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Posts: 1185
Location: Wishin I Was Fishin' | I am on the phone with David Rowe as I type.
Public is welcome and encouraged to attend.
The meeting is at 6pm tonight at the Yacht Club.
The graduate student from the telemetry study will be there to present some results from the first year.
David's agenda is to present data and facts about the Green Bay Musky Fishery and then gather public opinions. He will then use this to redesign the management stategy and goals.
Hopefully we can change the strategy to include managing it for a trophy musky fishery. That would justify a 54" size limit.
Edited by Jomusky 2/17/2010 1:44 PM
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Posts: 202
| Hey Joe, talked to David Rowe yesterday in regards to this. I can't make the meeting tonight but I also hope for managing it as a trophy musky fishery.
Captain Doug Kloet
http://www.dougkloet.com |
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Posts: 2894
Location: Yahara River Chain | I got q email from Mt Rowe yesterday and I expressed the need for the 54" size limit as the person for the last 3 yrs introduced a resolution in Dane County at the CC Hearings. I await his remarks after the meeting. |
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Posts: 272
| Definitely wasn't impressed with the turnout. I came up with 40-45ish on a quick count. At least 7-8 of them were fish techs, biologists, etc. Saddest thing was that nobody that makes money from this body of water or should be concerned financially was there.
We have a 1-mo-old baby at home. And a three-year-old, and burned up a bunch of brownie points last night to go to this meeting and be involved....instead of going fishing......which I haven't done in two months. I understand some folks had prior commitments.
Anyway, great info on the ova-duct tags, lots of neat stories about fish movements. Historical changes to the bay were cool to see and helped me to understand part of the current challenge. Baby fishies will be stocked this fall and they're looking at using new/different rearing ponds possibly in Kewaunee or Wild Rose in the future.
If you were wondering about the 54 thing, which I think most people interested in the area and this meeting are...... we tried saying it as many different ways as possible. It fell on deaf ears.
-Eric
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| People can sure show up in hoards every weekend to hit the water but one meeting to discuss the future of this fishery and everyone conveniently has other obligations. As the guy before me mentioned, no shows for the guides who daily make a living off of this fishery and have a vested interest in this fishery.
As for the meeting itself, there was some good information presented from David and Kyle. Lot's of good discussion, and it'll be very interesting to see where David nets out on his proposal. Managing the fishery as a trophy fishery, having a naturally reproducing population of muskies and genetic diversification of the population were a couple of the top goals of the plan.
Unfortunately I don't see the 54" proposal going into effect anytime soon. David's argument was that he didn't want to impose a regulation, 'just so someone couldn't harvest a fish.' However, if this 54" regulation showed that it improved the overall size/abundance of large fish in the system, then he'd be in favor of it. But, right now he said it is too early to know that and not enough information about the fishery is known.
He had two suggestions for obtaining information regarding the last point. Keep the current 50" limit for another 4 years and see if there is a plateau in the population at 50" or below. If that is that case, then he would make an argument to increase the size limit. The other suggestion was around going to a Catch & Release only fishery for 10 years and collect data on the population. If this had no effect on the plateau of large fish, then the size limit for harvest would be adjusted back down to the 50" or so......
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| One last note to my previous post.... I know a lot of us are frustrated with the current state of things on the bay and want some changes made. I must applaud David and Kyle though for the work they are doing. They have done a LOT of work for this fishery and will continue to do so. The next time you see these guys on the water with their fyke nets, telemetry study, etc... stop by and thank them for thier hard work and let them know their efforts are greatly appreciated. |
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Posts: 929
Location: Rhinelander. | On the bay is it really a problem with people keeping fish between 50 and 54 inches? Never had the chance to fish it and I really don't pay that much atention to the the number of fish that are kept from there. |
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Posts: 113
Location: Green Bay, WI | Don we have had a problem with over harvest in the past few years. My opinion. How much of a problem I guess we will never really know for sure. Our argument is that if you allow a fish to be harvested in Green Bay when they reach 50" how do you know what the potential of that fish really is. I know you could say that anywhere but in Green Bay it has been shown to have tremendous growth rates. Lets find out how big they can get.
One of the arguments against increasing the size limit is would it really help the fish grow larger. Or are we just taking away the chance of someone getting that trophy of a lifetime. In other words harvesting a fish. My argument against this is why not increase the size and find out if we see in 10 years that it is not working change it back what have you done except protect the fish from harvest. In a system that they are looking for natural reproduction in why take out your largest females. Wouldn't you want them in the system. Once again just my opinion.
As far as the meeting the other night I agree with Eric and guest a lot of good ideas and interesting facts from Dave Rowe and Kyle the grad student from Michigan sorry can't remember his last name. I liked the idea of having 10 years catch and release see if there is an improvement in the size limit. If not go back to the 50. I think we would find out what these fish have in them. We won't find out if we don't try. I also agree it was disappointing to see the turnout that the meeting had. Maybe the next one we have to get more vocal and get the word out better.
Jay Zahn |
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| Hi Fellas, I'm over here on the real "G-Bay" (Georgian Bay, Lk Huron) and this water and many others went to a 54" size limit back in the spring of '01 I believe. I don't recall much in the way of objection here when that happened. The MNR was for it, the anglers were for it. I don't enforce a catch and release policy in my boat and I've guided many clients to fish over 54" and have NEVER had a client express a desire to keep a legal trophy fish. I can't understand the reluctance of the WDNR to go to the 54" limit. It's nothing but good. We live in an age of graphite reproduction. If you kill a 40 pounder it will NEVER be a 50 pounder.
www.millsmuskyguideservice.ca |
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Posts: 941
Location: Freedom, WI | Steamboat - The problem is the attitude of harvesting in the WDNR (some not all in the WDNR) and the general public (that mentality is from long ago and hard to change) even though it is not necessary to put it on the wall. People have to realize that are lakes are not fish factory's and they can take anything they want. Same type of people that take there limit of perch twice a day and blame muskies for no perch. |
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Posts: 272
| Guest - 2/18/2010 9:17 AM
David's argument was that he didn't want to impose a regulation, 'just so someone couldn't harvest a fish.' However, if this 54" regulation showed that it improved the overall size/abundance of large fish in the system, then he'd be in favor of it.
That sentence is precisely what really frustrates me. Of course its going to improve that number of bigger fish. Just pulling a number out of thin air, if there are 40 fifty-plus inch fish in the entire lower bay, and 13 get whacked next year......there's 27 left when the season closed. Not including whatever others die of old age, post-release mortality, get hit by a boat, etc . Given that, it sure seems like a 54" limit also increasing the max size of fish would be a foregone conclusion. Perhaps they CAN'T reach an average above 54" in Green Bay. But they'd still be there between 50 and 53.3, which I believe is what David said their data shows an average female can max out at.
That should mean more bigger fish for everyone to have a shot at.
-Eric |
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Posts: 15
Location: East Central WI | I sure hope the DNR increases the limit to 54. All they need to do is consider the economic impact this would have in WI. If it becomes a truly great place to catch a 40 pounder or more, people will flock from far and wide to fish it. Hotels, bars, restaurants, gas stations, bait shops, tourism, etc will all benefit. This is not a new concept, look at all of the other trophy fisheries in the country. Look what the walleye did for Lake Erie!! Look what IA and IL get for an out of state whitetail tag. How about just about any big game tag out west? Big muskies in WI are a money maker for WI. The biology would certainly seem to support it They grow big, it is big water & there is a veritable smorgasbard out there. The economics clearly support this. Think about this a minute..... If I wanted, I could conceivably catch and kill one musky every day of the season (never kept one in 24 years of fishing though). This is a critter, that at 50 inches is pushing 20 years old. However, if I want to shoot a turkey, I MIGHT get two tags a year. Turkeys live 1-4 years on average. Deer... even a trophy whitetail is only 4-6 years old, I can get one buck with the gun and one with the bow per year. Why could I legally I harvest one musky per day when it takes 20+ years to reach it's potential? (Yeah, as if I could actually get a 50" every day of the season, but you get the point).
Did anyone at the meeting have any intelligent reasons why they should NOT raise it to 54? I can't.
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Posts: 929
Location: Rhinelander. | The 54 inch limit would be nice on trophy water I agree. I will say this that you should not use economic impact as a reason for it. The muskie anglers represent a very smallpercentage of the anglers when compared to walleye,bass, catfish or pan fishermen in the U.S.A. . The d.n.r. will go along with programs that mean the most dollars to them for 1 and to the anyone else 2nd. Its just just a numbers game to them and they need to see the dollar value. I know as a musky fishermen what I spend for my musky fishing and many others and its a good amount. Just saying that there are not enough of us to create an economic impact. |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Don, I'd argue strongly with that statement. |
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| Me too.
I was just yesterday having a conversation with my friend from the Webster Lake club down in the Fort Wayne Indiana area about their estimates on how much positive impact it has been for the area to have muskies in Webby, the Chain and Tippy. Lots of cash gets spent there annually. Lots.
Not only that, its no skin off their teeth in terms of money spent to create this size limit increase. Sure, perhaps there are some models that need to be changed and some paperwork that needs to have an asterisk added to it, etc. I don't know the process, but once the legislation gets changed, what is the cost? What could it possibly be? Very nominal I'd think.
Its not like we're asking them to riprap a shoreline, install a fish ladder or a build a new hatchery. |
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Posts: 229
| Don,
Just ask the owner of the Red Door Motel about economic impact... He went from half full at $35 a night to nearly always full at $75 a night. Don- with musky fisherman with views like yours, WI will never ever catch up to MN and probably fall behind everyone else. But then again little Johnny can keep his first 34" musky...
John |
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DNR Green Bay Musky meeting tonight - Wednesday 2-17