French Lake in Faribault

[Rebel9921]

Wondering if anybody here in Muskie Forum has hit French recently??? Hows the fishing pressure there??? How are the muskies acting such as them being on their usual spots??? Thinking of taking a friend there next week for his first time on French...

[MNMusky]

Talked to some guys on the water this week who were from down there. They indicated the pressure was really high, which is why they were up in the metro...

[smeese]

rough one out there today, no fish in sight. I would take on clear water over there anyday......that I don't have to drive

[fatfinger]

smeese, is that a big-@$$ 'pout in your pic/avatar?

i havent been to french since i moved north but i remember there always being a great deal of pressure on there, however my buddy i talked to just pulled a 40 incher outta there the other day.sorry not much help-i didnt ask on what or where.much luck to ya!

[smeese]

No its a Flathead Catfish.......There is a lot of preassure on French, and to top it off plenty of people living on the lake eat too many of them regardless of size. I am sure he did but I hope your buddy put his back You used to see many fish a day, now it is down to once every few times out you get a follow, really not saying that to keep people away, heck I may even write it off soon, but because I grew up in the area I feel the need to go back. I need to look into the stocking number, as I can almost bet it has fallen to the wayside, all the money goes into the lakes up north, mostly because it is all privately funded, or to support areas that benifit financially from the sport. Some people will tell you other reasons and thay all may be true, it all adds up to not enough funds though I am sure, I would totally chip in on the future of southern MN muskie fishing, but the way it goes the money will go to other areas that will not benefit me.......kind of one of the same reasons I got the Walleye stamp last year and did not this year......Let the people in the Beltrami Co, Douglas Co, Aitken Co Etc pay for it, I have fished the Alex area once, and no where else north of Lakeville.....deprived? Sure, but we should have better fisheries then we do down here too.

[BEEFEATER]

How do u think those walleyes got into sheilds, french, mazazka, roberds, etc. Stocking from the walleye stamp goes towards southern lakes too. They just dont sustain those fish cuz theres ten times the amount of people fishing those lakes. As for french its all pressuere. Theres always been pressuere. fish die from harvest, improper handaling, heat, natural causes, etc. most of those reasons are just a factor of pressure. french was one of those lakes with a hot bite that got way to overfished, such as millacs, and many others. The honest truth is it only takes a handfull of anglers to do damage to a lake. and every one knows french had more then a few handfulls of anglers out there. i cant tell ya the dozens of people i seen out there muskie fishing with 6 pound test, etc.

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[smeese]

Some people don't buy a license, that is selfish, keeping more then your limit, that is selfish, drinking a whole bottle of Beefeater to yourself....yup still selfish. I make plenty of donations to many lake associations, donate time, and more time. I bought a trout stamp and did not even fish them, so I guess I am even.

[Quackaddict9]

well said. ^^^

[smeese]

Anyways sorry to go off topic, back to French lake, named after French fur traders that once settled there.

[ZEEK1223]

The fact that it is the only muskie lake for miles might add to the pressure as well. I cant think of another one within 50 miles of it. As far as pressure goes, all the faribault area lake are just way over pressured. especially in the winter.

[Muskiefool]

Stocking has met the quota for the past 5 years for sure, I know the DNR did supplemental stocking to get caught up for the years the fish didn't do so well.

French is a strange lake that owns me big time.

I may get out there this week yet.

[smeese]

Last five years have been good numbers, but with the last couple winters with such thick ice and a lot of snow cover, its hard to say how they did. It would be fun to scuba dive and check it all out but it would be tough to see come summer. Any way to know if the O2 levels are checked and reported in the deep winter?

[fatfinger]

smeese- my buddy did indeed release his fish.isn't french stricktly a release lake anyhoo?like i said, its been a while.i hope the lakes down there get/keep healthy for you guys.i hate to see any fisheries suffer, especially if its preventable or from mismanagement(im not sayin thats the case here).

is there still a lake mazaska monster?any recent sightings?

[smeese]

Used to hear of the Mazaska Muskie.....been a while though, I would guess it may be gone but who knows if it ever existed, lots of follows on Roberds too....

[Scott M]

Anyway to know if the O2 levels are checked and reported in the deep winter?

[smeese]

How do they do the population estimate? What do you mean by convertable bio mass? I figured O2 was no problem, but never really heard for sure. Thanks for the info, I guess I have no more excuses, time to go there and stay till I catch.....full moon is sat who is going out?

[rugbymn]

Used to hear of the Mazaska Muskie.....been a while though, I would guess it may be gone but who knows if it ever existed, lots of follows on Roberds too....

Have you personally had follows on Roberds or just heard of them?

[smeese]

Let you know next week, gonna wing it, tetonka too.... my nephew said he had to rip in his bass lure to avoid losing it to a pig.....he fishes musky quite a bit so I believe him, and last fall in the outdoornews fishing reports by area it stated that many were seen.

[Fishin_Jacks7]

If you go to the DNR page on Tetonka being stocked with muskies they have reports and pictures to go with of four 50+" being caught out of the lake that is a reason why they want to stock it because they know they can grow to the trophy size! The DNR has also found muskies in Roberds as seen on the DNR HSOforum too.

[Scott M]

There was a muskie caught in Roberds in 2008.

See pages 9-11 on this document to see photos of muskies caught in Tetonka. I actually found more photos of muskies in a couple other bait shops in town that were not included with the photos in the musky proposal.

How do they do the population estimate? What do you mean by convertable bio mass?

The population estimate was conducted in April shortly after ice out with large trap nets. There were about 10 days of netting, including one weekend, to get to roughly 100 fish, with a handful of recaptures. Fish are marked with a fin clip on the anal fin. When fish are removed from traps, they are first checked for this fin clip, and having none, are weighed, measured, sexed, and clipped. This is a modified Lincoln-Peterson Index (Mark-recapture). The population estimate is mainly focused on adult, sexually mature fish (most were >30"). Anyone catching a musky on French right now has a pretty good chance of catching an anal fin-clipped fish...those clips will fully regenerate in the next couple months.

When I mean convertible biomass, I'm talking about the shiners, suckers, buffalo, drum, white bass, and perch. There are a lot of calories for growing big fish, fish up to 54 inches. These fish may not get tullibees like their northern relatives, but they still eat pretty darn well.

I am planning on getting out there are soon as the flathead catfish on the Minnesota River are spawning. There are more than enough fish to go around.

[smeese]

Cool.....very interesting, any odds of volunteering to help with this next spring? Any tankers pulled out? How about the walleye population? Seems sturdy although the Eye guyz will say otherwise. I figured you were talking forage, as there are millions of shiners and roughfish

[Scott M]

Next assessment is scheduled for 2013. Everybody wants to volunteer for this gig, but with a stock tank full of water and fish and the huge nets (I believe the frames are like 7' by 7' or 8' x 8') it's usually just two staffers for safety's sake. Two 54" ripe females, around 40 pounds if memory serves me. Good numbers of walleye including a couple hawgs...they didn't show up as well later when the water warmed but that's just fish behavior, not a lack of walleye. Also some really nice pike. The crappies and sunfish were mostly potato chippers but a few pound crappies. Great fishery.