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| Message Subject: State Of Illinois Musky Stocking Update | |||
pgaschulz |
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Posts: 561 Location: Monee, Illinois | A buddy of mine just forward this to me....just shows how much effort goes into the stocking process... From the IL DNR: ============================= August 8th, 2006 A total of 757,939 fry were produced from the 1,498,321 eggs spawned in March. A total of 193,359 fry were started on feed in six start tanks in mid April. No circular tanks were used this spring to start muskie on feed. An additional 303,410 fry were stocked into two acre ponds and Wayne Herndon stocked 166,326 fry into the Illinois river. Three different starter diets (Bio-Vita, Lansy and Nutra) were fed this year in hopes of finding a reliable substitute for the Bio-Kyowa diet no longer available. Each of the three diets were fed to two start tanks; one tank being fed using the standard Northstar feeder with 40,000 fry and one tank being fed with two Sweeney vibrating feeders containing 25,000 fry. The Northstar feeders appeared to feed as well as the Sweeney's so after one week, all of the six tanks were being fed the same way, every seven minutes, 24 hours per day with the Northstars. Muskie on the Bio-Vita diet showed the best growth, then the Nutra and finally the Lansy. This was based on weekly sample counts and also general observations as to the robustness of the fry and the number of daily morts. We also sample counted the pond stocked fry weekly. These fish were not only consistently larger than the ones inside, they also had great coloration. It's hard to beat Mother Nature. The muskie on Lansy were switched to Bio-vita after eleven days to see if they would start to gain weight. Everything looked encouraging for the first two weeks, especially for the fish on Bio-Vita, then history repeated itself once again. Mortality started to increase, and fish previously on feed started to thin and waste away. We switched from heated well water to solar pond around the end of the second week to see if the available of zooplankton would make a difference. It didn't. So after approximately a month on feed we transferred all the remaining fry out to ponds in hopes of salvaging fish. The muskie in start tanks were checked numerous times for parasites and bacteria, none were found. Gas saturation was checked and didn't appear to be a problem. In late June we drained the two acre ponds stocked with muskie fry. Pond 22 had been stocked with 171,811 fry, produced 7,955 seven inch fish. Pond 21, which was stocked with 131,599 fry produced 463 seven inch fingerlings. The results were disappointing, based on the number of three inch fingerlings seen earlier in the ponds. Lower than hoped for numbers may have been a result of bird predation. We had a hard time keeping the Little Green herons out of the ponds. They are small enough to push and/or even fly through the two inch mesh on the netted ponds, and it wasn't unusual to see a half dozen herons feeding inside the nets. As the muskie get larger they have a tendency to move deeper into the pond and are not readily visible. But until then, the fry and small fingerlings hang along the shoreline at the surface, in clusters of fish 100 fish or so, which makes them much more vulnerable to predation. The INHS picked up 200 of these fish for lab work, and on July 5 the remaining 8,200 muskie were stocked back into a netted pond. On July 6, we received 25,000 five inch muskie fingerlings from Spirit Lake, Iowa. On July 10, two netted ponds were stocked with 10,000 fish each, and the remaining fingerlings were stocked into the following lakes. July 17, Argyle lake, 150 July 17, Spring Lake, McDonough Co. 550 July 17, Canton Lake, 750 July 17, George Lake, 1,000 July 18, Sule lake, 1,160 July 18, Pierce Lake, 1,080 July 18, Shabbona Lake, 1,190 We are starting to see mortality in pond 20 which contains the 8,200 Spring Lake fish. If the number continues to increase this weekend the pond will be harvested Monday or Tuesday to determine what's happening. As of this morning the other two ponds look ok. | ||
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| Appears Iowa is building Muskie fisherys all across the nation. You'd think Iowa would be the Muskie capitol of world will all the fish they export. | |||
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