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Location: 412 | Hey guys,
I'm from PA and being a musky fisherman here is tough. Takes a ton of hours to get fish. While we were fishing, someone said if we were in Wisconsin we'd already have 10 fish jokingly. That got us wondering, how much "easier" is it to catch a musky?
For example, there's a lake here thats around 250 acres, and in a biologist report it states: "The muskellunge and tiger muskellunge populations were good. Eleven muskies and nine tiger muskies were collected in 2005, which was slightly lower than the catch of 17 muskies and 11 tiger muskies in 1995. Seven of the 11 muskies in 2005 were 40 inches or greater including a 46-inch, 31.4-pound fish. All of the muskies and tiger muskies in 1995 were less than 40 inches. This would be an excellent lake in SW PA to target musky and tiger musky."
To me, that's just not a big number of fish to be considered an 'excellent' lake, but then again it is in PA. Just curious on your thoughts.. | |
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Posts: 221
Location: ohio | If I fished all day on a 250 acre lake and only caught 1 46 inch 31 Lb. Fish, I would say that this is an excellent lake.
If I fished a 11,000 acre lake and only had 1 follow and no fish in the boat, I would not say it was an excellent lake even if other people say it is. I think it is a personal opinion on what you would consider a lake to be excellent. Fishing in waters around this area is far different than fishing the northern lakes,I.E. different structure,water temp's ect.ect.
however a musky is a musky no matter where she lives.put the right bait at the right time in front of a ski's nose and more then likley your going to get some action. I use the same lures here in Ohio as I use at the upper French river.
sometimes I catch more fish per day up there than I do here,and some days I don't. If you get a chance to go on a fishing trip somewhere besides your home waters do so by all means. Good luck ! | |
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Posts: 463
Location: Sw Pennsylvania | I think overall PA has some premier musky waters not only in the state but northeast part of the country and possibly the country. Granted overall size is small compared to Wisconsin and Minnesota, but there are still plenty of big fish caught throughout the state. The northwestern part of the state has the best populations IMO but plenty of musky opportunitys across the state for musky. The one thing i think we lack is water quality in our rivers and lakes, alot of agricultural runoff and sewage being dumped into the waters. I think if we work on this we should only see better musky fishing and fishing in general across the state in the years to come. This is all based on my overall opinion... | |
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| I get pictures of fish from PA about once a week and I had a chance to go a fish PA this year for the first time and I think you have a great fishery. No matter what state you live in you have to make the best of it. | |
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| Punch,
I'm from PA too. I agree with you that it takes (me) a ton of hours to catch a muskie here. One problem is that PA is not blessed with natural lakes with good muskie habitat. Another problem is the pollution in our rivers. (Check out the Pittsburgh pool of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers. Not much esox action, if any.) In some rivers it is mine acid run-off. In others it is industrial and municipal waste. Makes it tough. It takes a lot of good water to produce a lot of fish and absorb all of the fishing pressure.
What 250 acre lake are you referring to?
And good luck to you. | |
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Posts: 203
Location: Germantown, WI | I grew up in PA and now live in WI. While PA has some good musky waters many of the lakes/rivers are fairly low density fisheries. Most of the musky waters in PA are entirely dependent on stocking. There is probably some natural reproduction going on in some of the natural lakes in NW PA as well as the Allegheny River above between Franklin and Warren. There may be a few other locations also such as parts of the Susquehanna system where there is decent natural reproduction.
A big problem in PA for a long time was poor managment of the musky fishery. The state had a 30" minimum for all waters until very recently. Musky were also managed as a once in a lifetime fish instead managing for quality fisheries, i.e. too few fish put in too many waters. Ohio managed a few waters, but their aim was to create high quality fisheries. Another problem was that PA muskies have been raised on dry pellet food for a long time. Survival in the wild is much lower for fingerlings fed on dry pellet food instead of live minnows. Also the size of stocked fingerlings is generally 6-8". PA would likely get a better survival rate if the size of stocked fingerlings was increasead to 10-12" as in some other states.
PA still raises a lot of tigers whereas many states have abandoned fish culture for musky hybrids. I think they are no longer stocking tigers and naturals together and if so that is a good thing.
It seems that the PFBC is now working more closely with Muskies Inc chapters in the state and trying to do more to create quality fisheries. It may take a while for results to be seen. An advantage that many midwestern states have is that there are more musky fisherman in states like WI, MN, IL. The more people that are interested in fishing for musky the more the state will be motivated to meet that need. Local clubs need to reach out to the PFBC and partner with them wherever possible. Standing back and blaming them will never improve the fishery.
PA has a nice blend of musky waters offering both numbers and size. If you want numbers there is Tamarack lake in Crawford Cty. If you want size there are any number of places such as Pymatuning, Lake Arthur, or the Allegheny river. Remember that Western PA is the native range of the musky, but they have been introduced in Eastern PA as well. It is no accident that most of the quality musky lakes in PA are in the Western half of the state.
Muskies are notoriously hard to monitor by trapping/electrofishing studies. There may be more muskies than you think on some of those waters. PM me if you want more info on some of the waters in Western PA. My brother still lives there and between us we have fished most of the better musky waters in Western PA. | |
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Posts: 212
| Think of it as a puzzle, and you're only thinking of two parts. What the biologists are saying(from four years ago) and the time you've put in, where ever it may be. If the nets were in the water for a few weeks it's not alot of fish, but if they put in multiple nets for a short time it changes the context of it. Look at the forage too. If there's a ton of baitfish, then you have a lot of competition to deal with, let alone fishing pressure, which plays an important role as well. As you can see the fish are growing and as they do, it's natural for the numbers of them to decrease. There aren't a ton of big fish out there, something like 3% of the total population make it past 48". Look at the stocking schedule. Do they still put fish in it to keep the population of smaller fish up?? It's not just clipping a lure on and fishing somewhere they say is good. They barely have enough time/money/help to check the lakes once every ten years. If you aren't a biologist 20 muskies doesn't sound like alot, but if you know they say 2 muskies per acre is a good number, and this survey was based on a multi-day sampling, 20 muskies might give them a good idea of that the ratio of muskies/acre is around good levels.
Easier is being able to drive to one of 13,000 lakes. PA limits you to like 25. A musky is a musky though, where ever you may be. If you are worried because you haven't caught one in a few hours, start golfing, cause you aren't enjoying the time on the water and it's not gonna be easy. Read "Time on the Water" by Bill Gardner. | |
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Location: Ohio | Amuskie is a muskie but you have 3 distinct strains Leech Lake, Great Lakes and the Ohio River strains and the 3 react differently to their enviroment nothern fish tend to roam more and can be caught in multiples. I was told that to be a good muskie angler you have to pay your dues, to me when I figured this out was to learn one body of water very good before you start fish different waters in your area. You have to make sure that the body of water you choose for your area has a fairly good population of fish or you will get get skunked more than you should, rivers are always changeing but can be some of the best learning you'll ever get, I started fishing for muskies in W.Va. which at the time was almost all river fishing when I moved to Ohio a Lake here is a damed river it has a in feed that is a river and a out flow with a big deep hole in the middle it fishes the same. Learn one water and then you'll not struggle as much on different waters. | |
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Posts: 909
| Check out the muskies inc. statistics and you'll see PA Ain't to bad! Theres alot of good sticks in PA too! Well said Mr. Pearson!
Brian 
Edited by muskie24/7 7/13/2009 8:18 PM
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Fishing in the Midwest compared to PA