50 Inch Musky Regulation
Ross Dary
Musky fishing is a sport that is growing exponentially. There are more musky fisherman now than ever before, which I believe is an important reason for more management of this species. Muskies grow to be the largest fish in most inland Wisconsin waters, and in order to reach their potential they need to be protected. Right now the regulations throughout much of the state are set at a 34 inch harvestable size limit, but this is much lower than their potential as they can grow to be well over 50 inches. This species doesn’t even begin reproduction until they are about 37 inches long.
In order to reach a sustainable population the size limit needs to be raised significantly. Currently stocking muskies is common practice, but I believe this could be changed with many other benefits. If the size limit is raised it will not only create a sustainable population, but also will increase the size of this trophy fish.
Does anyone else have experience with fishing for musky and have you caught any? If you have I think you can relate with me on how exciting a single fish can be. Personally I believe the bigger fish the better when fishing for musky, and I believe catch and release is the only way to accomplish this goal.
In my musky career I have fished in Wisconsin for 8 years, and have rarely seen a fish that is larger than 45 inches in length. This past summer I took a trip to Minnesota to go fishing, where the size limit is 50 inches, and boated a 51” fish (which was healthily released), and saw multiple that were over 48” in length. I believe along with other factors, the bigger fish seen and caught here is largely because of the high size limit.
Do you have any similar experiences fishing? Do you think the size regulations are having that large of an effect on the musky population in Minnesota and Wisconsin? In allowing the fish to become so large before they are kept they are able to reproduce creating a larger natural population. This means more large fish and more opportunities to catch them. To this day the weekend trip to Minnesota was the best weekend of fishing in my life. Having spent the entire past two summers in northern Wisconsin fishing this is very surprising to me, as I would expect to have equal days in both places since Wisconsin is the musky capital of the world.
I am a firm believer in the push to get the size limit for musky raised to a 50 inch minimum. Do you agree that this action would be beneficial to Wisconsin musky fishing? Are there any disadvantages to this plan that you know of? Are there any different suggestions that would be useful for helping increase the musky fishery in Wisconsin? Even if the regulations aren’t changed just remember you can always practice catch and release to ensure a healthy population and give the chance for others to catch their own trophy!
5 comments:
Some years ago, I went on my first (and only) Musky hunt up near Hayward. After wearing out my arm casting and reeling, I did catch a 40-incher right next to the boat; but I lost it when I dropped my rod and shouted OMG!!!!
That sounds like a lot of things I've done learning how to fish for muskies. I think I've been able to figure out almost every way to lose a fish, but it still is fun every time!
I can't say that I have actually gone musky fishing. However I fish walleyes and panish very often. I just havn't got into it yet because it is almost it's type of fishing or sport and it is just another expensive investment. However I have many friends that fish for musky's as much as they can. From talking to them they enjoy it a lot and would like to catch bigger ones. They are also very carefully with them to be sure they stay alive since they are a bit uncommon to catch a nice one. I would have to agree with you that if the size limit was set to 50 inches it would produce many more and much larger fish because you said muskys don't reproduce until 37 inches. I hope the regulations change soon and I can get into musky fishing.
I've never gone muskie fishing before, but I do think I'd be in support of raising size limit, and I agree with Adam also, especially with their not reproducing until a certain size. I find that little fact interesting. I didn't know that!
I was curious too, if you knew more about the stocking of muskies. I read somewhere a while ago that there are different "strains" of muskie that grow and reproduce faster stocked in other areas. And I think I understood it correctly that there might have been concern as far as keeping genetic integrity among Wisconsin muskies "pure" and that they (I think it was the DNR) were hesitant to stock fish from other strains. Do you know anything about this? I thought it was interesting.
Whoops that last comment was from Liz O'Brien
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