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Posts: 300
| I've heard and read that there are muskies and tiger muskies in the Chain O Lakes, but never fished it. Just curious if anyone has ever fished for them out there. Any success?
Edited by flyingfish8604 5/7/2013 11:05 PM
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Posts: 241
| My family and I rent a house on the chain every year.
I fish for bass, northern, and panfish. Never saw, caught or heard of muskies being caught. I checked it with the locals and bait shops.
Oh how I wish their were muskies.... |
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Posts: 1168
| There were some stocked a bunch of years ago but not in recent years. If there are any left it is an old, old fish and the population is very small.
After learning a little bit more about some work the WDNR was doing on that chain I am glad that there are not muskies in that chain. It's very unique in that it is an inland system that has a naturally reproducing population of brown trout. They'll run up one specific stream (can't recall the name of it off the top of my head) and then migrate back into the lakes when they are a couple of years old.
You would think that it could be a pretty cool muskie fishery but it's not worth messing with something as cool as what it has going on. |
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Posts: 300
| Thanks for the information. I have talked to the DNR about the chain and they told me that the only fish they planted were some tigers in the late 1980's. I just figured that the fishermen would know more than the DNR about the population of fish. Thanks! |
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Posts: 1168
| You just have to know who to talk to in the dept. 
As much as we'd like to talk to the fishery guys about muskies all the time, I'd encourage anyone to ask what other projects they are working on. Some fascinating stuff you can learn from those guys. In fact, whenever I've had a biologist in my boat we've usually talked more about non-muskie stuff....so when I ran into one that I know well he offered up the info about the Waupaca Chain knowing that if given a choice to fish for one thing the rest of my life between muskies and trout I'd go with trout.
I know that the WDNR would be very hesitant to push for a muskie program in this system due to the presence of those browns and you'd never get the local lake association type groups to go for it. That's an area where the people are wired for trout. It would be like going to Boulder Junction and pushing for walleye and muskie management to be set aside in favor of tipping fisheries in that area towards large mouth.
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Waupaca Chain O Lakes muskies.