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| Moon River delta muskie may mate for life
By Andrew Wagner-Chazalon
Anglers at the mouth of the Moon River have long prized muskellunge for their huge size and powerful fight, but researchers are only just beginning to realize how little they know about the popular sport fish.
Researchers in Georgian Bay have discovered that the fish there spawn twice a year and mate for life, characteristics thatmake them quite different than their cousins in smaller lakes.
Because of their findings, the waters of eastern Georgian Bay have been declared a record class angling area, which means anglers will have to release any muskie that is less than 54 inches long. Previously they were able to keep anything over 40 inches.
The 40-inch size limit was introduced in the hope that it would give muskies at least two years of spawning time before they could be eaten. The size was derived from research done on muskellunge in the Kawarthas, but according to a recent article in Outdoor Canada, researchers have found that the Georgian Bay fish mature much later than their small-water cousins.
"It turns out that the former 40-inch minimum size limit does not protect any spawners," Arunas Liskauskas, management biologist with the MNR’s Lake Huron office said in a telephone interview.
While muskie in the Kawarthas begin breeding when the females are four- or five-years-old, Georgian Bay muskie don’t breed until the females are eight- to ten-years-old. Their prime breeding age is from ten to twenty years.
The researchers have also learned that Georgian Bay muskie spawn twice each year. Kawartha muskie, like many other fish, spawn only once a year. The first batch of eggs in Georgian Bay is laid and fertilized when the water is six to eight degrees — shortly after northern pike spawn. "The speculation is that they then go through a rest and feeding period of two to three weeks, then they spawn again," said Liskauskas.
The double spawning gives the eggs a better chance of hatching. The so-called fractional spawning may be an adaptation that lets the muskellunge compete with northern pike, a fish which occupies a similar ecological niche but matures sooner and grows faster. There are no pike in much of the Kawarthas, so the muskellunge there didn’t need the extra advantage.
Even more surprising is the finding that the muskellunge may form lifetime matings. Liskauskas and his colleagues have netted the same pairs of fish in the same spawning bed two years in a row, giving rise to the theory that individual females meet up at the same bed with the same male partner each year.
"The fish are really tied into specific spawning locations, and in some cases it may be that they’re tied into particular individuals that they’d prefer to spawn with," Liskauskas said.
That kind of behaviour is unique among fish, but Liskauskas said muskie anglers have suspected it for years. There are stories of anglers catching a muskie in the early season, and watching another one circle the boat or hover nearby. If the caught fish is released, the pair will swim off together.
"We’ve had that happen on a number of occasions," said Liskauskas.
Despite the research project, which has been going on since 1996, Liskauskas said there’s still a lot that isn’t known about Georgian Bay muskie. The fish are scarce, and hard to net — in four years of netting, the researchers have caught about 300 fish. Even the location of their spawning beds is largely unknown, although there are some well-established muskie hotspots in places like Severn Sound and the Moon River delta. "It’s kind of like going on a safari for muskie," said Liskauskas. "We rely on moving our nets almost constantly."
Even knowing the habitat requirements is not much help, as sites which seem to have all the ideal conditions can be mysteriously devoid of spawning fish. "Their spawning habitat requirements are quite rigid and quite specific, and that’s what makes them so vulnerable to disturbance," said Liskauskas.
In fact, Liskauskas suspects that muskies may be unable or unwilling to spawn in a new location if their preferred spawning bed is destroyed by shoreline development.
"People purchase a property and one of the first things they do is pull up the plants and "clean up" the shoreline. We don’t know how much habitat has been lost."
I Copied this from a link on the Muskies International Site.
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| eeeeenntoresting...very eeeentoresting.. | |
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| Nice article. | |
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Moon River Musky Study