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Posts: 32924
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Guest,
Addict is from Illinois. In a roundabout way, so am I, I moved to WI in 1974 from Wauconda. My experience with folks with Illinois tags at the water edge and on the water has been just fine, except they don't like our pizza up here much. If you have ever taken the time to cruise the deep dish pizza joints on Rush Street, you would understand why.
My average last year was 40". The year before, it was 42". A couple trips to a numbers lake could have skewed those numbers some. |
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| actually it was esoxaddict who was bagging on people from Illinois, and the guest post is correct: that is entirely unfair.
lots of people from everywhere handle muskies poorly or harvest them; on the other hand more and more people from everywhere are releasing all their fish and handling them carefully.
there's no explaining Illinoians' taste in sporting teams, but to say that anyone's care for muskies is a result of where they live is a bad form of stereotyping.
my average for fish in WI was between 36"-37" as well...it's interesting that so many people with lots of variation in fishing locations, number of fish caught, etc. are getting pretty close to the same average size.
anyone who can maintain a 40"+ average regardless of where they fish is doing very well if you ask me, especially if they are catching large numbers.
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Posts: 32924
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | The trick to doing that is to hit the waters one knows have good year class representation of mid 40" to 50" fish, little jems scattered across the North, and spend one's time on those instead of the numbers waters that are so tempting. Then, of course, one needs to catch the fish...:) |
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Posts: 413
Location: Madison WI | My average for the year was 38.5 inches with a total of 16 fish all from the Yahara chain, smallest was 33 biggest was 47. |
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Posts: 13
| 37.55 all from madison. |
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Posts: 566
Location: Elgin, IL | I'm a Northern Illinois angler, fishing Vilas County a few times a year, the last 5 years. A 38 to 40 inch average would be accurate, 44 being largest. I don't really care, I love the water I fish, have always liked the area.
Deep dish pizza? No.
But Spangs thin crust is pretty darn good......  |
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Posts: 1185
Location: Wishin I Was Fishin' | My average is 40.9 and all my fishing for 2008 was in Wisconsin
Edited by Jomusky 2/1/2009 6:42 PM
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Posts: 1168
| Average size was just a tick over 40. Total number of fish was 42. I didn't fish at all from September on due to a new job, moving, getting settled, etc.
Average sizes over the past few years for me (fishing primarily the same water) has increased. In that time I have changed my approach. Meaning, I no longer just play monkey see/monkey do and park my boat in 12 feet of water lobbing casts at 8ft deep weededges or running around looking for any piece of structure where wind is blowing into it.
Why are the sizes on this self report stuck around 37? My theory is that they are heavily weighed down by a number of those that only stick to weedlines where on so many lakes fish in that size range reside. If I would compare the weed fish and the open basin (not necessarily suspendos) fish over the past 3 or 4 years and average their sizes out in their own categories, I would begin to see a distinct size difference between the two groupings of fish. |
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Posts: 8824
| sworrall - 1/31/2009 8:50 AM
Guest,
Addict is from Illinois. In a roundabout way, so am I, I moved to WI in 1974 from Wauconda. My experience with folks with Illinois tags at the water edge and on the water has been just fine, except they don't like our pizza up here much. [...].
Steve... Calling that stuff "pizza" is a bit of a stretch!
I didn't mean any offense to the conservation minded anglers from IL. Muskie anglers are the same everywhere you go. But a trip South on 51 on Sunday afternoon will open your eyes to just how many folks from IL are going "up North" for the weekend. I find it very hard to believe that all those people are releasing their incidental catches, or taking the care with the fish that your average muskie angler would. I'm sure there are crowds from Milwaukee or Madison acting just as poorly as some of the folks from IL do, and I'm well aware that there are good and bad people everywhere you go. But the sheer volume of people from IL is AMAZING. And those stereotypes ARE there for a reason... |
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Location: SE Wisconsin | My average lingered around the mid-thirty mark. Fishing SE WI lakes primarily (Okauchee, Pewaukee and a couple others). Maybe 25% over 40".
Edited by Sam Ubl 2/2/2009 6:50 PM
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