I'm kinda hesitant to ask this but...

[Zelmsdawg]

But I was thinking and am curious. I don't want to get caught up in the spearing or not but would you guys think that a lake with a northern and musky population would lose more muskies due to people spearing them (by accident or not, don't care now) or by having more pike in the lake to spawn and have the northern fry eat the musky fry.

To clarify, people spearing muskies but less pike fry eating them vs no muskies being killed by spearing but more northerns eating them? I understand one takes mature fish and the other is little fish that won't grow up for years so theres a bit of a now vs the future aspect but just wondering if theres any studies out there that may related to this.

Zelmsdawg

[Fever]

Wow, That's deep. I'd guess that more people would be against the spearing as those fish are adults and its a more noticable result and the harvesting method is not without a ton of controversy... BUT... your question is interesting in reference to the fry. I'm not sure if it might not be the other way, where the musky fry are growing just a touch faster and are the ones doing the eating of the pike fry. This potential phenomina may explain why in many very well known musky waters where the is stocking and natural reproduction; numbers and quality of size in pike are down when compared to similar classes of lakes without the population of muskies. This is an interesting topic and I'm sure it wont disapoint as the musky anglers I know are some of the most passionate and dedicated to Catch and release fisherman I know.

[john skarie]

Well, fry aren't going to get speared. Little northerns aren't going to kill big fish.

The two are kind of exclusive of each other.

Pike fry do hatch before muskie fry and are a predator of them. When the MNDNR looks at stocking new waters they don't like to see a large hammer handle population.

Here's my take on what you are getting at;

MN native muskie lakes are not hammer handle lakes, ie Leech, Cass, Wabedo, Little Boy, etc. So in those lakes the fish obviously co-exist quite well.

Many of the stocked lakes used to be hammer handle waters but now have turned out of that for the most part. Predominantly due to the larger muskies thinning them out and shifting the population to fewer but larger pike.

If your question is what does more harm to a muskie pop., hammer handles or spearers, than your answer will only be speculative, and really have no bearing at all except on an individual lake basis.

If you are wondering what is a better scneario, muskies getting speared or fry eaten by hammer handles, well neither is better than the other.

If you are wondering if allowing spearing will get rid of hammer handles and benefit muskies, I would have to say no.

On the majority lakes where spearing is and has been legal for decades the hammer handles are very prevalent. Spearing has not been an effective management tool for reducing small pike numbers.

The only thing that has worked is to protect pike to let them grow, so that the population shifts from mainly small pike to more large pike which are very cannibalistic.

Don't know if any of this helped at all.

JS

[ZebraMussel33]

Thank you for the insight John, I agree with you 100% on all of your statements above.

On the majority lakes where spearing is and has been legal for decades the hammer handles are very prevalent. Spearing has not been an effective management tool for reducing small pike numbers.

The only thing that has worked is to protect pike to let them grow, so that the population shifts from mainly small pike to more large pike which are very cannibalistic.

More specifically these last two statements need to be highlighted as they are very true...

[Fever]

Seems like most spearers that like to spear don't like spearing little hammer handles so obviously that is not a good tool to thin out pike populations.

[Nick Kuhn]

Pike populations won't go down due to spearing. Pike are usually very successful spawners, the only limiting factor is the biomass of pike the lake can take. If there are more smaller pike: yes muskie spawn will be eaten. If there are fewer bigger pike, they would focus on other forage like perch and suckers.

[10,000 Casts]

Quote:

The only thing that has worked is to protect pike to let them grow, so that the population shifts from mainly small pike to more large pike which are very cannibalistic.

seems to be the case with all fish, Walleye, Northern, Muskie etc. Protection is key, I know that means we can't eat as many and I know we all hate more laws but there is no question it has improved the resource.

[Nick Kuhn]

One more thing to note: this type of thinking is why muskies actually help walleye populations. A muskie is much more likely to eat a perch (perch are a major predator of walleye fry) than it is a walleye. So there is some merit to the thinking and yes reducing pike numbers would help the muskies out: but really no method seems to have been very effective in reducing pike numbers.

[CaptainMusky]

BUT... your question is interesting in reference to the fry. I'm not sure if it might not be the other way, where the musky fry are growing just a touch faster and are the ones doing the eating of the pike fry.

Incorrect. Pike fry grow faster, pike spawn earlier than muskies and the YOY pike feed heavily on the muskie fry.

This is the main reason the Leech Lake strain of muskies are so desirable from a stocking standpoint because this strain of muskies has evolved over time to spawn in different locations than pike making their fry less susceptible to predation by the YOY pike.

Young pike are voracious feeders they eat far more than muskies of the equal size. That is why stunted pike populations have such a dramatic impact on baitfish populations. By density muskies are never there in numbers like pike are, they could never do the damage that pike do.

[Fever]

Captain,

Yeah, John Skarie said that earlier. Good info. Thanks for the correction too. I was kinda thinking out loud and thinking that there may be times when the young of the year musky grows a bit faster in year two or three you know what I mean. Not in that first year. I'm thinking that after the musky gets to a certain age that they do grow much faster than a pike of that same age as the musky has a higher tolerance of water temps when they are larger allowing them to digest larger food items faster.

[CaptainMusky]

Captain,

Yeah, John Skarie said that earlier.

Yeah, i really need to read ALL the posts for responding. I noticed that after I read your's. LOL And yes, John did an excellent job of explaining it.

[goblueM]

I don't think there are any studies out there, the best you could get would be to compare fish assemblage reports from different lakes, and even then you would have a hazy idea of spearing harvest, (probably not any idea at all, to be honest), and would be comparing apples to oranges with YOY, mature fish, and different lakes.

but I would think musky populations would benefit from less northerns, probably not too many get speared by accident

[Zelmsdawg]

This is the main reason the Leech Lake strain of muskies are so desirable from a stocking standpoint because this strain of muskies has evolved over time to spawn in different locations than pike making their fry less susceptible to predation by the YOY pike.

I did not know that. Thats interesting..thanks for sharing. I had thought it was mostly because of the length they achieved

Zelmsdawg

[CaptainMusky]

There was at one time an entire study on it on the dnr HSOforum that talked about the whole findings. Quite interesting. It started out talking about the shoepec strain and how that was a failed attempt because those fish rarely reached 40 inches then went into the leech lake strain. Very cool info that lead to the change in strategy by the mn dnr.

[Zelmsdawg]

CaptainMusky,

Could you post/find that link? I'd be interested in reading it. Personally, I have a lot of fun catching shoepacks. Strong fish, elaborate jumpers and very handsome looking.

Zelmsdawg

[RK]

Hiya -

Much of the research on Leech Lake strain fish was done by Bob Strand, who is truly the father of the MN stocked muskie fishery. One of the main reasons Shoepacks were stocked in the past was because they were so easy to capture to take spawn from, while they didn't even know where Leech Lake fish spawned. At the time, they didn't realize that Shoepacs were a very different strain than any other fish (evolution in isolation).

Strand discovered that Leech Lake strain fish spawned deeper than Wisconsin/Ontario muskies, and over a very specific substrate (chara). He also discovered - and it's pretty remarkable really - that Leech Lake strain fish actually spawn twice. Eggs develop at the same rate until shortly before an initial spawn, when roughly 50% of the eggs develop rapidly to maturity. These eggs are comingled in the egg skein with the remaining underdeveloped eggs. Once the first batch of eggs is released, the remaining eggs develop rapidly, and a second spawn occurs in 7 to 10 days.

The conclusion Strand and others came to was that these behaviors and physiological functions were adaptations brought on by co-evolving in systems with northern pike. Spawning away from shallow, weedy bays (where WI and ON muskies spawn) and with two sets of fry help reduce the level of fry on fry predation, and also mitigate adverse weather events that could threaten a year class.

So basically, muskies have the evolutionary adaptations to coexist with a balanced pike population. But frankly, no species (including pike) do well with a pike population dominated high numbers of juvenile pike.

Strand was also the one who defined the basic criteria for candidate lakes for muskie stocking. Many of the stocked lakes we now have - Mille Lacs, Vermilion, Detroit, Miltona, West Battle, Pelican, etc., were selected on those criteria. So Strand knew what he was about. He also knew that the number of lakes viable for muskie stocking in the state is shockingly small, 10k lakes or not. And one of the key criteria is pike population dynamics...

HTH,

Rob Kimm

[CaptainMusky]

CaptainMusky,

Could you post/find that link? I'd be interested in reading it. Personally, I have a lot of fun catching shoepacks. Strong fish, elaborate jumpers and very handsome looking.

Zelmsdawg

I spent a few minutes looking for it just now and cannot find it again. It was old information, the studies were from the 80's I think, but it is what lead to the decision the DNR made to stock Leech Strain fish.

I did find this, which has some of the conclusions of the study, but not the details.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fish/muskellunge/muskie_northern.html

RK is completely right, it was done by Mr Strand, among others.

[trackerv17]

Hey Fever did I see you on west battle about a week and a half ago? Do you have a white motor with a tiller?

[Zelmsdawg]

Thanks CaptainMusky

[fishuhalik]

I would also think that the higher populations of stunted pike on heavily speared lakes that were once bigger pike/lower number lakes would be a factor. I've seen a few lakes (swan lake by pengilly comes to mind) that were once great for pike over 10lbs, now you can go out and catch 50 pike that are 1-4lbs and struggle for anything over 8.

BTW, this is not a bash on spearers, many of you guys spear responsibly and I commend you for that. Theres bad eggs out there that ruin it for everyone. I know for a fact that it was 2 and only 2 guys that ruined swan. They speared over 300 pike between 10 & 25lbs in 2 years. Kinda hard for a smaller lake to support that kinda pressure...