Motivation

[Muskiefool]

Ive seen a few things that often make me wonder,, say someone catches a fish on a certain body of water or in a specific bay; why would anyone want to name that body of water?? from my experience all it does is add pressure to the lake, the reality of the state of Muskies in MN is that 55+ fish is in every lake in the range with the exception of a very few.

What do you gain from asking what lake I caught it on the first thing out of your mouth? how's about a congrats then the q&a, I decided a few years ago that I would never give exact size or location of any fish caught because of it irrelevancy to anything but myself; you know what; you really notice a few things about people after that, I'll even say different lakes in the same sentence just to see if your paying attention to the places that I didn't catch the fish.

Whats the motivation, not enough company and competition for spots? I don't get it.

[Stringerless!]

Congrats. ?

[guideman]

I guess nobody has to ask what bait anymore, they just assume it was caught on a cowgirl.

I caught myself doing that just this morning. The guy at the cabin next door showed me a photo of a big fish this morning that he had caught a week or so ago. I simply said,

"Did you catch it here on Vermilion"? To which he simply replied. "No, I caught it in the Leech lake area". So that narrowed it down to about 35 lakes.

"Ace"

[S.D. Ice Angular]

Well Then?

Congrats Also...

[DHanson]

I agree MF. Never kiss and tell. If you do, expect more pressure to said lake. We only have a handful of big bodies of water. Even the big lakes are effected by pressure as a lot of the fish stack up in small areas.

[DTro]

I guess I can see both sides to it, but honestly feel differently.

Think to yourself a moment and pretend you are given the location to a secret lake. A lake in which all your fishing dreams came true. Now the kicker to this information is that you can NEVER EVER share it with anyone....not the location.....not the details.....not even the sights and sounds you see or hear on this lake.

Truly think about not being able to share that with anyone. Not your family, not your friends, nobody.

What fun would that be?

These are fish we are talking about. Fish

Life is WAY to short to worry how many people know about fish X or spot Y or lake Z.

I guess it's the difference between half/full and half/empty.

[DHanson]

Nothing wrong with sharing some general info. with a pic if one decides to. Those are the best reports. Like MF said, what's the point of naming the lake? There isn't one.

[Muskiefool]

The thing is there are no secrets if there are Muskies there are people fishing them, the way it works is if say a fish that's large is caught everyone thinks they are bubbling out of the water so the Muskie world descends on whats usually a small lake with 10-15 spots.

Even Big V is getting small by most I know that are fishing there..

[ande]

John,

Good post.

I was burned years ago very bad!! I learned to block out even the background if I choose not to let the world know.

[DHanson]

I hate to say it, but I study the background of fish pictures all of the time. Especially if a general area is given or a certain poster is known to fish a certain area, I almost can always tell what lake. Obvious landmarks are always a give away. Right Jerry, JK.

[bronzeback]

I love sharing photos, but I block out backgrounds because I enjoy having these spots to myself when I can. More people look at this site than post on it, I saw a guy out tonight that told me he saw pictures of fish I caught online, obviously on this site, but he doesn't post. It's a small world- share what you want to, and have fun with it. No need to make it so serious, like dtro said they're just FISH, and it's just FISHING.

[Muskiefool]

I always chop shop the pics on our site, Ive added a low spots and a few docks(the fish and fishermen are always untouched); on a recent one it was altered greatly, Ive told people 10 diff lakes and they all know the spot it was caught on that lake.

I think they have a better chance of getting a big fish from the theoretical confidence they have on a lake I may have never fished than if I GPS'ed them the spot to fish.

BTW its 99% luck and thanks to the hard work of a few good people over the years and the DNR she is everywhere, so we all have the chance for the fish of a life.

I would encourage people to think before they boast, those of us who appreciate your fish for what she is will do so without specific details on location.

Whats more important for you to share are the small things like the wind, the moon position, if the humidity kicked up, if the clouds rolled in and how she was related to structure or specific forage; was she the first fish you saw, was she active and rolling etc.

If you give me those keys it helps allot more than the lake or spot.

[Nick Kuhn]

See now if you fished in Wisconsin you'd know that you can fish a musky lake all day like I did today and not see anyone throwing big baits, and Saturday I only saw one other musky fisherman. This is actually pretty typical as long as you aren't fishing Deer, Bone, Holcombe, or Wissota. But there's probably 10,000 acres of good water near lakes with very few fisherman on them.

[10,000 Casts]

Quote:

Deer, Bone, Holcombe, or Wissota.

I like my fish to be over 37" j/k... Sorry couldn't resist!

It's up to the fisherman whether they want to give out their spots or not. It sounds like some people have really deep issues on this subject. I don't get so worked up about it but I am very easy going when it comes to Muskie fishing.

I personally think that you need to rephrase your comment and keep going after the DNR to add more lakes and fast. The sooner we have more lakes to fish the lighter the pressure will be on your spots.

[TurnUpTheFishing]

When it comes to muskies I dont mind saying the lake I caught a fish from. For the most part they are big lakes and already recieve plenty of traffic. I probably wont give out the spot to someone I dont fish with. When it comes to my bass lakes though my lips are sealed

[scsavre]

MF, you must hate guides who make their living off taking people out to lakes and showing them fish and spots.

I dont like a crowd on the water, but i have gotten used to it. You siad it is 99% luck anyway. So who cares. Post pics at your own risk, i guess. I post one every once in a while. I dont post many, because no matter what you do, someone on this site will complain about something. Holding fish wrong, not deleting the backround, giving lake name, too many pics, taking pics when water temps are up, etc.

Why try to grow the sport, if you are just gonna get mad when see the people on the water. I guess i should start telling people that i hate musky fishing, to keep them from trying.

I think educating the novice fisherman would help the sport more than everyone lying and being extra secretive.

[scsavre]

oh and Dhanson, guess what lake my profile pic fish is from.

email me, [pleasebecomeasponsor]@yahoo.com. I think it would be hard to tell, but who knows, could be fun.

[urban cowboy]

Ya, I boated this real nice 48. The fish that was in my avitar for a while. When I brought the pic into the lodge the only thing they where looking at was the backround/shoreline.. the docks. Then they had a guessing game on what spot it was on the lake before anything else was said.

Kind of an erker... but... what else do you expect.

[Meat-Run]

I agree with most statements but with some locations that can be over fished or pressured easily because of proximity of people an easy background picture could have serious effects to the fishery. I know for exact were Bronzeback fishes and with respect to him and his hard work I will never share or ask were he's fishing but if he showed any kind of landmarks it could cause allot of problems. Nice fish to bronzeback and everyone that shares there pictures on line and thank you for not exposing the locations to sensitive bays or lakes.

Generally if you do state a lake like Leech or Mille Lacs that can be enough information and will not have any ramification to the resource unless you take it one step further and point out the location which most people don't do anyways.

that's just my .02

mr

[DHanson]

[pleasebecomeasponsor] I sent you an e-mail. Pretty sure I got that one right.

[scsavre]

OK, Dhanson had a good point. He guessed my fish, first guess, about 5 mins after posting.

I hope not everyone is that good.

[JRedig]

Seems to me a lot of you could send more time fishing than worrying about this garbage. At least wait till we're not at season peak with fish jumping in the boat! How about when there's ice out there...

I don't like seeing places named any more than anyone else and it's something you should really think about before mentioning.

But oh well, what are ya gonna do. Back to the lake!

[copterjohn]

Yea, I now get very nasty emails from a few certain forum lurkers... and haven't mentioned a specific lake in awhile. No more photos or muskie reports from me...at least of decent fish. I don't know if it is the economy or what, but folks this year can be downright nasty. However, it pales in comparison to the flack I get for interrupting CSI for a tornado warning and messing with a few hundred thousand folks at once! The theme this year seems to be "let em die, it's not my town..." Sad where we have gone.

[DTro]

Good point JRedig about waiting. I bet people are less likely to flock when they find out the fish was caught a month ago.

But when it comes to any type of fishing, I really try hard not to let this issue bother me.

[Nick Kuhn]

Quote:

Deer, Bone, Holcombe, or Wissota.

I like my fish to be over 37" j/k... Sorry couldn't resist!

It's up to the fisherman whether they want to give out their spots or not. It sounds like some people have really deep issues on this subject. I don't get so worked up about it but I am very easy going when it comes to Muskie fishing.

I personally think that you need to rephrase your comment and keep going after the DNR to add more lakes and fast. The sooner we have more lakes to fish the lighter the pressure will be on your spots.

Well that's sort of implied. Another thing is the lakes Minnesota stocks tend to be large lakes that already have a ton of pressure for other species. Rather than stocking all large lakes it might more sense to stock systems of lakes (appendix B of the long range plan). Stock say a river headwater lake and let them trickle down through the system. After all nearly all native muskies in the world relate to a river system, not standalone lakes.

I'll use Polk County, Wi as an example (where my cabin is so I know it well).

Code:

Lake Name         	Acres 	Class
Apple River Flowage*  	639 	B
Bear Trap Lake  	241 	C
Big Blake Lake 	        302 	C
Big Round Lake 	        1015 	C
Black Brook Flowage*	98 	C
Bone Lake*	        1781 	A2
Bridget Lake (Mud) 	95 	C
Deer Lake*              807 	A2
Indianhead Flowage  	776 	C
Wapogasset Lake  	1186 	C
White Ash Lake	        153 	C

I starred the waters that were stocked when this list was made (Wapogasset and Bear Trap were added to stocking since). Of the 11 only 4 were stocked, the other 7 have migrant fish through the Apple River system. Big Round even holds a line class record for a muskie (a 50lber) having never been stocked for muskie (and muskie are not native anywhere in the county).