Growth rates for Leech strain fish

[Cooter]

Just curious(like George) about average growth rates for those MN Leech L strain muskies - our club stocked some in a local lake(Wissota) last fall and the DNR has committed to stocking them there the next four years starting this spring. They are and will be large fingerlings(around 12") so I'm wondering about how long it might take for them to reach say the 40" mark. Thanks.

[cjac]

This is a post from the Brainerd forum about stocking muskies in Gull....those are proposed to be Leech strain, with 12 to 14 inch initial stock size.

This is from "AWH", very good info. Don't mean to pirate his info, just relaying good info along!

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"It depends on how many adult fish they put in to help bolster the initial stockings. But it definitely takes some time to get decent sized fish.

If you take Lake Alexander as an example - Alex was first stocked in 1988. Decent numbers of 30" to 39" fish were being caught from 1995 to 1998. Six to seven years and you can be having fun with those mid 30" fish.

It wasn't until 1999 that 40"+ fish started showing up with regularity. So if you want to set the bench mark at 40", you're looking at about 10+ years before a decent population of those fish are showing up."

[Random guy]

Only ten years to wait Cooter, you should be able to hang on until then.

[cjac]

Yeah, it's kind of depressing when you look at it that way!

I'll be an old man by then!

[jkrash]

I know in Vermilion they were catching 40+" fish regularly 6 years after the first stocking. There has been a few fin clipped 9 year old 50+ inchers.

[mtreno]

Big V. was stocked privately for years before a program started there so hard to use that as something to go by.

[AWH]

jkrash,

Those are some fast growing fish! While an example such as that shows that it's not impossible to grow a 40" fish in 6 years, this probably shouldn't be expected. Who knows though, maybe Wissota has the potential to grow large fish very quickly!

Hey cjac, what are you doing taking information from my posts??? Seriously though, I'm glad at least some of my information is useful!

Aaron

[AWH]

As a side note to the above information on Lake Alexander. I found out after I posted that information that Alex actually received muskies one time prior to 1988. It received 200 fingerlings in 1975. The next time it was stocked was in 1988 with 850 fish.

Aaron

[Random guy]

From some of the studies I have looked through you could hit a 40" fish in six years but all the chips have to fall in place perfect. The right food, the right water temps, no adverse changes in environment or water quality so on and so forth.

Either way the stocking of Leech Lake strain has proven to be a success on this side of the river so it should work out nicely for putting Wisconsin back on the map as a true trophy fishery.

[Random guy]

Quote:

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Alex actually received muskies one time prior to 1988. It received 200 fingerlings in 1975.

Aaron

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I think many lakes have had musky introduced in some form or another previous to stocking efforts. Some are done individuals taking matters into their own hands. Some musky fry can get mixed into other stocking efforts, and as crazy as it does sound musky have been found in lakes connected by very long river systems. They figure the fish traveled a river during high water spawn and ended up in some new areas.

Like the Big V some of these fish may have taken and created a small population of fish. Heck I have even been hearing reports of musky in Upper Red. I have yet to see hard proof of this but I don't dismiss it.

[jkrash]

Your right there were a number of stocking (dateing back to the late 60's)that occured over the years in Vermilion but the first leech lake strain fish were stocked in 1987 the first year they clipped fins was in 1993. I've only seen 2 muskies to come out of Vermilion that were not the leech lake strain, one was in the late 70's and the other was a few years ago. If any of you are muskie inc. members a quick search in the lunge log will reveal how fast the fish grow in vermilion.

Hopefully they'll take off in the other lakes that are scheduled to be stocked.

[cjac]

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Heck I have even been hearing reports of musky in Upper Red.

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I can totally believe it. The article on Gull said that during a Northerns Inc. tourney last year on Gull 4 muskies were caught, including a 42 & 46 inch fish. 4 in one weekend makes you wonder a bit, how many are in there??

I'd suspect there were fry mixed in with walleye stockings, but they obviously have been there a long time to reach that size. Same could have happened on URL.

I do know this........June 3rd can't come soon enough!

[big musk411]

I think muskies are in more waters than we think, just in low densities. check out this link to the dnr site for crane lake.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/showreport.html?downum=69061600

I shows that they caught a muskie in crane lake. I bet there is a small population up there that remains from before the dammed the rainey.

[Scoot]

Regarding URL having muskies- I'm more apt to think that most of these fish have come in from high waters via the Red Lake River. Certainly not a ton of muskies in the river, but definitely some.

[RK]

Hiya,

The most thorough research on growth rates I know of was the study Bob Strand and Jerry Younck on Grace and Waconia lakes. The study compared growth rates of 4 different strains of muskies (Miss, Shoepack, LCO and Minocqua).

Leech Lake (Miss strain) fish grew the fastest, with size at sexual maturity (3-4 yrs for males, 6 yrs for females) as follows:

Code:

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sex mean range

m 792mm(28 in) 690-822mm (27-32 in)

f 1029mm (40 in) 925-1070mm (36-42 in)

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So generally speaking, 6 years to reach 40" give or take, at least for females.

As far as muskies showing up in Crane or URL... They show up in all kinds of places they aren't supposed to be. Someplace in my office I have a photo of one from the Red River from 7-8 years ago that was caught in a survey net. Looked like about a 30-35 pounder. Lots of remnant populations from past stocking, plus migrating fish from connected waters. They can go wherever they want as long as there's enough water to cover their backs - which isn't much water at all when you're even an adult, much less a fingerling.

Cheers,

RK

[Cooter]

Thats some encouraging info - thanks. Wissota doesn't have much for open water forage species such as cisco or whitefish but has panfish, a bazillion little walleyes, and rough fish such as suckers. It can and has grown a few 50" fish with whatever WI strain they've been stocking so I think those Leech fish should do well. Gonna have to push for a higher min length limit though to help allow them to reach their potential - I believe its the statewide 34" talk limit right now. Its a good situation when most members of Muskies Inc around here don't even know or care what the min size limit is - just hope the bass/walleye/panfish anglers adopt the C&R mentality for muskies.

[AWH]

Quote:

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The article on Gull said that during a Northerns Inc. tourney last year on Gull 4 muskies were caught, including a 42 & 46 inch fish. 4 in one weekend makes you wonder a bit, how many are in there??

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I question the accuracy of that statement. I know there was one that was definitely caught. I heard this many times and I know this was a verified catch. However, when I read that article it was the first time I had ever heard that four were caught. I spoke with one of the Brainerd area fisheries people about this and our conclusion was that this was probably not accurate. He commented about many instances of the DNR being quoted in the paper as saying something that they had never said. So I know the credibility of that statement in his eyes was lacking.

But either way, there have been verified musky catches in Gull in recent years. And I agree, it makes you wonder how many are in there. As long as there's fish in there already, we may as well establish a fishable population!

Aaron

[cjac]

Good point, four did suprise me, as there have been many musky tourneys where four fish are not caught! Hard to know what to believe anymore......which reminds me, did I tell you about the 65 inch muskie I caught last year??

Aaron, send me a bill for the copyright use of your info!!

You are pretty well versed on the Brainerd area and fisheries management, just passionate about it or is it job related? Just curious...

Chris

[Random guy]

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Regarding URL having muskies- I'm more apt to think that most of these fish have come in from high waters via the Red Lake River. Certainly not a ton of muskies in the river, but definitely some.

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You know I was thinking about that statement and if you think about Red lake it is surrounded by musky waters; Red River, LOTW, Bigfork River. From what I can recall growing up in Waskish all the water is connected in that area via drainage ditches or "grades" as we used to call them. When they first settled that area the goal was to farm the entire area. Trouble was it was flooded and un-farmable. So the answer to this was to dig deep ditches in a sectioned format to dry up the land. These ditches go for miles and miles and intersect with other ditches that go to other water ways. So I could see musky making all kinds of migrations into Red. The reason we are hearing about them now is the 3,000 plus anglers hitting that water on a regular basis, the odds of hooking one are way up.

This is going to keep me up tonight.

[AWH]

Chris,

Not job related. I'm just passionate, or some would say obsessed. I'm always trying to learn as much as I can about our fisheries, especially when it comes to muskies.

After the article that was in the Brainerd paper (the one that has been posted on this site) there have been two other articles in the Brainerd paper that have not been so favorable to the stocking proposal. I've since submitted an article of my own to the Brainerd paper so that we can have a positive spin on this proposal. It'll be published in this Sunday's paper. Pretty basic article really with the main purpose being to get people to be open minded and become educated before they support either side of the issue. I was pretty disappointed with the two most recent articles in the paper. They showed two rather uneducated views on the subject, neither of them being favorable.

It's going to be a long battle in order for the Gull Lake proposal to go through. But with a lot of hard work and a lot of education, I believe it can happen.

Aaron

[MuskyBrian]

This is an awesome topic. I just posted in the Ely forum last night about this, but A guide I know says he has seen multiple big Muskies sunning themsleves on Shagawa Lake in Ely. I told him that's impossible, there's none in there and no way they could get in...Then I found an old post last year of how some angler caught a 51" in there last fall, took it in and had it mounted. And read an article of how a "few" fry escape from a tiny rearing lake and migrate up some little creek channel and that is how they think they got in there...then apparently turn into 51" monsters, it really makes you think. Oh well, the more Musky waters in MN the better as far as I am concerned, especially in the Northern part of the state, I would like to see a few "quieter" lakes, Vermilion is nice but sometimes too much activity out there for my liking.

[MNBIGBEAR]

I know a guy who caught a 57" a couple years back. a couple of the scales were left in the net afterwards so he brought them to a biologist. He said they estimated the age to be 17 years old. Thought that was pretty interesting.