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Posts: 147
Location: WI - Land of small muskies and big jawbones | Slamr
Nancy lake was stocked only 3 times. Nancy lake has the best (only) natural reproduction of any musky lake with northern pike in the same management area managed by the DNR out of Spooner. The other lakes in that area have been stocked countless times with Bone Lake fish and still have no natural reproduction and definitely do not have self-sustaining populations even with countless years of stocking, not just 3 times. And, as many of us already know, the Bone lake fish stocked into these lakes rarely if ever grow large. The Nancy lake muskies definitely do grow large. When the DNR says that Nancy lake does not have sufficient natural reproduction to become self-sustaining compared to lakes in WI that do, they are comparing it to lakes that either have self-sustaining populations of small growth muskies such as Spider Lake, Tigercat Flowage, Moose, Mud/Callhan, or lakes that have been stocked for many many years which do have some natural reproduction, however none of them are in the same management area as Nancy Lake. If Nancy lake would have been stocked at the same rate that we stock Bone lake fish in lakes in this same management area, it is very likely it would have easily become a self-sustaining population.
Name just one muskie lake in WI (with a population of northern pike) that was created using Bone Lake fish and is completely self-sustaining through natural reproduction after being stocked only 3 times. How about 5 times. 10 times. 30 times. Name just one lake.
Lambeau
Using the study lakes as possible future brood lakes for the MS fish is not a good idea because all of them have already been stocked countless times over the years with Bone Lake fish. I have a hard time understanding why the DNR selected lakes that already contain populations of adult Bone lake fish already for these studies. They have either already decided that they would not establish brood lakes for MS fish because they never have or never will consider stocking them even after the studies are complete, or it was just poor planning. Like Bob stated, he has asked them why they would not start creating a brood like for MS fish now, but the question goes unanswered. Nancy lake is the obvious choice. It was stocked 3 times. 1st stocking was from eggs from Leech lake. 2nd time was with eggs from Wolf lake. 3rd time was with eggs taken directly from Nancy lake itself and raised at the Spooner hatchery. It already has adult fish we could use to get started with. The fish have been reproducing there. But unfortunately, it was not stocked enough times to establish a large enough adult population to be able to sustain itself through natural reproduction only. Even Mn lakes need to be stocked more than 3 times to become self-sustaining populations.
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Nancy lake is the obvious choice for a brood lake for MS fish and could be used right now. It only has Ms fish. It is located close to the hatchery. They netted adult spawning fish there last year. They started netting way too early when water temps were still too cold and did not get any muskies until the last several days in a row when they started netting large spawning muskies each day including a large fish over 49". Once they got this fish they stopped and pulled the nets and raced out of there. THEY CLAIM they netted every muskie in the lake. The only way they could possibly know this is if they drained all the water out of the lake and counted them laying there. So there is no way of knowing how many more muskies and and how big they would have been if they would have kept the nets there longer instead of pulling them after netting large muskies several days in a row and then leaving just after netting a 49"+ muskie. 2 of the male muskies netted there were larger than the largest female muskie they netted in Bone lake. There is no good reason not to use Nancy lake right now with the adult fish available there and start stocking it again to establish a large enough adult population to sustain itself. Waiting for the studies to be completed before locating a brood lake, stocking it, and then waiting for the fish to mature and to establish an adult population to get eggs from will only delay things another 6 years minimum from the time the studies are done. Of course thats assuming that they actually do decide to continue stocking them. Besides, think about the politics involved in getting a lake to use. Muskies in a new lake? Not easy. Nancy lake has them already and only pure non-mixed MS fish. It should be our brood lake today. Waiting and stalling does nothing for people like myself that want to return home to fish NW WI and have a legitimate chance at cathcing a 50" here before I die. Using Nancy lake now to get eggs from is a no brainer. At the minimum, it would reduce the need to rely on MN for eggs and provide a brood source for taking eggs from now.
Edited by Lockjaw 2/17/2006 7:30 AM
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Posts: 4266
| Send us some eggs, and we'll send you our Governor. They can even be dogfish eggs.
I know that Wisconsin and Missouri traded turkeys for grouse many years ago. Seems like the 2 DNR's should be able to get along, but I agree that the 'home team' should be taken care of first. But I really think that there should be a spirit of cooperation between neighboring states. Since both states could benefit long term....you won't have all of us Wisconsinites coming over there and pounding your lakes if our lakes were better.
Hell, the 2 States had to battle over Mississippi River walleye regulations in the past, like a walleye knows when he swims over The State Line.
Muskie Stamp? I'd welcome it with open arms along with tighter limits and other regulation changes, but our DNR has to start thinking along those lines. I know the spring hearings matter, but I believe that the fishery biologists should be able to have a little free reign. I don't remember voting on all of the past deer and fish permit increases, but they happened. I'd gladly plunk down 20 bucks or more for a stamp if it meant a better future of the muskie fishery.
I'm all for a major stocking program of spotted muskies, whether they are from the Great Lakes or Minnesota. Brood lakes would also be a great idea. But it's all a moot point if they get a piece of steel stuck through their skulls when they mature. You'll never have sustainable reproduction as long as the spawners are allowed to be plucked from the waters. You don't have to look any further than the walleye numbers to know that is fact.
Beaver
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Posts: 714
Location: Rhinelander, WI | A couple of things, I believe (I may be wrong here but this is how it happens at the woodruff hatchery) the way it is done is the DNR milks the fish and raises the fry, once the fry are a certain size they move them to rearing ponds. They can’t put all the fry into the rearing ponds because there isn’t enough space to allow all the fish to continue to grow, so they have a number of choices they sell the fry to Fish Farms, the farm continue raising the fish to fingerling and then sell them, they sell or give the fry to another state, or they stock the extra fry local waters.
I don’t think getting more eggs is even an issue as they are probably producing more fry than there ponds can handle.
Look at the fry stocking number if there is lots of musky fry stocked annually in MN than getting fish in extra ponds should not be an issue. By the way most biologist agree that stocking fry is almost useless, it would be much better if some group tried to raise the fish to fingerling.
Nail A Pig!
Mike
Edited by MRoberts 2/17/2006 8:59 AM
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| Treats:
It is my understanding that MN has NO problem getting enough "fry." In fact, it is their normal practice to stock their "excess fry" into the Mississippi River once they have all they can use in the hatcheries.
Gary |
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Posts: 1245
Location: Madtown, WI | Lockjaw and others-
It blows my mind that folks thump the table that WIDNR has screwed up the genetics of the states fishery and then out of the other side of their mouth they scream they want to start using Nancy Lake as a brood Stock lake NOW. What do you think this will do??? What I am saying, there are only a few (relatively) spawnable muskies in that lake....do they have a good distribution of genetic make up to support a healthy brood stock program? According to Dr. Sloss no. AND as a layman, they have only been stocked from a very small genetic pool (three stockings, possibly all from three females??). If you used Nancy lake, in its current state, you would run the risk of NEGATIVELY affecting the genetic makeup of the fish over even a short period. You would potentially do EXACTLY what you are claiming the WIDNR has done over the years?? Look at the practice of MN and how they manage their brood stock....
I am not saying the State couldn't move a little faster on some fronts...but these guys know muskies a heck of a lot better then any of us...maybe, just maybe they know what they are talking about.
Nancy Lake maybe a decent lake for a brood stock....but definately NOT in its current state. I sat through the discussions with the DNR on this very topic. I assure you they are VERY concerned about taking Dr. Sloss's recommendations for generating good genetic distribution seriously and want to apply it to both the WI stocking and Leech lake stocking.
Cory
Edited by C.Painter 2/17/2006 9:27 AM
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Posts: 2384
Location: On the X that marks the mucky spot | Gary, that doesn't happen that often. Maybe a 2-3 times every 10 years from what I've heard. Even still, between what our chapter is working on and what we at the MMA are going to try to do with the DNR to increase fish production for existing and new fisheries, we're going to need all of the hatchery's capacity. |
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Posts: 147
Location: WI - Land of small muskies and big jawbones | Cory
To say there are only a few spawnable muskies in Nancy lake may or may not be true. We don't know. No one can come to this conclusion by going in there with nets way before they even start spawning and pulling nets over and over again looking for spawning muskies and finding none because they are net ready to spawn yet. Then all of a sudden they are there every day for about a week straight and then they pull the nets while they are still coming in and leave and say they netted every muskie in the lake so there are not enough there because we lifted the nets "X" number of times and only got "Y" number of fish. What if they would have timed it right by waiting longer and then went in there found spawning muskies the 1st day and every day after for 2 weeks straight? This could have been the case had they not went in way before the fish were even spawning and start lifting nets with nothing in them. I mean come on. If I went to Bone lake and put nets out a month before they are even ready to spawn and lifted the nets 2 times a day for a month straight before I got the 1st one and then pulled the nets after a few days while they were still coming in I could say the same thing about Bone lake. And we all know there are a lot of muskies in Bone. Whats would be the difference here?
I don't see any similarities between spawning a few PURE (non-mixed) MS strain muskies from Nancy, to spawning a lot of Bone lakes many MIXED strain muskies from all over WI. I don't ever recall saying the DNR messed up anything by spawning only a few female muskies from a small genetic pool of fish in Bone lake. Quite the opposite I would think. Also, I am not saying that we should use only eggs taken from Nancy lake for stocking in WI. I'm saying it could REDUCE the need for getting eggs from MN to get things started here. There is a difference. We could be stocking MS fish raised from eggs taken from MN lakes into Nancy lake and other lakes at the same time we are taking eggs from adult fish in Nancy lake and stocking them in these other lakes as well. This could help accomplish a few things. 1) Help boost the population in Nancy to a level that it would not require stocking. 2) Create the diversity your talking about in Nancy as a future brood stock lake that we could get even more eggs from in the future. 3) Help create the diversity in the other lakes that are being stocked from eggs taken from both the MN lakes and Nancy lake. What is so dratically wrong with that idea? The eggs used for the 1st two stockings in Nancy lake were taken from two different brood lakes in MN. The 3rd was from eggs taken from Nancy lake itself. So the fish in Nancy lake are made up of fish from 2 completely seperate brood sources already. So between the Nancy eggs and the MN eggs you would have the diversity going into the lakes being stocked with the fish raised from them. Is this right or wrong? |
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Posts: 12
| Other than the WMRT, who says that the nets where pulled too early, not enough, and in the wrong place? Can you and the WMRT get an actual fisheries PROFESSIONAL to come out and inform the public that the sampling work on Nancy Lake was done incorrectly?
It just seems like a lot of the reasoning behind the WMRT's belief comes from their assertations about the 'great fishery that was created at Nancy Lake', but the WDNR PROFESSIONALS are disputing this claim. No offense to you, Bob Benson, Larry Ramsell and the rest of the WMRT brain trust, but not a one of you has any formal training in fisheries biology. To say that the WDNR is wrong because they did X, Y, and Z wrong, without any real scientific evidence, nor any fisheries biologists backing these statements that they did anything wrong, is just a CRIME!
Why is it a crime? Because you're using layman's reasoning to answer a scientific situation. And doing so in a situation where you might be affecting where WI tax payer's dollars go, thats a whole nother crime.
But, your group has decried any sort of new studies, any new information gathering, any research to find out what science says about these situations. So, I guess these crimes dont apply to you, because you don't think that science is valid in the cases that it disproves, or future science will disprove, your theories. It worked there, so it must work here, is enough for you. Wasnt that the reasoning for putting FL. strain bass in alot of northern waters? How did that work out?
The Chocodile
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Posts: 32803
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Calm, folks, calm. We are all after the same thing here, let's keep the discourse civil.
As to the nancy lake discussion, start here:
http://muskie.outdoorsfirst.com/board/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=22...
That one has also been beat near to death. |
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Posts: 1277
Location: Hayward, Wisconsin | Chocodile:
We were told by the DNR Research Scientist in charge of the Nancy Lake netting that they removed their nets "because they needed them for egg taking in Bone Lake." That simply is NOT true! The hatchery crew have their own nets and research has their own nets and the research nets were NOT used in Bone Lake after they were removed from Nancy Lake!!
Muskie regards,
Larry Ramsell
Wisconsin Muskellunge Restoration Project Team
www.WisconsinMuskyRestoration.org |
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Posts: 12
| Larry,
That doesnt prove anything other than they didnt feel like just telling you "we're done working here, we've concluded our work here". It doesnt prove anything was done but the state officials making it clear that they dont have to fully disclose everything they do, just because you want them to. |
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Posts: 32803
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Larry,
What was the basin water temperature when the nets on Nancy well introduced, how many times were the nets moved, and what was the basin water temp when the nets were pulled? How long were the nets in, and how long are nets USUALLY left in (average) for this sort of survey? How many fish were captured in each net per day? Was there a population estimate done? Thanks, sir!
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Posts: 929
Location: Rhinelander. | We don't have to get those fish if we want more spotted muskies. There are plenty more then enough females in bay of green bay to get eggs from. Is there a reason we can't use them?
Pfeiff |
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Posts: 32803
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Pfieff,
Yes, those fish are from Lake St Claire. |
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