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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | sukrchukr - 1/6/2019 10:11 AM
Larry Ramsell - 1/6/2019 9:07 AM
but the BIGGER unknown is what the removal of those biggest fish genes has done to the overall picture. Are they still there in previous offspring, OR are they gone forever?
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right, its all about the genetics...once the big fish gene is gone, its gone... years and years of stocking from "unspecified strain" has cost us in northern Wi. Its such a watered down strain up here now.....
And yet in some waters, these fish do very well...IF they are stocked in the numbers needed and pressure/forage/changing water chemistry/etc doesn't crush the process. If the strain has the potential to get to 50+, and the strain in George, Pelican, Moen, and others around here certainly do, then what's the problem? Why have the 4 footers become harder to find? Pressure and vastly reduced stocking over 2 decades, maybe? Competition for food from a rapidly changing predator base?
Watch the progression of the Minnesota stocked waters as alway increasing pressure and less stocking hits them. Already happening, and lots of complaining about it, too. |
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Location: Vilas | "if the strain has the potential to get to 50+"" is the question. Thats a big if. I think the Wi DNR shoepac`ed us without really knowing what was happenng. |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | sukrchukr - 1/6/2019 11:48 AM
"if the strain has the potential to get to 50+"" is the question. Thats a big if. I think the Wi DNR shoepac`ed us without really knowing what was happenng.
All of the lakes mentioned have kicked out occasional 50s, and were not stocked much at all for a couple decades with the supposed goal of testing NR...actually I believe it was a zero dollar budget more than anything else. The strain in Pelican is a good one, and the crew Keith worked with for the time he was at the hatchery has been on Pelican the last couple years collecting spawn from that water, and they will return a percentage to Pelican as part of that plan. That water is healthier now than it has been in 15 years, and will get a lot better in the next few years. The numbers they netted in Musky Bay were off the charts and pressure is very...very low compared to historic stats.
The population in Pelican really suffered from no stocking, was back to what I saw when I first started fishing it in the early 70's. Low pressure, very low density, with a good distribution up to trophy. Fine if you are looking at the chance of not catching a fish for days, but a shot at a hog. Not so much for what the average muskie angler wants.
Read all the material from Dr. Sloss to get an idea where we are, and there is some gray area in that stuff as Larry can point out. There's also some stocking of Great Lakes fish in waters with no NR we can begin to see the results from now, that will be quite telling.
One thing of note, the shoepac fish were specific in the evolution of that strain, and not something caused by crossing strains or stocking over a native population. |
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Location: Hayward, Wisconsin | "Grey area(s)" indeed. Dr. Sloss is an expert in the field of genetics. Nice guy (met with him a couple of times and got along well). However, as he quite clearly admitted when we first met, is that he is first and foremost a "genetic preservationist". In other words, his goal (despite over 100 years of stock mixing in Wisconsin) is to preserve genetics is all Wisconsin water bodies "as they now exit", REGARDLESS of whether they have the genetic potential to grow to what today is considered trophy size or not or are the original genetics or not (which would be hard to determine)! He would insist on preserving Shoepac Lake as is if it were in Wisconsin.
Early in the game (after he was hired by the WDNR) he set forth some goals and guidelines for the state hatcheries with regards to the taking of muskie eggs and milt. Some of his advice they followed and some that didn't or couldn't. Basically, he backed the DNR into a corner they couldn't get out of...more in a moment.
The most important thing he did get the DNR to do was to get out of Bone Lake, where they had taken hatchery eggs and milt for over 50 years for the Spooner hatchery. He told them, and a short time later proved it, that they had "likely created a hatchery strain of muskies." A strain, that didn't grow big and to my knowledge, didn't reproduce in waters they were stocked in! Double whammy.
Next, he told the DNR to select 5 lakes that had natural reproduction and hadn't been stocked and use on a 5 year rotating basis for egg taking. Impossible mission! Such doesn't exist in NW Wisconsin. He also told them to no longer use Lac Court Orilles for egg taking. Guess what? It wasn't long that they were right back there taking eggs because they had to have eggs for the hatchery and there are precious few lakes where they can do so and get enough for production and maintain recommended diversification.
I suspect that one of the reasons they returned to LCO was that his early studies indicated that despite 50 years of mixing, the base genetics of LCO was still intact.
What he didn't say, or perhaps didn't know at the time, was that those many years of mixing had created a second genetic population of muskies in LCO (this was reported in a paper by one of his students working on the genetic study). When I asked (c2017) the at the time, Spooner hatchery manager how they knew which LCO "genetic pool" they were getting their eggs from, he had no answer, and in fact, he and the local biologist at the meeting professed minimal knowledge about same and wouldn't discuss it further.
At any rate, in my opinion, the only real bright light for Wisconsin muskie anglers is Green Bay. This to the great detriment to the lakes, anglers and more importantly, northern Wisconsin muskie related businesses. Muskie tourism in northern Wisconsin is a dying breed, so to speak and Green Bay isn't doing much to enhance tourism dollars into Wisconsin either. An Illinois angler (where the bulk of muskie anglers reside) can gas up the truck and boat, pack a cooler full of food and spend the weekend on Green Bay and NEVER SPEND A DOLLAR in Wisconsin other than an initial purchase of a yearly non-resident fishing license!!!
Edited by Larry Ramsell 1/7/2019 8:05 AM
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Location: Vilas | Larry,
I see since 2006 the WDNR has been stocking an Upper Wisconsin River strain. Is this a step in the right direction or is this strain been watered down as well? |
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Location: Elk Grove Village, IL & Phillips, WI | The lake I am on gets Upper Chippewa fish lately. How do these do? We have been seeing many upper 40's fish and one 50 with great overall build in the last few years. |
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Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Hiya,
In Minnesota, though, that same thing happened on a few lakes where the shoepack strain was used for stocking and it has shown to lower potential for length as once the genetics are in the water, it's there to stay. Baby Lake, Mantrap Lake, Moose (if I remember correctly) all were stocked with Shoepack strain in the 70's and early 80's, and those lakes can put out a fair number of fish, but few rarely reach 50". There are mid 30" fish to be had and the occasional low to mid 40" fish...but those in my humble opinion are very hard to come by. Things have improved with length since they have quit that stocking program in Baby Lake, but there now is no stocking of the lake whatsoever, and with a public access installed in 1997, pressure has increased dramatically, and thus the body of water it used to be for catching numbers of fish has gone down
Seems with what Larry stated, the issues are due to lack of genetic knowledge for those some 50 years, and the strains have been "tainted" so to speak with fish that don't grow to large size like the original strains on naturally occurring bodies did before stocking started.
Hopefully, some of this can be turned around to some extent to help the waters out...sounds like it will be a big undertaking and many many years...
Steve
Edited by VMS 1/7/2019 9:23 AM
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Posts: 434
Location: searchin for 50 | Harvested fish with holes in them no longer swim! That's all I have to say about this! |
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Posts: 8792
| Maybe shooting the shoepac fish and replacing them with something else wouldn't be such a bad idea.
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Posts: 222
| Will the shoepac fish have a sticker on them so I know which ones to shoot?  |
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Posts: 222
| And yes Steve they do get 50" on Pelican.
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 50 inch muskie.jpg (79KB - 401 downloads)
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Posts: 8792
| Jimbo - 1/7/2019 5:16 PM
Will the shoepac fish have a sticker on them so I know which ones to shoot? :)
Just the green ones... |
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Location: Hayward, Wisconsin | sukrchukr: The Wisconsin River drainage lakes get stocked with Wisconsin River drainage lakes fish from the Woodruff hatchery. The Chippewa River drainage lakes get stocked with fish from the Chippewa River drainage lakes from the Spooner hatchery.
To get the whole story, you'll have to go back in the archives on this site to around 2006 to 2008 or so. Looooong story. |
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Posts: 1293
Location: Hayward, Wisconsin | Additional food for thought. Most of Canada's "trophy muskie waters" now have a 54 inch size limit. Basically almost forced catch and release, including most of the 50 inch plus fish. Short of a closed season, this will likely serve to allow these water bodies to produce world class muskies without closure. Lakes like Eagle Lake, that have never been stocked vs those like. Lac Suel which has been stocked should have the best chance to produce the future monsters. |
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