an evolutionary response to the growth characteristics and predatorily relationships in the systems each fish evolved in. So how different does that really make them.
If lake characteristics and predatory relationships have changed in a specific lake system wouldn’t it make sense to stock a strain of fish (IF THE SYSTEM NEEDS TO BE STOCKED) that evolved in situations closer to how that specific lake system now is and not worry about how it was 100 years ago.
Nail A Pig!
Mike
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Posts: 462
Location: Madison Wi. Chain | I could be wrong, but wouldn't an individual lake that is naturally producing be able to produce the most viable survibilty for that lake. In a sense, wouldn't that be a very unique strain of fish versus the lake across the street that may have it's own variation etc and it's own strain. Furthermore, wouldn't the lake itself "select" for how big the fish could potentially become? We also have to consider how fishermen may have purposefully with selecting out the largest fish interupted the natural selection process therefore encouraging smaller size. I am not a biologist, but it makes the most sense to let fish tell us what size they can reach by increasing size limits and being careful about what lakes we stock. BG | |
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Posts: 178
| STEVE WORRALL: Could someone define 'strain' for me, and define 'pure'?
DAVE N: Some people probably thought this was trivial, but this is actually an excellent and VERY loaded question! Folks often find reasons to disagree based solely upon a lack of understanding or agreement about the definition of basic terms. Steve, we might want to consider posting this information as a separate Fact Sheet. But I'll let you decide if it's worth doing after I provide a few annotated definitions below:
Webster's dictionary defines "strain" as "a group of presumed common ancestry with clear-cut physiological but usually not morphological distinctions." MY TRANSLATION: A distinct group that looks similar but functions differently than other distinct groups that arose from common parents sometime in the past. The word "strain" is used (and misused) commonly in daily conversation and popular literature. Strangely, according to Dr. Brian Sloss (UW-Stevens Point) and Dr. Greg Moyer (Oregon State University), the word "strain" is rarely used by population geneticists when they talk among themselves. The word "strain" is not even clearly defined in their specialty literature. (They often use the term "putative" strain--putative meaning "supposed".) I can only surmise the reason for this lack of definition and usage is that population geneticists have more meaningful terms for describing groups of organisms. Here are a few of them:
Definition of Population - a group of organisms belonging to the same species that actually freely interbreed. EXAMPLE: If all 120 adult muskies in 500-acre Lake Worrall freely interbreed (spawning at overlapping times and places every year), then they would all be considered members of the Lake Worrall musky population. Geneticists have developed a "coefficient of relatedness" to statistically determine relationships (types and degrees of similarity) within and between populations.
Definition of Subpopulations - breeding groups within a large population between which migration is significantly restricted. EXAMPLE: If we were to learn one day that one breeding group of muskies spawns in the East Basin of the Chippewa Flowage and another spawns in the West Basin, and that they rarely, if ever move to spawn outside their usual spawning areas; we would say there were two subpopulations. They may or may not be genetically distinguishable, but given enough time (several generations, centuries, or millennia) they are likely to "diverge" and become genetic stocks (see below).
NOTE: Populations and subpopulations can have "coadapted gene complexes" that are "suites of tightly linked genes that code for an array of interlinked characters of high adaptive value." Genes in "coadapted gene complexes" are located SO close to each other on the chromosome that they usually get passed along together to their offspring. (Most other genes get separated and mixed during meiosis in a process the geneticists call "independent reassortment".) Coadapted gene complexes can develop to some extent by chance, but are more likely to develop in response to selective pressures (environmental conditions, selective harvest, etc.) that favor one set of traits over another in a particular environment.
Definition of Fish Stock - a group of fish (of the same species) that share the same demographic parameters. EXAMPLE: All the muskellunge that live and breed in lakes and streams of the Headwaters Basin of the Wisconsin River might be considered a stock. A stock may be comprised of numerous populations and subpopulations, and therefore can possess great genetic variability within the overall demographic area that forms the stock boundary.
Definition of Genetic Stock - a group of organisms sharing a gene pool that is sufficiently discrete and nominally identifiable that it warrants management as such. TRANSLATION: A group that is so distinct genetically that we can easily distinguish it from others and should manage it assuming that those genetic differences may affect performance as well. Totally random breeding occurs within genetic stocks but not between genetic stocks. IMPLICATION: In our Headwaters Basin example, there may be ONE or there may be DOZENS of “genetic stocks” in the various lakes and rivers of the Upper Wisconsin River Basin. Only modern genetic testing and ecological studies can tell us if there are “sufficiently discrete and nominally identifiable” groups that perform differently enough to warrant special management consideration.
What does all this mean? Different subpopulations may or may not be different genetic stocks if they are not “sufficiently discrete and nominally identifiable.” But they may BECOME genetic stocks over time if their reproductive isolation (breeding in different places or at different times than other groups) eventually causes them to possess distinctive genetic characteristics. (This is how Lake Superior acquired over 20 different genetic stocks of lake trout.)
We need the work proposed by Dr. Sloss to go forward so we can identify the current genetic stock structure of muskellunge in northern Wisconsin. Is everything all mixed up because of egg mixing in past hatchery operations? Were sources of broodstock more similar genetically than we thought? Or if they were indeed different, have selective pressures favored the survival of naturally recruited and co-adapted fish that have remained genetically distinct and dominant? Will we find one big homogenous pool of genes out there, or will there be genetic stocks worth conserving? We won’t know until we test. In the meantime, there is little or no basis for concluding that each lake or system of lakes has its own “strain” or genetic stock based solely upon the limited work to date of pioneers in fish genetics.
Steve, you also asked about the word “pure.” It seems redundant if used as an adjective to describe any of the terms defined above. We either have a strain, or we don’t. We either have a genetic stock, or we don’t. The only alternative is mixed stocks, and those should be possible to identify by using the new techniques Dr. Sloss will employ in the current study. The results should be very interesting.
Dave Neuswanger
Fisheries Team Leader, Upper Chippewa Basin
Wisconsin DNR, Hayward
Edited by Dave N 2/24/2006 6:07 PM
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| I have read with interest the ongoing debate about musky stocking in the Hayward area, here, in the Sawyer Count Record and others. Surely it's a valid concern that characteristics conducive to survival and reproduction may be lost if unsuitable musky are introduced. The same applies to other fish species. What seems to be missing from the debate though, is evidence that the musky currently inhabiting our favorite lakes are in fact superior. My guess is that a good starting point would be to try isolating musky truly native to these waters, on the reasonable assumption these would be most suited to the waters they've always inhabited. I wonder if that's possible. Speaking of native fish, we sometimes hear that northern pike have invaded northwoods lakes where they did not exist before. I'd always heard that musky were naturally a river fish and northerns were found more in lakes. I wish it were easier to find reliable natural history in such matters on the web! | |
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Location: oswego, il | Sad analogy. It assumes for one that the leech lake and barred fish have spawned together int he past. I think that cross could be something worth exploring anyway and if it did happen it's to our benefit! Not like the fish stocked are of a pure strain anyway. I hope these leechers get stocked soon.
Also, is there a taging study that shows stocked fish in grindstone have made it to holcombe? In big numbers? I don't get it.
Edited by ToddM 2/24/2006 7:57 PM
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | ToddM,
You are alittle off base on this one, sir. Read the entire debate in the threads in the research board first, then you'll get it. No way do I want Leech Lake fish in the waters over where I live, and it's pretty certain they won't be stocked in some waters in western Wisconsin unless the testing and genetics study support it. You should know why. Hey, how are the Leechers doing in the Fox Chain? Didn't Ohio strain do better in some tests against Leech and other strains? Aren't the biggest fish available from the St. Lawrence, and are they not spotted muskies, so they are the same as Leech fish, right, but then they are spotted in Kentucky too, and those fish live only 10 years down there, but it's warmer and....? Should we immediately stock those everywhere we can? And so on...a complicated issue that will not be 'simple' no matter wahy anyone wants. Let's hear from a few working muskie fisheries biologists who support stocking Leech lake fsih in those waters, PLEASE!
Look at the Rice Lake thread, too. What's happening there?
Dave,
Thanks, that is exactly what I was looking for. | |
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Location: oswego, il | Steve, I have read some but not all of it. I basicaly found the original post a bit hard to believe the holcombe flowage would be screwed up by stocking grinstone. An errant fish yes but it would be minute and irrelavant at best. My thinking here is if leech lake fish were prolific enough, would they not be present in wisconsin already? I am for a study, being sure is a good thing, I would like to see what a barred/spotted hybrid would be like, could be interesting. I also don't think every lake should be stocked with leech lakers and agree, the lakes you have refferred to by you need nothing more than they are already getting.
As far as leech lakers go on il, I have only seen a couple decent fox chain fish that I could say were leech lake fish. My biggest is 39" and most I catch are small. My personal view is their natural range is much cooler water and they won't do well in illinois unless they are stocked in a deep gravel pit lake.
I said from the beginning, the ohio fish will win the project green gene. So far I am right. For illinois anyway, I think that is a good fish for the state. | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | ToddM,
You missed the point of the original psot, I think. Glad to see you today at the show, good loot? | |
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Posts: 20219
Location: oswego, il | Steve, I read the rice lake thread, very interesting. I will ask this though. Any new lake, reclaimed lake or where a new species is intruduced, fish seem to do well and the fishing is good. Seems like after a life cycle of fish has come and gone things tend to settle down. I suspect the lake finds it's new balance. I think the same thing happens when muskies are first introduced into a body of water. I wonder if rice lake has found it's balanceing point and if those muskies will continue to grow at the rate they are now. Hope so. If that is not the case, what makes a bone lake fish in rice lake different than a bone lake fish in bone lake? | |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Look at when the Rice Lake fish were stocked and when the Leech Fish were stocked in many of the 'new' muskie waters in Minnesota that are as of the last few years producing their first 50's. Look at the Wisconsin fish stocked in Mille Lacs, too. See a pattern?
Mr. Neuswanger mentioned the exact thing you have brought up in several posts. | |
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| Dave,
Nice story. Can you tell me what it would have been like before any of the dams were put in. Could a Mississippi "strain" fish have swam into the Chippewa River and what is now Holcombe Flowage? Could a fish have swam from central MN into LCO? According to your story without the MAN made barriers it would have all been the same fish in the watershed of the Mississippi. If that fish would have continued down the Chippewa River and entered the Mississippi, we would have a catastrophe on our hands.
Jason Malone | |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Did anyone ever catch a spotted muskie back before the dams were in place? Any records of spotted muskies anywhere in Wisconsin other than introductions from Minnesota and Michigan? I've never seen a spot anywhere in the photographic history of Muskies in Wisconsin. | |
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Posts: 178
| malone - 2/27/2006 4:10 PM
Dave,
Nice story. Can you tell me what it would have been like before any of the dams were put in. Could a Mississippi "strain" fish have swam into the Chippewa River and what is now Holcombe Flowage? Could a fish have swam from central MN into LCO? According to your story without the MAN made barriers it would have all been the same fish in the watershed of the Mississippi. If that fish would have continued down the Chippewa River and entered the Mississippi, we would have a catastrophe on our hands.
Jason Malone
Interesting question, Jason. It seems based on the WMRP premise that Leech Lake strain muskellunge are really more appropriately labeled "Mississippi River strain" muskellunge and were, at one time, pervasive throughout every river that drains into the Mississippi River. This is no evidence that this is true. It is far more likely that a common ancestor to both the Wisconsin and Minnesota (Leech Lake) stocks of muskellunge lived in the lower Mississippi River thousands of years ago, migrated upstream with the retreat of the last glacier, and then diverged (became physically separated and genetically distinct) over time into the genetic stocks we have today. Stock boundaries may have become firmly established as we humans began building physical barriers to migration that would prevent the mixing of stocks. As Steve Worrall said in his reply, there are no old photographs of spotted muskies in northern Wisconsin.
To look at this another way, I need to talk about walleyes for a moment. For reasons I don't understand, walleye did not appear in headwater lakes of the Couderay River drainage system (LCO, Grindstone, Whitefish) until the 1940s after several years of stocking which began in the mid-1930s. I have asked various people why walleyes might not have been able to migrate upsteam into that system from the Chippewa River, and so far nobody knows the answer. (If anyone out there DOES know, I would appreciate hearing from you.) So one hypothesis is that there may have been some sort of barrier to upstream migration that developed after other fishes had already colonized the upper basin, keeping walleye out of these lakes for thousands of years. Did natural barriers (beaver dams or natural deadfalls forming dams) develop somewhere on the Couderay River? Or, was it simply a matter of established dominance by native muskellunge (not spotted Leech Lake fish) and black basses (largemouth and smallmouth) that kept walleye out of this system even though they had access to it? We (local DNR folks) don't know.
Anyway, if walleye were unable to migrate upstream into these lakes until we humans stocked them, maybe there was some sort of barrier to upstream migration of any invasive stocks (exotic strains) of muskellunge over recent geologic time. That is how populations become isolated into subpopulations, which eventually can become genetic stocks (even "strains" if you will) with unique characteristics that make them especially fit for their native environment.
Please note one important thing: It's a lot easier these days for fish to migrate downstream than it is for them to migrate upstream. Fish pass through and over dams all the time. (That process is called "entrainment".) So if we stock an exotic strain (a non-native genetic stock) of muskellunge into the headwater reaches of a drainage basin like the Couderay, we run the risk of seeing those fish move downstream through the entire system. That's what my story was intended to illustrate, and it's entirely plausible. It's also why my biologists and I are going to stop stocking Wisconsin hatchery system fish in the Gile Flowage in Iron County, and start stocking Great Lakes strain fish there. We know that entrainment occurs through the Gile Flowage dam on the Montreal River. Any muskies leaving the Gile need only pass through two more small dams in the lower Montreal and they're free to swim into Lake Superior. If they do, we want to know that they belong in such an environment.
I realize a lot of questions remain unanswered. But at least now you know what we know (not much) about how these fish got where they are today.
Dave Neuswanger
Fisheries Team Leader, Upper Chippewa Basin
Wisconsin DNR, Hayward
Edited by Dave N 2/27/2006 8:48 PM
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Location: oswego, il | Dave, thanks for the response. Stocking great lakes muskies in the gile flowage could be really great. Do you think this could be a lithmus test for stocking them into other lakes that do not drain into the great lakes? I am sure the lake gets warm in the summer, being stained and generally shallow, comparable to the flambeau. If they take off could that be the way to go? | |
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| ToddM - 2/27/2006 7:08 PM
Dave, thanks for the response. Stocking great lakes muskies in the gile flowage could be really great. Do you think this could be a lithmus test for stocking them into other lakes that do not drain into the great lakes? I am sure the lake gets warm in the summer, being stained and generally shallow, comparable to the flambeau. If they take off could that be the way to go?
Todd, I'm glad you support our decision to stock Great Lakes muskellunge into a system like the Gile that is connected directly to Lake Superior. (Entrainment through dams and emigration to the big lake is likely.) But I do not propose to stock GL fish outside the Great Lakes watershed for the same reasons that we won't stock Leech Lake strain fish elsewhere in the inland native range in northern Wisconsin. Thanks again for your support.
Dave Neuswanger
Fisheries Team Leader, Upper Chippewa Basin
Wisconsin DNR, Hayward | |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Thanks for the answer, Dave. | |
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| Can you tell what genotype a musky is just by looking at it? Musky coloration and markings vary widely within a single body of water. Genotype and phenotype do not always correlate. Does musky coloration change based on environment?
Dave: “Interesting question, Jason. It seems based on the WMRP premise that Leech Lake strain muskellunge are really more appropriately labeled "Mississippi River strain" muskellunge and were, at one time, pervasive throughout every river that drains into the Mississippi River. This is no evidence that this is true.”
Is there evidence it is not true? The MNDNR refers to them as Mississippi strain in its scientific reports not Leech lake strain.
Are all fish species stocked by the WDNR in Wisconsin waters native to Wisconsin?
Are there any walleyes from the Mississippi river stocked into Wisconsin waters? I have heard there are.
Thanks
Jason Malone
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| JASON MALONE: Can you tell what genotype a musky is just by looking at it?
DAVE: No. But we all know that Leech Lake muskellunge (call them Mississippi strain if you must, but that's a misleading term because it implies they existed throughout northern Wisconsin too) are spotted, for the most part; and no spotted muskies were seen in northern Wisconsin historically. Also, we DO know from some of the earlier genetic testing that the mostly spotted Leech Lake fish are genetically distinguishable from the generally unspotted Lac Courte Oreilles fish. All things considered, these fish seem to have been isolated from each other for quite some time. They now comprise different genetic stocks. If they didn't, what would all the fuss be about?
JASON: Dave: “Interesting question, Jason. It seems based on the WMRP premise that Leech Lake strain muskellunge are really more appropriately labeled "Mississippi River strain" muskellunge and were, at one time, pervasive throughout every river that drains into the Mississippi River. This is no evidence that this is true.”
Is there evidence it is not true? The MNDNR refers to them as Mississippi strain in its scientific reports not Leech lake strain.
DAVE: Yes, the genetic differences documented to date suggest that Leech Lake and LCO fish are from different genetic stocks. The MDNR began using the term "Mississippi strain" to distinguish those fish from Shoepac Lake fish, not realizing what a can of worms it might open when advocates of the "Mississippi strain" began claiming that those fish were THE ORIGINAL FISH in every body of water that drains into the Mississippi River, including drainages in north central Wisconsin. It was, and is, a valid term for MDNR to use to distinguish their Leech Lake fish from Shoepac fish, because the Leech Lake fish are in the upper watershed of the Mississippi River and are similar to fish in other Minnesota waters of that watershed. But the term "Mississippi strain" is being badly misused by those who want WDNR to stock them in places they never existed in the first place. Mislabeling is a clever PR trick. Please don't fall for it.
JASON: Are all fish species stocked by the WDNR in Wisconsin waters native to Wisconsin?
DAVE: No. One good example is brown trout. They're native to Europe. There are many other examples.
JASON: Are there any walleyes from the Mississippi river stocked into Wisconsin waters? I have heard there are.
DAVE: Walleyes that swam upstream into the Wisconsin and Chippewa river basins surely originated in the Mississippi River. But if you're asking if Mississippi River walleyes have been stocked into isolated lakes in Wisconsin, I don't know the answer. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that was the case. Walleyes were transferred frequently, without regard for genetic stock structure, by state agencies and the feds all over North America for decades.
Jason, I detect from the nature of your questions that you are suggesting that fishery management agencies continue to commit the "sins of the past" by ignoring what we've learned about fish genetics in the last decade. It almost sounds as if you're suggesting that we just keep mixing genetic stocks because we've always done it. Surely you're not suggesting that, are you?
Dave Neuswanger
Fisheries Team Leader, Upper Chippewa Basin
Wisconsin DNR, Hayward
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The Journey