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Posts: 331
Location: Stevens Point, Wisconsin | About a year ago or so I thought it was Chad Cain that said something to the affect that muskies don’t get fat in the fall because they go on a feeding spree, but in fact get fat from the development of next springs eggs. I thought it was Chad that also said that muskies don’t feed any more often in the fall than during the summer months. He said something in the line that it’s a big misconception among muskie fishermen that muskies feed more aggressively in the fall to build up fat reserves, he said this was not true and that the extra weight put on by muskies in the fall is from developing eggs (in females) and that muskies feed less in the fall?
Now this was about a year ago and I was watching a TV show that had Chad fishing somewhere down south. So I might not have Chad’s thoughts exactly correct, but I recall being very surprised with his comments. When I say that I was surprised I mean that I had never herd this before, I found it very interesting! Chad I believe has a degree in fisheries biology so I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about. I have a hard time remembering his exact words so I apologize if I have miss stated his views, not intended to be a negative post but a informative and learning one.
Just wondering how his thoughts compare with others on this board that might have an education in this topic.
Thoughts?
Ed
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Posts: 7036
Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | Here is another THOUGHT, but I have no idea the validity of the thought.....the muskies arent getting fatter because they are eating any more or less....but maybe because they are eating the same amount as they do any time during the open water season, but are losing less calories because the water temps are lower, which thusly lowers their metabolism.
ex. Chasing around doing errands all day, then family crap, then having to clean the house from company coming over vs. me sitting on the couch watching football on the couch. Are fall muskies basically just sitting on the couch, watching football in the fall? |
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Posts: 7036
Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | Mr. Sorenson? |
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Location: The Yahara Chain | Being a cold blooded creature a fish feeds the most when the water is warm. As the water cools a fish cannot process(digest) their food as fast, so they would in fact be eating less. I agree with Mr. Cain on this one. |
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Posts: 331
Location: Stevens Point, Wisconsin | I agree in that lower water temps lower the metabolism and would result in the need for muskies to eat less. But the part that conflicts with the whole deal is that why do they seem so much more aggressive in the fall? Maybe this is where we get the misconception about them putting on a feedbag in the fall. I can understand that the preference for larger baits (big suckers) can correspond with the forage base growing in size by years end, but how can a muskie eat a sucker in the fall (lose on quick strike rig) and then pass over the same area again and have the same fish eat a second sucker? I have seen this type of binge eating only in the fall but then again I only use suckers in the fall?
I agree with Slamr in that the less energy a muskie exerts in the fall would lead to some extra fat retention, at least I can verify that as scientific fact! LOL
Is it one big myth that muskies put on the feedbag in the fall to build up fat reserves? My experiences tell me no because of observed aggressive behavior in the fall….but there could be an alternative scientific reason as to why they become (or appear) more aggressive in the fall?
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Posts: 2012
| That was a Badfish video and I agree with Chad.
later in the fall it gets the fatter the females get...its the eggs. And as far as them being more aggressive?? Try troll 7mph in 40 degree water? - they are definately less "aggressive" looking for any easy meal .. in many lakes (often cisco as forage) I believe you contact some fish you dont normally during the summer.
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Posts: 331
Location: Stevens Point, Wisconsin | Good points!
But how do you explain a muskie that literally grabs onto a sucker to the point where you could net the fish without a hook set in the fall? Try that in the summer and the fish spits the bait when the slightest resistance is felt? That is a very aggresive fish, is it not?
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Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | I would agree that most of the weight put on is from the production of eggs. I think some of it may depend on their diets as well. If they are eating fish high in fat cisco's, trout those types of fish that they do gain a bit more weight as opposed to eating gills and perch. Look at the pike that live in trout lakes in the UK, they put on some serious weight.
Mike |
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Posts: 132
Location: Chicago, IL | The questions I pose after reading this is: if chad is indeed correct and the fish are developing eggs in the fall, then wouldn't you think extra energy would be exerted on the fish in producing these eggs? Are nutrients being taken from the fish for the production of eggs? Think of a mother and her baby, she needs to eat more to provide the necessary nutrients for her fetus and what the mother does during pregnancy is vital to the fetus' health. If she smokes thats bad, if she drinks or does other drugs thats really bad. Does this also work for muskie?
Also, I just read in the latest In-fisherman that in the summer, bass tend to eat larger baits because they are more sluggish and don't want to work as hard for a meal. This seems, however, to contradict what muskie do.
I guess its all pretty confusing... |
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | I think they eat fewer, bigger meals too, which can add to the obesity factor. I know that I am better off eating alot of smaller meals, than pigging out once or twice a day. I know that there are much shorter intense windows in fall, and often the biggest lure in the mix gets chewed, that is till just before ice up, when they seem to eat the small stuff again...wierd...
Often times someone will catch a long skinny fish with me during summer, and they say, "wow, that would have been a pig in the fall". I don't buy it. We get alot of skinny ones in fall too. That said, the really big shouldered fish in summer, are the ones that put on the big guts, and more egg mass in fall. The lakes that hold big framed fish all year, seem to put out the ones that top 40lbs in the fall every year. The frame/height/width of the fish really tells it all. The really fat ones we see during the summer months(like Cory Painters fish caught recently), are the ones that get scary big in fall no doubt. I am sure they are capable of producing more eggs than their lesser framed friends in the same lake, and thus get a bit fatter in hopes of producing a good crop of them. |
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| I would think it would be a combination of both...but like Jason said, all fish in the fall don't just become fat..they have to have the forage base and frame to do it...I've caught some skinny fish in the fall as well in lakes with lack of great forage like ciscoes...now most cisco based lakes the fish tend to be fat in the fall from their diet consisting of fatty fish...
I tend to think they eat less but bigger fish...look at some of the monster suckers that big fish try to eat in the fall...burning less calories but taking in bigger meals is going to make them fatter...couple that with the production of eggs and you tend to get fat fish in the fall..but by no means are all fish fat in the fall... |
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Posts: 1764
Location: Ogden, Ut | I think we're probably talking about 2 different things here: increased fish weight and 'agressive' behavior
Certainly a fish must eat to gain weight, so the increase in fall/winter weight may in fact be comprised of eggs, but those eggs had to be produced from raw materials obtained somewhere, right? A good percentage of a fish's nutritional intake in the fall goes into that egg production; it may be temporarily stored as fat, since that is a fairly efficient energy source for fish, but fat is light weight and does not appreciably add to a fish's weight (bulk-yes, weight-no).
How a fish obtains that fat reserve is by intaking more calories than it expends. Summer is a metabolically expensive time for fish. Higher temperatures dictate a need for vast amounts of energy just to maintain bodily functions. Oxygen levels are usually lower despite a real need for more of it. Really paradoxical if you think about it. So couple the high metabolic rate with a high need and you get maintenance. (I should add here that fish do indeed grow during the summer, just not at very high levels in many systems; some systems are ideally suited for longer growing seasons). As the water cools and dissolved oxygen concentration increases, the 'wiggle room' for adding significant bulk emerges. How and why does that happen? The million dollar question I guess.
My theory (and just mine): A fish's activity level roughly mimics the water temperature it lives in at the time. Very slow in the winter increasing slowly through the spring, high in the summer and decreasing through fall and back to low in the winter. Repeated hopefully many times during a long life. So as a fish begins to feed more frequently during the spring and summer, and it gets better at it (or it probably dies), through the need for high amounts of feed in the summer, it hones it's predatory skills until by fall, it's pretty darn good at it on a succesful capture per attempt scale. Add to that the behavioral attributes of Esocids (which I believe may eat irrespective of 'hunger' levels) which make them extremely opportunistic. Now an opportiunistic feeder that has become, via a whole summer of practice, a 'good shot' is much more likely to gain weight. Add to that, many systems have forage species that are fall spawners and these amorous little buggers are swimming blissfully into a species adapted to lay in wait predation. (Granted, there are many individuals within that population that follow the fall spawners all year, but I believe them to be a minority of most muskie populations). So ultimately what you have is a predator that has become a better shot, has a summer search image that says 'eat it', and a whole set of new forage individuals placing themselves in harm's way. It's like putting a good shot in the middle of a prairie dog town after a summer of shooting paper targets. No real need to eat, just shoot. 
Each system is different and I'm sure that this senario falls apart on many waters containing muskie. It would also be interesting to compare catch rates in places that have no seasonal closure spring vs. fall. Might just be that angler perception is the driving force behind this since at least in much of the known 'muskie world' people can legally fish for them in the fall but not the spring...
It's probably just a wordy way of explaining Slamr's couch theory.
S. |
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Posts: 389
Location: Presque Isle Wisconsin | Every fall Ive watched Muskies just mauling spawning ciscos on the shallow rocks and have caught many many of them at this time. They are obese and regurgitating ciscos but still hitting both artificials and live bait.Further Ive caught a large but average weight muskie earlier in the year and then caught the same muskie towards the end of November and its much heavier.
Im not a biologist,but thats been my experience.Take it for whats it worth |
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Posts: 32885
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | What Sorno said, obviously, but I'd add that feeding is markedly different than strike response, though the two are linked in either case. I think one can catch a Muskie that is not actively on the feed. The reason a fish takes a 18" sucker in the fall is because we are FISHING 18" suckers in the fall. If we were fishing them in the summer, Muskies would eat them regularly. The same goes for 12" suckers or 6" Golden Shiners, for that matter.
It's a good thing we don't have to totally rely on 'a hungry fish' to catch a Muskie. I think many of the fish I catch are not actively on the feed; the presentation goes by, creates a stimulous to which the fish must react, and depending on a HUGE host of variables, the response will be from zero to a hit.
I've always understood that many fish develop spawn over the fall and winter, and thought a large portion of the bulk of a November Muskie here in the North was due to that process, which is complicated as Sorno indicated. |
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Posts: 1430
Location: Eastern Ontario | Don't have time to read all the responses but here's my 2 cents worth. Sorry if this is repetitive.
I can tell you that muskies get fatter in the fall for both reasons listed, them starting to make eggs and feeding heavy. It has been proven that muskies are very lathargic in the winter and they feed very little and won't chase anything.
There is no way it could just be eggs as they just start forming in the fall but they progress all winter. So during the winter months the eggs growing are filling in for the fat that is getting less due to not eating much.
As well muskies are very active in the summer that forces them to eat more ect ect. but in the fall muskies will travel great distances ( Grerat lakes and River muskie do ) to get from their summer to winter homes. So now they have to eat to re energise themselfs as well as putting on the fat for winter.
No muskies do not hibernate but it's almost that way, telemetry studies have shown muskies to spend the entire winter in small bays near spawning areas moving very little if anything at all.
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Posts: 2427
Location: Ft. Wayne Indiana | Muskies don't put their "FEED BAGS" on during the fall.
They are cold blooded animals. When the water temps are 40 degrees, their heart rate and metabalizim slows WAY DOWN.
THey eat less in the fall, but burn very little energy, so they gain weight, plus the addition of eggs as well.
The fall feeding bag is a myth. |
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| I have caught Pike in Jan that were still full of frogs from the frog run in the fall. Fall feeding is opportunistic maybe, but not a myth. |
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Posts: 2427
Location: Ft. Wayne Indiana | I am not saying they don't eat.
I am saying they eat less in the fall.
They body isn't using up the energy like they are in the summer months.
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | Guest, one thing about the pike and frog connection is that they will eat them all winter(not saying that is what they do in your lake). Some of the big beasts will have mud caked in and around their lower jaws from rooting food out of the pinch areas. Areas where there are inflowing creeks, and slow tapering mud flats on north sides, creat a gap between ice and ground and it is amazing the frog activity that can pick up under warm late ice conditions. Fun stuff! One cannot fish too shallow for the really big ones under the ice. They actually use the ice and land pinch point to herd stuff, and hunt for food.
Edited by Reef Hawg 9/19/2006 9:20 AM
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| So it's a myth that frogs secrete a protective coating during hibernation to resist predation? That's news. |
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Posts: 714
Location: Rhinelander, WI | I don’t care if its myth or not something happens in the fall that makes a certain population of musky easier to catch if you can find the right location. Give me a fall school of Cisco or Suckers in the right (known) location and it’s as easy as musky fishing can get. NOT guaranteed just easier.
Here’s a BST, maybe they do eat more in the fall, because even though the metabolism is lower, they are producing eggs, which causes a greater need for energy. Where is the balance between slower metabolism and extra energy required for egg production?
Here’s another one. There is no doubt that musky are opportunistic feeders, slow metabolism or not, if a meal presents itself they will take part. Maybe they are fatter because the concentration of food gives them a greater opportunity to feed but the slow metabolism does not process the food as fast making them FAT. It’s not necessarily fat tissue, but a full belly. I know I have caught fish that where so full of Cisco that they where puking them up during the fight and then when in the net the bellies were bulging out and you could almost see the out line of the bait in the gut through the skin.
Also some have this myth that cold water fish are slow and lethargic, some of my best battles have come in high 30 and low 40 degree water, these fish are just as ornery in cold water as warm. Could be something to do with oxygen, but they are definitely not lethargic. Feeding windows may be smaller, but when they want to they can move just as fast in the fall as the summer. One year my last fish of the season came on a bulged bucktail over a shallow reef on a cold/rainy/snowy after noon. I moved a fish by accident when speed cranking a fouled bait back to the boat, after that I purposely start bulging a bucktail and ended up getting a fish in low 40 degree water.
The biggest thing to remember is there are NO stead fast rules when it comes to these fish and their environment and what makes them eat or not eat. But there is no doubt in my mind that under the right conditions in the Fall they can be easier to catch, call it putting on the feed bag or call it something else it HAPPENS! No doubt of that in my mind.
Nail A Pig!
Mike
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