Musky head hunters????

[AaronM]

What i said about fishing going down hill is just a FACT. We needed a constitutional amendment to protect are lakes, The size of the panfish in the metro has shruken by like 3 inches in the past 20 years. It almost impossible to catch 20lb pike in mn now other then a few select areas, ducks are almost exticnt, come on man this isent a phish concert, wake up.

What lakes are you fishing? I think you're opinion is in the minority on this one. Minnesota fishing is as good as it's ever been.

[pinkfloyd4ever]

I agree that fishing in MN is better than ever. I think even if it is heresay about the Muskies in French make a call to DNR.

[Musky Buck]

Then the clown will say he got them before the muskie stamp came along.

[Musky Buck]

Got a feeling stocked waters this is likely occurring quite a bit. I'm sure the Miltona locals and Pelican locals have changed their ways and attitudes toward them.

[Shawn Kellett]

Hey John,

I think that on the stocked waters the quality/numbers of fish are down from 5-10 years ago. It makes sense since the first few year classes almost always do the best. There is very little downward pressure on the species. I also think that delayed mortality has had some effect on the total population of muskies in the state. To what degree I don't know, but I think it's there on the popular lakes.

Yes it is harder then it was too. It has to be. There's only X fish in the lake and now there's 5x the fishermen trying to catch them. It's changed the fish's habits/behavior for sure.

[dcmusky]

Well as the president of the southern MN chapter of Muskies Inc. you guys can now see the fun me and Fool get to deal with. Yes I've heard the same thing, and allot of this was taking place in the winter. It was a slauter out there, and if these guys catch a keeper they will kill it. This is why if you live in this area and like muskies or just better fishing oppertunitys than I strongly encourage you to join CH 54. We have been working real hard to educate and work with the French lake assoc. Also some very big moves by the DNR&MMA , Dec. 1 close and next year the 48" min. I'm very glad that we have the great people in the DNR to see the importaince of these fish.

[brad coin]

Did anybody here of a 55 caught here in the last couple weeks??? somebody said something about a picture at some resort????????

[TSchultz]

A few years ago now my father and I were out there fishing and heard the parents tell their kids, "go throw rocks at those muskie fisherman." Sure enough splash splash splash. We kept fishing through, and couldn't see the kids because of the bank and vegetation, but I couldn't believe it.

[mrklean]

if someone started tossing rocks at me you can bet there would be words had with those parents

[b1gf1sh1]

educate. lol. when i explain to these anti muskie people the true facts it's like i'm Horton explaning to the kangaroo there's people on this speck. i'll give you a fact. just one of the ones i know about.

on a local lake, white bear, some very knowlegeable white bear fishermen that have fished there for forever and a day absolutely stand behind the fact that stocked walleyes are weed oriented, for whatever reason, and native fish are more rock and sand, oriented. there are fewer walleyes caught in the native areas. all the old ''hotspots'' have less fish. so the anti who can't catch a walleye anymore blames the muskie when really he just aint fishing in the right spot. walleye population is the same and even better but they just moved.

so rather than adjust, or addmit they are just bad fishermen, they blame the 'ski's. granted it's a smallish lake and community and this fact has got around more and more but i wonder how often this happens on other lakes? that they just alter their habits.

[mrklean]

Its like the saying cant teach a old dog new tricks. Nothing agaisnt the old bucks but its sad that they think the skies do that much damage to kill them. Even if they do get caught i dont see them stopping. Maybe we should make sure we keep them darn walleyes to show them a lesson

[bronzeback]

having rocks thrown at your boat is never fun, and I've been in that situation before as well, but I was fishing bass. Apparently this summer camp in Brainerd has the idea in their head that they own the water surrounding their camp so they decided to hurl rocks at us, when I called them out an older counselor came out and told me we couldn't fish there and he was going to call so and so to have us removed. I told him to feel free and call anyone he'd like to.

I should've been the one making calls, if one of those rocks had come within 2 feet of my boat I would have been on shore- I'll leave it at that.

What it boils down to is that some people don't know the law, and some people don't care about the law. When you have both of those qualities and top it off with a touch of general ignorance is when you start having some real problems.

[cheddar 86]

I realize that we can choose to CPR fish or keep them when it's legal, but I don't understand why anyone would think it's ethical to purposly kill animals for that reason. The DNR focuses their time and energy on these issues and have even published reports/studies showing that the existence of muskies doesn't decimate a walleye population. This came up as a result of trying to expand lakes in the muskie stocking program recently. I don't have the link to that study but it's on the MN DNR HSOforum. Just think about how many more walleye fisherman per acre there are going to be on the lake during a saturday keeping their catches versus the number of muskies per acre who are actively feeding. If there is a sole cause of depleted walleye populations (if indeed these people are just bad anglers) it would be the popularity of walleye fishing or any other type of fishing for that matter.

[PC's]

ok, Mns fishing is pretty decent but what happen to the near daily 10 pound walleyes and 9 inch sunfish that we use to get oughta tonka in the winter in the early 60's, so on and so forth. many lakes are cyclical, but many if not more are just fished down, if you dont beleave that my freinds you are blind. anyways i have heard old timers say things like i spear every muskie i see and stuff like that, but dude, i doubt they can even spear a pike in the first place. Who needs a stamp, just make it c&r period. And if the lakes now days are so good who cares if they poached and kill muskies every day because theve been doin it forever and the lakes are in such great shape.

[AaronM]

ok, Mns fishing is pretty decent but what happen to the near daily 10 pound walleyes and 9 inch sunfish that we use to get oughta tonka in the winter in the early 60's, so on and so forth. many lakes are cyclical, but many if not more are just fished down, if you dont beleave that my freinds you are blind.

Look, lakes have a natural rise and fall in quality of fish they produce. My dad guided for eight years in the late 60's and 70's on LOTW and never caught a walleye over six pounds. It's an odd month out now when a walleye isn't boated by my crew that doesn't reach that or blow it out of the water with fish in the high 20's or low 30's...and it's not because I'm that good of a fisherman, the dynamics in lakes are always changing.

There's a natural bell curve in the way lakes produce fish. Tonka's not producing fish like it used to? I guarantee there's three other lakes producing fish now that weren't in the '70's. You can't take one lake that's changed and declare that a majority of lakes in Minnesota are being fished out. I'll stand behind my words, Minnesota fishing is better off now than ever. Period.

[JRedig]

ok, Mns fishing is pretty decent but what happen to the near daily 10 pound walleyes and 9 inch sunfish that we use to get oughta tonka in the winter in the early 60's, so on and so forth. many lakes are cyclical, but many if not more are just fished down, if you dont beleave that my freinds you are blind.

A friend of mine brought up a good point during a discussion on a topic similar to this. Maybe you're just not as good of a fisherman as you think and don't adapt to the cyclical changes as well as you'd like? Just because you don't hear reports or read about it on the internet doesn't mean it's not happening...especially considering what the internet can do to a good bite if word gets out, people are more tight lipped than ever.

[Shawn Kellett]

One thing to remember about Tonka is that it really changed when the milfoil took over. We used to catch 50/50 largemouth/smallmouth bass out there. Not so anymore, the muskies wiped them out

Milfoil is one of the reasons why the sunfish problem exists out there. They have much greater cover then they ever did so more survive. Once they get to a certain size there isn't enough forage for then to continue to grow. Its this lack of forage that is the reason for most fish to "stunt". The same thing happens in WI where they stock 10x the muskies in some of there lakes. Increased recruitment + limited forage = small fish.

[smeese]

What was the purpose behind the dec 1st close? I think it sucks personally but I am sure there is a good reason for it. Not like it matters I guess as you can still catch one by occurance and get a pic. Is it to avoid the people that may decide to keep them by just shortening the availabity to take one or what gives?

[brad coin]

personally I like the Dec 1st closing on average the metro lakes freeze around Dec 9th some years shorter some years longer. Also during that time the days are much shorter-dark by 4:30 which means most people cant get out during the work week so by giving up/sacrificing a few Hrs total in Dec,,,we get to protect our trophy managed muskie fishery from harvest all the way through the ice season.

Reports were that a significant amount of harvest was happening during winter and If I remember right French had a lot of harvest during ice season.

[dcmusky]

What was the purpose behind the dec 1st close? I think it sucks personally but I am sure there is a good reason for it. Not like it matters I guess as you can still catch one by occurance and get a pic. Is it to avoid the people that may decide to keep them by just shortening the availabity to take one or what gives?

This is were that guy was getting all his fish for his shed. Also fish are easly damaged when brought into such cold air temps, Gills&eyes freeze, not good for survival. Plus there were anywhere between 30 to 50 muskies getting taken out of French each year, anyone notice how the fishing has droped in french over the last 5 or 6 years? If you want world class fishing in this state you have to make tough desitions and sometimes not popular ones but the Dec.1 close has saved allot of fish in the last 2 years.

[PC's]

Personally i think the december 1st closing is very good for the health of many muskie fisheries. Look at french or these tiger muskie lakes were people intentional target muskies in the winter just to hang on the wall, I to fish certian ares that dont freeze up till mid december but i guess thats life. As for tonka yea the milfoil has hampered much of the fishing, such as walleye, and smallmouth.

[smeese]

Seems like a good reason to me. Keeping them in the lake is my goal. not catching any I am doing a good job at it.

[b1gf1sh1]

the more i read this stuff about these lakes the happier i am i fish rivers over 90 percent of the time. i mean, everywhere in here theres different threads with people having to defend muskies, anti's getting up-tight over them, argueing, killing my favorite fish, on and on.

never once have i heard anyone even mention ''those dern muskies are killing all my walleyes on the ...insert river here... i just can't catch those gosh darn trophies no more, those demons''. or '' i heard that some guys are killing 'ski's on the river. never.

but i do hear things something like this said. (and i've said it many, many times myself)... ''well, the river won again today, i wonder where the the heck they were today, sheesh. well maybe next time''. or, ''i gotta figure out that pattern, they have to be somewhere''... stuff like that.

actually, the fish are there and here's how i know. i had an underwater camera once and i brought it out to look around and maybe learn something. well, i learned something allright. i had the camera pointed at my bait a couple feet away... fathead, sucker and worms, pretty much all day in the same spot at a shore spot i fish A LOT. there were fish... walleye, smallies, dogfish, catfish, sturgeon, pike, muskies, sheepies, crappies, white bass, pretty much the whole stinkin' river population swimming by my offerings almost continuously all day. some looked at it and turned away. but most just ignored them. the minnows were swimmin' the worms were wigglin', i can't tell you how frustrated i was. i mean i caught one little tiny perch, and a smallie that wasn't much bigger, all freaking day!! not even a sheepy on a freakin' worm. that's 12+ hours mind you. i had to have seen a couple thousand fish easy. some twice or more? maybe who knows. and that was just in the cameras view, i'm sure there was more lurking (snickering?)out of view. anyway, i sold the camera a week later after doing it in a couple other spots. i just couldn't take it anymore. i was ready to toss it in the drink. i was getting that mad. but that would be littering, so i sold it and bought some stuff. after these experiences i figure there are fish there they just aint biting, or i'm just a really bad fisherman.

hey smeese... check the regs for border water open/close. you might feel better

[pinkfloyd4ever]

on a local lake, white bear, some very knowlegeable white bear fishermen that have fished there for forever and a day absolutely stand behind the fact that stocked walleyes are weed oriented, for whatever reason, and native fish are more rock and sand, oriented. there are fewer walleyes caught in the native areas. all the old ''hotspots'' have less fish. so the anti who can't catch a walleye anymore blames the muskie when really he just aint fishing in the right spot. walleye population is the same and even better but they just moved.

I've read about the weed related walleyes, the theory was that they are hatched and raised in rearing ponds that have more weed structure than rock/gravel so the walleye relate to that structure once released.

[HopkinsFishN]

but i do hear things something like this said. (and i've said it many, many times myself)... ''well, the river won again today, i wonder where the the heck they were today, sheesh. well maybe next time''. or, ''i gotta figure out that pattern, they have to be somewhere''... stuff like that.

AMEN TO THAT!!!! Get out and fish, if ya don't catch anything, try something different! or go to a different lake! or better yet, go to the river!