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| Please help us all here in Ohio by supporting the online petition asking for the State of Ohio to consider a 40" statewide size limit on muskellunge. Your support will be critical for us to build momentum to get this passed. Click on the link below. Thanks in advance!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ohiomuskylimit/signatures.html
Sincerely,
Tom Dietz
www.tomdietz.com
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| Tom it is important that we as sportsman stick together on issues like these! I will be glad to sign the petition and support Ohios musky anglers.
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Location: Athens, Ohio | Sorry, I just don't agree that passing more laws is going to solve Ohio's trophy muskie 'problem'. I see no data with evidence that many muskie fishermen are keeping fish with Leesville being the only possible exception. I think the energy spent on trying to legislate our way out of the problem would be better spent in working cooperatively with ODNR to install fish screens on dam outfalls to keep the muskies in the reservoirs during flood events. I think we lose more fish to the spillways than we do to the frying pan.
Any observations from your side of the state? m |
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Posts: 626
Location: ashtabula ohio | youre wrong mikie..i fish west branch and milton and have witnessed "meat hunters" at both lakes. there is no way that leesville is the only exception!! it may not solve it but will definitely help. how can ohio be the only muskie program with no size limit!!! there is too much money spent on these fish to have no protection at all. we dont know if this petition will help us or not but there is only one way to find out. i hope alot of you guys up north will help us and sign it. thanks, tom pallotta. |
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Posts: 89
Location: Breezy Point, MN | Mikie,
I am actually appalled at the number of mid-thirties inch fish killed here this past year at Caesar's Creek and taken to the local taxidermists (I had customers tell me about them at the store all summer long, along with a 45" and 46" fish caught and killed on the same day there early this summer). If we want to better our chances in catching Ohio Husky Muskies (42" or better), we need a size limit restriction. Ohio currently has no size restrictions whatsoever.
There is no doubt we are losing some fish on reservoirs like Alum Creek, etc. here in Ohio, but why not protect the fish that aren't going over dams??? Can someone tell me how a 40" limit would hurt the existing fishery? My whole point here is why not protect a good number of these fish to reach the 40" length, and on lakes such as Leesville, Alum Creek, Caesar's Creek, and Clear Fork, the trophy potential would be much better in my opinion. Thanks for your feedback.
Edited by Tom Dietz 11/12/2006 3:55 PM
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Location: Williamstown, WV | Tom,
Let's see if I can get this right. I had the same idea as you guys but about West Virginia. I wanted an increased size limit for the entire state and several fishery biologist and our Muskies Inc. Chapter President actually said that the size increase limit would not help fisheries (west virginia). He said it would be better to pick a couple bodies of water and make them "trophy" fisheries and leave the rest as is. I'm sure Mikie knows something about this and he's better at words than me but I think I got the jist of it. Now this is for West Virginia and they did make a point of saying Ohio has a better fishery than West Virginia and you have no size limit.
I think other factors come into play here besides size factors. Maybe work on stocking, weed beds, structure, habitat, etc. Honestly though I think it's a combination of several factors to make a better fishery, but after talking with biologist and my chapter president I do not think a "blanket" size limit is the way to go. I think maybe pick a couple lakes and focus on them. I hope I made sense and didn't ramble on endlessly. Thanks for listening.
Shawn |
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Posts: 1530
| the sad thing is its taken as put and take. a very poor reception for a managible trphy fish. d.n.r. and state legislatures need to know how much money muskys bring in into state coffers.. key things are education. muskies taste like s./. you guess the rest. |
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| Not to upset the canoe here fellas, but HOW IN THE HELL would a 40" limit HURT the fishery?
starting there seems like a good spot to work toward other endpoints right?
especially in a state with no minimum. |
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Posts: 938
Location: NeverNever Lake | Thanks Tom! You are the best thing that ever happened to muskie fishing in Ohio! Keep up the good work! ......................... Raze |
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Location: Athens, Ohio | Well, I'm not saying it would hurt, I just hate to keep restricting the few freedoms we still have left with more government regulation. While you and I follow a CPR approach to fishing, who's to say the meat hunters can't have their day, too? With a 40 inch limit, you're just letting them keep bigger fish. Now, that may help a bit since the bigger ones are a bit harder to catch and may lose some taste appeal. It's education, more than regulation, that will change behaviors.
What it comes down to is ODNR's position: looking at the Lunge Log and the fish turned in under the Huskie Muskie program, ODNR sees no shortage of big fish being caught. Until they lose the put-and-take approach, this will be a hard sell. I wish you all luck on it! m |
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Posts: 2
| Ohio has a Great fishery with the potential to become World Class! There is no reason that a size limit could be a bad idea. Show me a species or state that a size limit has hurt. It is a step in the right direction. Help Ohio's musky anglers by signing the petition!
Thanks
Aaron Malone |
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| show your support for your fellow outdoorsman sign the petition for a size limit of 40" and 1 per day.
ohio currently has no size limit and 2 fish can be taken per day |
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Posts: 1243
Location: Musky Tackle Online, MN | Education is no doubt the most important thing in protecting our musky fisheries. But Ohio’s regulation of NO size limit does absolutely nothing to help educate. If anything, it has the opposite effect by saying go ahead and harvest a musky of any size. Imposing a size limit DOES help to educate. One question I get here in MN from people that don’t know anything about muskies is, “why do they have to be so big before you can keep them?” This is a great first step in the education process! When an uneducated person approaches you with a question, it‘s a much better opportunity to educate than when you approach them.
Aaron |
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| I can hardly believe a discussion about the merits of a size limit is being debated here on MF, there is no debate IMHO.
Oddly enough I witnessed about a 36" about to be harvested by a meat hunters on a 40" minimum lake once. I yelled over to the guy in the pontoon boat "how big was that a muskie you just caught"... he said: "yep, a muskie and it's over 40"... I yelled again something like: "it's been a long time since I've seen a 40" muskie, I'd like to get a picture" and proceeded to pull up along side his boat.
I could tell he was a little tense about the way the situation developed but held the fish up anyway. I told him a couple times I didn't think the fish was 40" and he still attempted to convince me that it was, even after he had admitted he didn't even measure it.
I told him I had a measuring board he could use and he said it wasn't important. I said firmly that it was important because there was a 40" minimum... only then did he reluctantly returned the fish to the water.
Anyway, the 40" limit enabled me to confront this meat hog and help protect the fishery... even in this extreme example. I like AWH's point about people asking why the size limit is so big and also agree we need to educate non-muskie anglers more too.
I feel a size limit can only help the fishery, and is certainly worth the effort. |
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| You would be amazed at the amount of resistance the size limit is getting even from other musky fisherman! There is a musky club called the OHMC the ohio husky musky club. OHMC.com It is a club sponsered by the ODNR and they are really mad about a possibility of a size limit. We really just dont understand. You should check it out! They honestly argue that a size limit would hurt the fishery.
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Posts: 3
| Thanks for the support guys!!! When we decided to do a petition to see how much intrest there would be in a size limit I had know idea it would get so much negative feed back from Muskie fisherman that practice CPR?????? Know one has come forward with any real reason for not having a size limit, some reasons were "DNR has not put in place so we don't need it", "a kid with a snoopy pole lands a 36"er he should be able to mount it" I didn't make that up, "fish over the dam is a bigger problem", "we will have to float a fish that won't revive",and so on...... If limits are so bad why do all the other states have them???
Hope we get a limit,
Jarrod |
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Posts: 626
Location: ashtabula ohio | by the way, jarrod and aaron and anyone else from ohio message boards,hopefully your posts will increase on musky fishing in general here...this is bar none, the best musky board on the net. you can get,learn, get tips,,,anything here. thanks goes out to other musky hunters for their views and signatures on the petition. keep em coming! thanks guys. |
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Location: NeverNever Lake | I totally agree on the fact that this is only a small step, so the arguement is, are we moving in the right direction. Many have said that in a constantly changing world there is no such thing as standing still. Either you're moving forward, or you're moving back.
I think the real issue is to change muskies from a gamefish to a sportfish.
I have a good feeling everytime I release a muskie, that I or another angler will get to catch her another day |
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| Correct me if I'm wrong here... but... wasn't one of the original reasons for instituting the 30" length restriction in WI to allow the fish a chance to propagate? I think a size restrictions for a trophy would start around 45-48" and some people would consider that an elitist type thing.
At least a 40" limit would give them the opportunity to spawn a few times before someone has the legal chance to choke it. Considering the passionate opposition... maybe this is a better angle to work to get it to pass?
Just a random thought... good luck. |
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| Correct me if I'm wrong here... but... wasn't one of the original reasons for instituting the 30" length restriction in WI to allow the fish a chance to propagate? I think a size restrictions for a trophy would start around 45-48" and some people would consider that an elitist type thing.
At least a 40" limit would give them the opportunity to spawn a few times before someone has the legal chance to choke it. Considering the passionate opposition... maybe this is a better angle to work to get it to pass?
Just a random thought... good luck. |
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Location: Athens, Ohio | Jerry, good thought, but Ohio's flood control reservoirs where muskies are stocked have little, if any, natural reproduction, thus the heavy emphasis on state stocking. Ohio has an excellent stocking program, and several of our lakes remain in the lunge Log's top big-fish producers year after year. ODNR's boilogistss are well-trusted, since many of them are fellow muskie anglers. This type of political pressure to change the current status quo, well, it will be interesting to see how it sits with them! Tinker with the system, what will result?
"The first rule of tinkering is to keep all the parts!" - Buckminster Fuller
m |
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| Mikie, didn't you see the first Jurasic Park movie brother? "they will find a way" 
Yeah, I wondered about that while I was writing and thought even if there is a chance they are or could begin propagating (or the passionate opposition can't prove they can't) it could still be a vaild point to make.
I'll try not to double click on "submit" this time... I'll try not to double click on "submit" this time... |
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Location: NeverNever Lake | I guess it would be ok to compare ODNR's stocking program to say Indiana's (a close neighbor). Or perhaps Wisconson's feild research.
If the ODNR really wants to impress me, they would figure out a way to keep stocked fish from swimming out. But not with nets. By use of ultrasound, or electostimulation, of perhaps strobe lights. Or perhaps combinations of such.........
But the big question that has yet to be answered,,,, are scale samples really necessary? |
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Location: ashtabula ohio | just want to say thanks for posting boys... and keep em coming! tom pallotta. |
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