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Posts: 1184
Location: Iowa Great Lakes | Stopped at the local hatchery today and snapped a few pics. 144 Muskies in the tanks from 3 nights of netting, biggest so far a 37 pounder. I'm riding along in the tanker tonight so maybe see a few more.
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Location: Green Bay, WI | Wow, cool pictures... Thanks!
TB |
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Posts: 303
Location: WI | How does the whole process work? Do they fyke net them from the lake, bring them to the hatchery, milk them, then bring them back to the lake? I never really knew how they do it???
Cool Pics. |
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Location: Land of the Musky | Would love to have a 10 acre pond to ahve a few of those for pets  |
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Location: Appleton | Nice Pics. Thanks for sharing. |
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Posts: 82
Location: Central WI | Cool Pics!! I'm interested in the process as well if you get any more info.
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Posts: 1184
Location: Iowa Great Lakes | They use gill nets to harvest the fish, then put them in the tanks till they are ready to be milked. They hold them a day or so after to recover and then they are released back into the lakes they came out of. Eggs are kept in beaker type things untill hatched then moved to a large tank till they are moved to a rearing pond. Thats my best explination, any other questions I'll try and get answered tonight while I'm riding around in the tank truck. |
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Posts: 2893
Location: Yahara River Chain | shaley - 4/20/2008 5:44 PM
They use gill nets to harvest the fish,
Are you sure??? Here in WI they use fyke or hoop nets to capture fish. I would think gill nets would kill some of the fish.
Fyke nets are a plain net anchored in shallow water and it leads into deeper water where the fish heads into a series of netted hoops to a large holding area where the fish can't figure out how to get back out - kind of like a minnow trap. Shallow moving fish swim along hitting the net. They naturally go deeper to move around the object and swim into the maze of netted hoops, unable to back out.
Gill nets hold fish by only allowing the head into the net and if left too long they can die from fighting the net. And I'm sure they would have to cut the net to get some of them out if they are that big (either that or break gill covers). I'm sure they don't do that. |
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Posts: 1184
Location: Iowa Great Lakes | I will verify what nets they use. |
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Posts: 214
Location: Central Iowa | The DNR does use gill nets on other lakes in Iowa so I'd imagine they might use them as well at the IGL's. |
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Posts: 1184
Location: Iowa Great Lakes | Gill nets for the muskies and walleyes, fyke's for northerns. A few more 30 pound fish netted last night along with 200 more walleyes with a pig topping 10 pounds. I know not a muskie but a great fish anyway, enjoy
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| The wife and I were fortunate enough to join the DNR on Leech Lake several years ago to help harvest Musky eggs. They ran a tight woven net from the shore out to maybe 5-6 feet of water. Fish cruising the shore line see the net and swin into a series of hoop nets. We checked 7 net set ups and picked up two females
pushing 50 and one male 40+. They were put into a cattle tank in the Boston
Whaler. My wife was looking in the tank when the male did a half turn and launched under her nose and back into the lake. We put a net over the tank after the escape. Took the females back into a harbor where they were put into another tank with knock out drops in it. That calmed them down so they could strip the eggs into a large plastice bowl. They had a pen in the harbor with six males in it.
Took one out then used a siphon type device to extract the milt. They added an extender to the milt to help spread it out. Next they added lake water to the eggs,
they then have two minutes to fertilize then. Added the milt and stirred the eggs with a large feather. Boxed them up and sent to the hatchery in Park Rapids. Females then released in the area captured. I believe 5-10% of the fingerlings are released in Leech rest go to other lakes. Appropriately, this all took place on Mother's Day. This process on Leech is repeated every 5 years. |
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Posts: 699
Location: Hugo, MN | Cool Pics!! That's some great stuff. |
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| Iowa...building other states' musky fisheries one fish at a time.
Yes they use gill nets and yes a lot of fish die in the process. I've gone with the DNR during the netting for the last four years on a central IA lake, I'd say somewhere between 15-20% are already dead upon release, who knows how many from delayed mortality. We would set nets around 7 PM and come back to check them at 11 PM, quite a few would struggle enough that the gill nets would actually pin the gill plates down, essentially keeping the fish from the ability to "breath". Not very gentle with em in my experience. Who cares I guess, most of the fingerlings produced are leaving the state anyway. I need to move to MN:-( |
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Posts: 929
Location: Rhinelander. | Think of this. Look at all that stress on spawning muskies. Netting,milking them,transporting them,holding for days in a tank and transporting again> That is ok for them but to catch one on a lake and release right away is not ok. Thats what would have been law in wisconsin for early opener. I think that catching them and letting go right away would be less stressfull then what you said they go through with the entire process described..
Just a thought..............Pfeiff |
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Location: The desert | So where are your muskies going to come from then Don? Lets think of it this way, some fish have to die in order to continue supporting populations in lakes with no natural recruitment. You're negative attitude toward everything the DNR does gets pretty old after a while. You want a bunch of 50 inchers in all your lakes, but dont want to protect them so they can reach that size. Now you rip the way they take the eggs and milt? Please Don, enlighten us on how we are going to maintain stocking numbers that we do if we cant now harm any fish to obtain eggs and milt?
Gill nets will kill fish, but if you check them after a short soak you can keep a lot of fish alive. |
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Posts: 929
Location: Rhinelander. | You misunderstand. I did not rip anyone and don't you go there with me! One I was just blasted by someone for saying the D.n.r does a pretty job overall. I am not negative to them and don't know where you get that. Secondly I was just saying if a muskie can survive that they should be able to handle being caught one time and released. There are few females caught while they are spawning anyway.. Don't put words in my mouth. I was making the comparison so people would rethink the early season in wisconsin. I also wanted to bring this up as people think that so many fish are killed in a transport tournament. My point is that the muskie is pretty tough and can survive more then what we think. Yes they should still be handled gently and yes since youe wondering I've been there when they netted muskies and milked them. I get pretty tired of being blasted as someone who doe care about the fishery. I've done alot of work for it and given up many hours of my time for stocking purposes. Way more then you'll ever know. So again just don't go there with me. There your enlightend!
Pfeiff
Edited by Don Pfeiffer 4/23/2008 12:26 AM
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Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | So you're in favor of the early season catch and release? Fishing for them when they are spawning? Where there is potential of the fish being killed with no eggs or milt stripped? If a fish is killed while obtaining eggs and milt then at least they were usefull. Yes, fish caught in nets undergo a decent amount of stress, but the end result is potentially more fish for stocking purposes. An early catch and release season is a bad idea, I'm not even going to argue that one.
I appologize if I missunderstood your posts, but your's are a bit difficult to decipher. |
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Location: Yahara River Chain | Don Pfeiffer - 4/23/2008 12:17 AM
I was making the comparison so people would rethink the early season in wisconsin.
Pfeiff
One problem with the your though is that the early season is held on many lakes were natural reproduction occurs. If you were talking about an ealy season in southern wi that that would be fine, since all spawning is just that, spawning and no hatching.
That said, I would rather have the muskies pick their mates rather than the DNR. They know what best and what they are looking for and that would be hard to do if someone yanks them out of the shallows and stresses them out and then they fail to spawn. |
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Posts: 785
| The real argument hear is for the state of Iowa. OUR adult fish are netted (some killed), then milked, and the end result (as dirt esox mentioned) is that the resulting fingerlings are transported to OTHER states to benefit there fisheries while we are left a few more adult muskies dead. Oh and they do give us there 1 fish stocked for every 20 acres on an alternate year basis "token stockings", but ultimatly with are small size limits and everything else we are killing adult fish and replacing them with yearlings.
I support our IDNR for the most part, and am ok with the netting and milking process... I just wish Iowa would see more return from it.  |
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Posts: 468
Location: Not where I wanna be! | I support our IDNR for the most part, and am ok with the netting and milking process... I just wish Iowa would see more return from it. :(
Well put! There are lots of lakes in Iowa that could support much higher populations of fish. i wish they would consider more stocking programs, but it aint my call, so i gripe about it!!!
:D
Iowa...building other states' musky fisheries one fish at a time.
the rough estimated number annually is
55,000 exported per year
3,000-5,000 stocked in Iowa every other year. Kind of seems out of balance to me....
I also believe the survial rate of stocked fish is less than 50%, so in all, Iowa doesnt seem to desire to build a "managable" "trophy" ski population. Whats worse, most of Iowa's lakes are impoundments, and who knows how may fish end up over the spillway and into Rivers going Who knows where.....
Edited by THA4 4/23/2008 10:05 AM
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Posts: 8856
| In regards to the early season in WI, what's to rethink? Cathcing these fish during that time can interfere with natural reproduction. Many of the lakes where they would be targeted rely entirely on natural reproduction to sustain the population. Add to that the fact that those fish are going to basically be sitting ducks at that time? I can't see why anyone would support the early season, C&R/barbless or not.
In the case of netting fish for milking purposes? Reading what is being discussed here, apparently some muskies do not survive this process. Seems like a reasonable rice to pay to have muskies in all the places we have them today. |
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Posts: 153
Location: Storm Lake, IA | Which lake has been the most successful this spring? |
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Posts: 785
| EA, I truly agree that the loss of some fish to have musky fishing as good as we have in many states is a worthy sacrifice. The problem is that as an Iowan, its hard to see the fish in this state pay the price while every surrounding state reaps the benefits, and we recieve almost nothing in return.
Try to think of the milking process as Iowas spawn, the fish don't sucessfully reproduce. So if we produce 55,000 fry, and lets say we retain 3,000 to 5,000 only 5 to 9 percent of our total reproductive production stays in the state. I can think of ten lakes we have in the state that are stocked with muskies (McBride and Sugema are fairly new), so that leaves 300 muskies to be stocked per lake per year. The lakes range in size from 600-5000 acres plus or minus (the newer ones may be smaller I duno). Then of that remaining 5.5% (approx. 300 per lake) some are kept (actually quite a few), killed by predatory birds, and many of them go over spillways to ultimatly die of stress or predation. So I am glad fishing is so good these days, and I'm proud that Iowa lakes helped build many fisheries, I just wish our fisheries could be improved with some of our own production.
Solutions: I'm going to Minnesota starting In June
Edited by musky-skunk 4/23/2008 3:39 PM
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Posts: 8856
| musky-skunk, I agree with you there. Obviously there's something else at work here, my guess being that they make a fair amount of money exporting those fry. You say you get nothing in return, but there's got to be some benefit for IA that to them is more valuable than keeping the muskies for themselves. (i.e. $$$)
Where are they spending that money? Is there some benefit that you aren't aware of? Is it possible that the survival rates of stocked muskies in IA are such that it's not worth stocking them? If my state was producing muskies and only keeping 9% of them I'd be asking a lot of questions.
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Posts: 785
| They aren't allowed to sell them, but they do make trades with other states for different things. Maybe not with muskies but we traded to get things like wild turkeys and quail back into the state.
Maybe someone can remember the exact number but one was something like 1,000 musky fingerlings for two albino catfish for the DNR headquarters fishtank. Someone at the meeting asked how the catfish were doing and the lady said oh they died when we cleaned the tank. HAHA, such is life in good ol' Iowa.
I'm sure they get some benefit from the trades but ultimatly I believe our DNR still has reservations about high musky populations in lakes for fear of negative feedback from other fisherman. Oh-well, despite the gripy posts I guess I'm ultimatly starting to accept it for what it is. |
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| That albino catfish story was funny as hell, the look on the hatchery personnels' faces was classic. Sad but true, I think the cats lasted a month.
Trust me, the money we get from whoring muskies isn't going to anything but frivolous pursuits. Our biologists are on the gravy train to retirement, why work hard when you don't have to?
Again, who cares, it's a battle that can't be won and God knows we've tried. MN bound in June! |
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