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Posts: 1000
| Was thinking tonight. It's been a couple years since the floods. Did the river come back? Anything change? |
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Posts: 357
Location: Duluth, MN | The river is a shadow of its former self, and will remain so until they continue stocking again. There are some fish but not like it was. I live 5 minutes from it and choose to drive to Vermilion because my chances are way better there.
Out muskies inc club has been and is trying to persuade the DNR to resume stocking, as of right now nothing will change til 2017 at the earliest.
Has been sad to watch a great fishery crash. |
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Location: MN | The DNR did a spring net assessment the year after the flood and the assessment showed it is still above their targeted levels. Based on my results and the results of others I know there seems to be a fair amount of baby muskies in the river (20-low 30's) of both leech and wi strain but the adults are not showing themselves and the fishing is still very tough in comparison to what it was. The DNR is doing a fisherman survey to gain more information about the river so if you fish it please report your results, even if you don't catch fish. The survey sheet is available on the Lake Superior Muskie Inc webpage.
There are some members of the club who are pushing the DNR to start stocking it again. I wouldn't necessarily say that is the viewpoint of the entire club. |
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Posts: 357
Location: Duluth, MN | Nershi - 1/12/2015 8:43 AM
There are some members of the club who are pushing the DNR to start stocking it again. I wouldn't necessarily say that is the viewpoint of the entire club.
No it is definitley not the view point of the entire club. Some people are happy catching 5 fish a year, some are not.
One thing the DNR is not taking into consideration is the massive expanse of water known as lake superior. There are fish out there, I and others have caught them on accident trolling. Charrter boats are running into them more frequently. One charter caught 52 in late June several miles out that was tagged up by boyscout landing during the Spring assessment.
Personally I think our fish act like almost all other fish in lake superior, they run up rivers and spawn, only to head back out to the big lake and the buffet that is out there for them. No different than the salmon and steelhead. Id bet that most of the fish in the lake are at the upper end of the size scale as well. Most likely why we are catching mostly smaller fish int he river.
Im for the idea of the DNR taking in to account the acerage of the lake 2 miles out and basing thier population density on that number not just the river itself. Beacuse the fish are using it.
Edited by bdog 1/12/2015 9:08 AM
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Location: New Hope MN | Did the floods push the fish out into the big lake or did it kill them off? I'm curious what others think. |
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Location: Duluth, MN | Eh, I dont think it killed them. Im sure it moved some fish out there though. Spring on the river wa always good to me. Muskies and walleyes. A lot of fish in general move into that system with spring spawning runs, muskies included.
Few things happened...
The floods wrecked a lot of the habitat, weed beds vanished and are still not close to what they were.
Stocking discontinued, there are less fish.
Fish headed to the lake with the flood and had no reason to come back. Tons of forage out there. Interesting thing is of the 10 or so muskies I know of caught on the big pond the last couple years, all were leech lakers. Leech lakers love suspending over open water and chowing on pelagic baitfish. With a buffet of food, and no pressure, why would they come back other than to spawn? Im sure they slide in and out to warm up and digest, but I personally believe most of the "big" fish spend the majority of thier time in the lake. I dont have science to back this up, but call it an educated hunch based on what myself and others have seen.
Edited by bdog 1/12/2015 9:20 AM
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Location: WI | My opinion having spent a lot of time out there is that it's way different now. I think they have went out to the big lake in greater numbers since there's no weeds for them to hang out in. How many come back? I was spending 3-400hrs per season only on the river, but quit fishing it last year since I was only having a few follows in a season, vs. multiple follows in a few hour outing previous years. I went from catching 20-40 fish in a season to less than ten total in 2013-14 combined.
That said, we've had 2 super (!!!) late springs back-to-back the past 2 years, and that certainly hasn't helped. I'm at a loss, this past fall I trolled a few times and only caught 1 pike so now I either don't fish as much as I used to, and when I do it's elsewhere. The people that are catching them are keeping their lips shut. I really don't plan on fishing it until we get an earlier spring. I'm burned out on it now, but would prefer to fish it over other waters since it's 5 minutes from my door.
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Posts: 3147
| I used to "cringe' when the word St Louis was mentioned because it was my favorite place to fish. I even thought about buying a trailer and putting it at that camp by boy scout landing but When guides who live on it don't bother to even fish it that's sad. Minnesota has stopped stocking it any chance we can get wisconsin then to resume???
Edited by happy hooker 1/13/2015 3:21 PM
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| Will the MN DNR not allow local MI chapters to pay for the stocking? |
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Location: Duluth, MN | As of right now they want no stocking. They want to assess natural reproduction. So, it will be AT LEAST 2017 before you see any kind of changes, if any at all, from either states.
A while back the DNR did some sort of scale sampling on the walleyes in the system. Apparently they can tell where individual fish spent most of thier time (whether in the lake, or the river, and even what part of the river) with this method. Our club is considering trying to fund this type of study for the muskies. If I recall the walleyes were something like 75-80% lake dwellers. My hope is we can prove that the a lot of the muskies also spend a lot of time in the lake, then maybe we can push for the DNR to include lake acerage into population densities. This would dramatically drop the fish per acre, and therefore hopefully be the push needed to add more fish. We will see, I am not holding my breath though...
Even if we only took into consideration 2 miles out from the entries, that would be a ton of acerage added. fish per acre would be very very s small.
Used top be a fun place to fish. I miss it!
Edited by bdog 1/14/2015 5:52 AM
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| Dog, go for it on that study!!! And don't forget the Hugh Becker fund which right now only has one grant request |
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Location: Duluth, MN | I believe our prez is looking int o the Hugh Becker fund right now.
We will see! Be isome interesting stuff discovered I bet. |
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Location: WI | happy hooker - 1/13/2015 3:20 PM
. Minnesota has stopped stocking it any chance we can get wisconsin then to resume???
It is managed by MN, so no dice on WI doing anything. In my dream world, it would be stocked with Great Lakes strain, which is what were in there before pollution took its toll. I've seen old b&w postcards with spotted muskies from the St Louis on ebay. Wish I would have copied the picture! |
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| Am I the only person who averages at least one fish in the net for the boat a day out there? I fish all over and hit the river 1 to 3 times a year its fun to fish. |
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| northernmn - 1/15/2015 7:34 PM
Am I the only person who averages at least one fish in the net for the boat a day out there? I fish all over and hit the river 1 to 3 times a year its fun to fish.
Sounds like you're really lucky! |
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| "Different" is the key word....
Edited by N Eddy 1/16/2015 11:18 AM
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Posts: 1000
| northernmn - 1/15/2015 7:34 PM
Am I the only person who averages at least one fish in the net for the boat a day out there? I fish all over and hit the river 1 to 3 times a year its fun to fish.
How long have you been fishing it? Have you experienced any changes over the years? |
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