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Posts: 2361
| I am fully in agreement with those who seemingly have observed big stocking classes as being notable as they grow out. A fishing buddy of mine and I have noted two bubbles on lake X in WI and clearly the overstocked year class probably overwhelmed predation somewhat and had a great year class, and that class was trackable up to the 44-46" range, and there is a new year class coming up right now on the same lake. Whether there is some unknown numbers effect or whether this is just a situation where you get a proportionately bigger year class related to original stocking numbers? I don't know.
One thing that might influence fingerling survival strongly is the previous year class. It would seem likely that fingerling and yearling musky would be the year classes most likely to contact each other and in terms of fingerling predation, the yearling class might be a significant predator on the fingerlings since they are most likely to choose overlapping habitats. The two year old fish might also be a siginificant fingerling predator. It would be interesting to see studies in a few different lake environments over a 9 year period stocking this way.
I would also wonder if big year classes might put more overall pressure on northern pike numbers(later) than what continual modest year classes do. In many of the big lakes musky year classes with normal stocking do not seem to ever reach levels where they could have much influence on forage classes of anything.
Pure speculation, but it would seem worthwhile to investigate if musky vs musky is a problem, and any way to lower resource pressure by the resource itself, if it exists.
And after thinking about the big musky predation, I really question how much big musky predation works against fingerling musky.
Edited by firstsixfeet 7/26/2007 10:35 PM
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Posts: 299
Location: Nowheresville, MN | firstsixfeet - 7/26/2007 10:23 PM
One thing that might influence fingerling survival strongly is the previous year class. It would seem likely that fingerling and yearling musky would be the year classes most likely to contact each other and in terms of fingerling predation, the yearling class might be a significant predator on the fingerlings since they are most likely to choose overlapping habitats. The two year old fish might also be a siginificant fingerling predator. It would be interesting to see studies in a few different lake environments over a 9 year period stocking this way.
Bingo!
Saturate the predators so a large number survive. Now you must continue to saturate the up and coming new predators...
No hidden secret esox prefer soft-rayed, cylindrical forage. What shape is a young esox??? | |
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another/another view on current stocking practices in WI