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| Well I am a state record holder now of a fish not native to north america. History lesson, Zander (walleyes cousin) eggs were brought over from europe 3 years but two years the eggs were destroyed for some reason, in 1989 there was a successful hatch and they were stocked into Spiritwood Lake ND, since then it was beleived that the zanders did not make it but back in the early to mid 2000's some juvinile fish were being caught. In 2014 I had a walleye/zander nearing 40" and guessing 20 pounds follow a jerkbait up to the boat and I froze, even though I chase muskies and seeing them 50+" boatside don't make me loose my nerve but this fish did. this last winter a lake adjasent to spiritwood that has had some outflow got hot for walleyes between 16-27" and turns out that about 1 in 20 walleye type fish were indeed Zander. I tried to catch some of them but failed only to watch 15 get caught by other anglers. slightly discouraged continued on chasing my small mouth bass back at the main lake until the mid summer lul had me in full boredom mode. Friday I told my coworkers that I am bored with Spiritwood and I "hate that lake", I fish it 30-40 times a year as it is the closest lake by a lot being in ND there are only 25 bass lakes at all. Friday after work I went out for 3 hours and happen to catch my first zander about 3 pounds. Well Saturday I set out to catch a zander and after a morning of persistence it paid off with a 15 pound 15 ounce zander, beating the old record from 2013 that was 11 pounds 3 ounces. Fishing alone I am happy to say that all 35 5/8" fit in my ego s2 slider and that somehow my rod was still on the deck as I went two hands on the net. I weighed the fish at 15.5 on the boat and decided that since the anatomy isn't quite like the walleye I would have to get an actual skin mount and keep the fish (I am the type that all fish can be a replica so I was unprepared for this encounter and do feel bad that I chose to harvest this beautiful fish). I started filling my Z8 livewell 20 gallons in a square resulted in this fishes head and shoulders being the only thing inside the well. I recruited the help of the Spiritwood resort to get this thing transferred into town in a large tote filled with ice (I am thankful for there help). Was able to run to a local grocery store with a certified scale and a game and fish witness to make it official.
the fish is out of my hands at the taxidermist's and we are planning on it being inside a glass coffee table. |
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| if one person wants to resizes a picture pm me an email or phone number |
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| congrats but i can't believe they bring a species like that here .what a poor judgment move. is there is also some silure glanis somewhere ? never a good idea to bring something new to a echo system. always a mess near the corner when aliens fish invade .look at asian and common carp. |
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| is that forbidden to release zander ? |
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| yeah times were different back in 89, recently it has been talked about killing the system off but there is no practical way, so im sure they are looking into containment, the lake was 15' lower than any outlet even thought the railroad new in 1890 something that it will fill up haha. its been full since 93 |
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| there you go. i think it should taste as good as walleye. monster for sure
Edited by supertrollr 8/18/2019 8:36 AM
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| thanks
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| https://muskie.outdoorsfirst.com/board/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=12...
thanks guys |
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Location: Minnesota. | Congrats Sam, that's one heckuva fine fish!!
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| Not all exotics turn out bad, brown trout aren't native to the U.S., also Amur pike showed a lot of promise until the brood stock died off and the program was discontinued. Most of the problem introductions involved non-predatory species i.e. carps. Congrats on the great catch, while I was fishing in Italy earlier this year I had hoped for a zander by-catch while pike fishing as zander over 40 inches were a possibility, unfortunately no go. My fishing friend caught a big zander a month or so after I returned to the U.S. |
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| That zander looks about as much like what we call walleye as you can get, just HUGER!
They are supposed to be common in the 'low countries' in Europe, along with gigantic northern pike. Great catch! Congratulations! |
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| Here are a couple more shots hopefully we can see the size because the fish is much larger than my pictures make it look
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| Tail
(9617B98F-F8F4-4614-B006-802E441F5540.png)
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Posts: 391
| supertrollr - 8/18/2019 7:58 AM
congrats but i can't believe they bring a species like that here .what a poor judgment move. is there is also some silure glanis somewhere ? never a good idea to bring something new to a echo system. always a mess near the corner when aliens fish invade .look at asian and common carp.
While they do come from our continent, muskies and walleye wouldnt be nearly as numerous and spread out of we didnt stock them in the lakes and rivers such as we have. I agree, it has also made for some bad news with things like bighead and silver carp. But theres plenty of success stories as well.
Fishysam, congrats, that thing is awesome. |
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| it's not more than enough whit just the snakeheads and carps of all kind,gobby etc etc ? up here in canada they mostly add fish only whit the respect of original location. im ok whit that but not always. sometimes i start to imagine how big the musky would turn into this lake and that one. im not a religious freak but i tend to think that the kreator tend to put the right things at the right place.. |
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Location: Ashland WI | supertrollr - 8/25/2019 7:35 AM
it's not more than enough whit just the snakeheads and carps of all kind,gobby etc etc ? up here in canada they mostly add fish only whit the respect of original location. im ok whit that but not always. sometimes i start to imagine how big the musky would turn into this lake and that one. im not a religious freak but i tend to think that the kreator tend to put the right things at the right place..
If you believe the creator created humans, maybe he created them to manipulate certain things in nature? |
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| I wonder if they can breed with walleyes. I'm not hot for experimenting with non native species, but I wonder how big a "zandeye" would get. Or would that be a "Walder"??
In any case, that is a tremendous fish! Congratulations. |
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| sure but starting to add fish here and reptile here and there etc etc no tks. what it's gonna take to understand ? 1 millions elephant in n-y city ? look at cane toads,rabbits,camel,cats in Australia . it's a real scandal . that got lot of chance to extinct most reptile,which are the nicest and guess what near 100% of their fauna are endemic to australia so once it's gone it's forever. human are way too dumb to understand the result when an invasive species is introduced. musky seems to be no problem. but it's hard to fully understand how food chain work. the second largest freshwater pond in america is located in manitoba ,there was almost no more duck ,it was a non sense because it is on the migratory birds highway , and they recently discovered that a fish that have been put in america during the 1800's was the cause of all the duck decline. guess what ,it was just common carp. since they block the access ,ducks are back.sometimes even an extincted insect could ruined the whole things. it's not bs it's just the how life is working ,when you work against it you got junk like vhs, gobbies etc etc that spread everywhere. if things works like that just because some stupid lobby are stronger than the others best of luck if the piranha lobby became most powerful ,it was half joke you get the point.politician are too stupid ,they will do everything for a vote ,and that's a problem. |
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Location: oswego, il | Kind of surprised they stocked them. I brought up peackock bass to the DNR for our cooling lakes got a hard pass being invasive. |
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| Outstanding fish!!! Congratulations on the catch and the new record... WTG! |
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| esoxaddict - 8/25/2019 12:30 PM
I wonder if they can breed with walleyes. I'm not hot for experimenting with non native species, but I wonder how big a "zandeye" would get. Or would that be a "Walder"??
In any case, that is a tremendous fish! Congratulations.
Our game and fish has been testing many samples and all comeback pure one way or the other no hybridization has shown yet, they spawn later than walleye and have been seen spawning as deep as 56' walleyes max depth is 15' pretty neat in deed, they will never bring them back if they get fished out of the 480 acre lake and the body to the south. They have been looking into possibly killing the entire system to stop the concern of them escaping into the region riverways. But it is showing to not be possible |
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Location: 31 | I really like the tail picture, thanks for sharing. Congrats! |
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