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Posts: 1291
Location: Hayward, Wisconsin | From "The Fishing Wire":
Vermont Muskie Restoration Efforts Extend Further into Historic Range
| September 13, 2013
The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department recently continued its Lake Champlain muskellunge restoration efforts by stocking 7,580 fish into the Missisquoi River and Missisquoi Bay.
This year, for the first time, muskellunge, or 'muskie,' were also stocked above Swanton Dam up to the Highgate Falls Dam. This reach of the Missisquoi River is the last location in Vermont that supported a naturally-reproducing native muskie population before they disappeared in the late 1970s following a chemical spill.
Since 2008, the department has stocked over 30,000 muskies into the Missisquoi River and Missisquoi Bay in an attempt to restore a viable population to Lake Champlain. Lake Champlain is the only lake in New England to which muskies are native.
"Muskies are the top predator in aquatic ecosystems and can create some real excitement for anglers," said Fish & Wildlife Commissioner Patrick Berry. "In Lake Champlain muskie was historically a species that was rarely caught or seen. As the restoration continues there should be a few more lucky anglers each year that catch one unexpectedly. Often that is all it takes to make them muskie anglers for life."
The six-inch fish stocked in the river were donated by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which also stocks the Great Chazy River on the New York side of the lake with the same strain of muskie.
The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department has done a genetic assessment of a very small number of muskie caught since 2005 in the Lake Champlain Basin. They determined that these fish were stocked by the New York DEC into the Great Chazy River and are not from the original native strain.
"In recent years, anglers have reported catching and releasing an occasional muskie in the lower Missisquoi River and Missisquoi Bay," said Shawn Good, the Vermont Fish & Wildlife biologist leading the muskie restoration effort in the state. "We wondered if these were remnant native fish or strays from New York. So we performed a genetic assessment and found that some of the muskie stocked in New York's Great Chazy River make their way out into Lake Champlain and into Missisquoi Bay and Missisquoi River."
Vermont regulations allow fishing for muskie on a catch-and-release basis only, with artificial lures or flies. Muskie must be immediately released where caught.
"I have high hopes for these little guys," said Good. "With so much habitat and food resources available to them in Lake Champlain, I expect these fish to grow fast and to get big. It's not unreasonable to think that in the next few years, anglers could be catching trophy muskies measuring 50 inches or more from Lake Champlain."
Media Contact
Shawn Good, 802-786-3863; Bernie Pientka, 802-879-5698; Eric Palmer 802-828-1645 |
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | That's pretty good news,.....We need more places to fish for muskies as our sport grows.
Jerome |
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Posts: 981
| what strain was the original population? great lakes? |
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Location: Minnesota | Awesome, I'm sure it's gonna grow some Monsters! |
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Posts: 415
| This is great news, that is a sweet body of water. I have to travel to Burlington, Vermont usually about once a year for work. I've always thought that would be an awesome musky lake. |
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Posts: 1291
Location: Hayward, Wisconsin | I suspect that the original strain were St. Lawrence River fish. The lake drains north into it. |
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Location: Dixon, IL | That's good news! Big lake= giant muskies in the future! |
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Posts: 283
| That lake has great potential to pump out some serious fish and not too far from me, hopefully the population takes off. |
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Posts: 279
| Champ is going to get full from eating all the monster muskies! |
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| for some reason it look like really hard for them to get a big population of big fish ,because i have caught a lot of small one in the chazy river around 20 years ago,and for some reason champlain seems to have some problem to old a good population ,maybe there is too much pike or their strain don't do well there?1 thing is sure water quality is good enough.a big portion of the st-lawrence musky came from Chautauqua pa strain,it was long time ago it was in the 60's.it's strange because all the ingredients seems to be there for wr class fish but it's really not the case,maybe this time is gonna be another story,at least i hope |
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| ttrap - 9/14/2013 9:39 AM
Champ is going to get full from eating all the monster muskies!
+1 Champ will eat them all, for real, a dominance thing or something like that... |
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Posts: 456
Location: Kansas City BBQ Capitol of the world | 6" stockings IMO are to small and many will be lost to other predator species and fowl.
Ron |
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