What Happened to Minnesota's Muskie Fisheries?
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- Опубліковано 20 сер 2024
- In this video Josh Borovsky continues the "What Happened" series and discusses what happened to Lake Minnetonka, The Hybrid/Lakes, The St. Louis River Estuary and the big picture of what happened to Minnesota Muskie fisheries in general. Josh also walks through the recent survey questions the MN DNR are asking on their survey about muskie management and points out some things to be careful of when reading and answering the survey questions.
Links Referenced in this video:
MNDNR Survey (link)
engage.dnr.sta...
Mille Lacs Lake Muskies What Happened (link)
• Mille Lacs Lake Muskie...
Lake Vermilion Muskies What Happened? (link)
• Lake Vermilion Muskies...
Josh, thank you for spreading the word. I am taking the survey now and letting em know that we need some more damn fish in the lakes. The metro lakes (Minnetonka, Eagle, White Bear, etc) can support more fish than they are being managed for.
Thank you for mentioning the tiger lakes. There are fewer than ever before and many of those lakes are also fished heavily for bass and other species. Bass and Walleye guys accidentally running into Tigers isn't great for the population. I know bass guys that kill the tigers that they can because they believe they are bad for other fish populations.
A few lakes stocked and managed primarily for tigers would be awesome.
Josh, kudos to you for taking the time to do this. Thank you.
I'm one of the
Tiger twins
John Tahedl
Your pulse on the musky world is awesome .
Great job 👏 👍 😊
Awesome video & content, Josh! Thanks for sharing this valuable info!
Thanks Josh!
Great vid, Josh! Thanks.
If anybody wants to save some time. Basically, the DNR stocks less muskies. Therefore, you catch less. you’re welcome) the only way this changes is if we push the DNR to stock more fish
This is an awesome video, thanks for sharing.
A have a couple of thoughts;
When you look at targeted survey data, there are often lakes that have similar Muskie densities to years where we’ve experienced better fishing. I think there is a strong correlation between newly stocked lakes and fish catch ability. I think if they discontinue stocking in certain lakes they should establish stocking in a new lake to create a new opportunity.
I’m curious how you all would feel about a stamp similar to trout or walleye that all proceeds go into Muskie stocking/ research?
Lastly, in your figures, I would be curious to see it CPUE by anglers vs year.
Thanks again for an informative video
I would be all for a Muskie stamp especially if they allowed us to buy as many as we wanted per person. However, I’ve been told that the money that it would cost to run and create the stamp may cost more than the amount of money it would generate. I have a hard time believing that though.
Regarding CPUE. I have suggested that Muskies Inc should include this in their lunge log. That woud mean people make entries every time they fish Muskies even if they don’t catch any. Muskies Canada does this on their log and it helped tip off the Ministry that something was wrong on specific fisheries (I think St. Lawrence might have been one of them?) because they could throw angling hours changing drastically. So it helped move things faster and they went out and started doing assessments to determine what was wrong.
There is a number of hours since last fish caught in the lunge log, but the data is all over the place. I’m assuming many anglers don’t log their hours on the water very well.
@@scott6031I am talking about each time you fish on specific water record how many hours you spent on that water what you caught. If you caught nothing, you still make an entry for that day and that you caught nothing. This would give Muskies inc some specific data they could share with dnr. It would tell us catch rates on all water everywhere not just MN. The question I posed was is the lunge supposed to help the angler or fisheries. Right now it helps anglers but not the fisheries. This change would potentially help the fisheries and reduce wait times to resolve issues when fisheries take a dip.
Awesome video. I 'm from Ohio and fish Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Need to fish Minnesota more. Beautiful country in both.
Good video, thanks for the info Josh.
Thank you for making this video
SLR should be world class. As of now I catch maybe 12-15 fish a season in 3-400 hours. It’s absolutely awful compared to what it was ten years ago.
The current plan is 2500 GL strain fish, I can’t remember if it’s yearly or every other year stocking. 2500 fish in a system connected to Lake Superior is laughable. I wonder how that compares to Green Bay l’s stocking fish per acre numbers.
I have more action going to lakes that aren’t even supposed to have muskies in them. It’s depressing.
Awesome recap Josh! Sad situation for us Minnesota musky guys. Walleye anglers probably outnumber musky anglers 10 to 1 in Minnesota. I am sure they have mobilized their forces this week to complete thousands of survey entries, so it's concerning to think about how the results may turn out.
I'm from Ohio and fished Lake Vermilion last year during the last week of June and I can tell you, out of all the boats I saw and Anglers I spoke with I was the only muskie fisherman. Unfortunately, I made the 1000mile drive for the great skulking when my friends were having nearly 10 fish days back home.
I fish the st. Louis river normally a couple times a week in the summer for muskie. I think that river is in a very good place right now. There are tons of fish in that 26-35 inch range and most of those sized fish don't have tags so it probably means their natural reproduction. The main reason i think people don't fish it, is from the water clarity from the dredging. So on a good day you can see down a foot if that during peak dredging season. But they are getting rid of the pollution in the river from a long time ago from the steel plant and logging mills. But they are almost done from my understanding. That river just needs time and it will become one of the best muskie, walleye and sturgeon factories/destinations in the world in 15 years or so. They just introduced the great lakes muskies in 2019. Hopefully from what they are doing some day they wont have to stock that river from cleaning it up and it all being natural reproduction.
Biggest question I have to our DNR. WHY’RE THEY REMOVING ADULT MUSKIES FROM OUR LAKES I live in itasca county and it’s not just one lake they’ve done this on. For example, North Star lake near marcell in itasca. Removing full adult Muskies for what reason? And what did they do with them? My guess is selling to another state? Idk I can’t imagine adults survive well being transported that far. But why isn’t this public news for one, and for two why’s it even being done in general. We need more stocking and our DNR is out here removing fish? This is absolutely a problem and if you think North Star is the only lake this is being done on you’re wrong. It’s happening and they’re keeping it quiet. I’ve seen the videos and proof from locals on the lake it was happening on.
I have been involved in volunteer efforts with the DNR many times over the years, and have spoken to a large number of state biologists.
I do not believe there has ever been fish removed by them on North Star. I would encourage you to reach out to the grand rapids fisheries during business hours.
That sounds strange. I can see fish getting removed from water for a diet study or tagging. If they are leaving the lake entirely the only thing I can think of removal for genetics reasons or dead fish from survey nets. You should reach out to the Grand Rapids fisheries office and ask. I know they have a Muskie biologist that works there who would give you a straight answer I think.
I couldn’t see why they would do that. It’s a relatively young musky lake to begin with. I can’t see there even being many full grown adults there.
@@mattjohnson7746 It was full of nice fish but it’s changed so much now. Less fish forsure. Idk why they would take fish out but I sure hope it ends.
An adult musky can be 28in lol
Bryant and Crystal are 100% still being stocked. Dnr website shows both lakes alternating years with the last recorded being 2022. I have video from last summer of several 40+ in a morning.
Crystal Lake in Hennepin County was discontinued and lost stocked in 2017. Crystal Lake in Dakota county is still being stocked. Bryant was also removed from the west metro fisheries plan and discontinued in 2017. If you visit the west metro fisheries and west metro fisheries pages you can see their current management plan for both hybrid and pure strain Muskies. It only includes the 8 lakes I mentioned for tigers and it been that way for at least fours years. I emailed East and west metro fisheries about this back in 2020 when I noticed the change and also notified the TC chapter of Muskies Inc. It’s my understanding that chapter offer to continue stocking all the tiger lakes themselves rather have us lose them and that offer/request was denied by west metro fisheries. That being said, I saw a photo of small tiger caught out of Bryant and knew something weird was going on as there should not be any that size in lake. I reached out to DNR and asked how this could be and did not get a response. However, I did just look on lakefinder yesterday and see that Bryant did indeed get stocked after a 6 year gap of no stocking. (Which explains that small tiger) It is unclear whether this was a one time stocking or whether they plan to start Bryant back up again and continue. I started digging around on lake finder and discovered Cedar Lake in Scott County (another lake that was discontinued and had been for quite a few years) was also stocked in 2023. Again it’s not clear if this is a one time stocking or they plan to start up cedar again too. (It’s certainly not included on their current management plan) I emailed west metro fisheries yesterday and can let you know what I find out and will try to find a way to update this once I get definitive info.
@@joshborovskyfishing bryant I can believe because I’ve beat that lake up with one 29” fish
@@joshborovskyfishing good to know though. Always good to stay on top of what’s happening. Love the video. Just wanted to let you know that Crystal appears still active unless the dnr site is off, which it absolutely could be
@@joshborovskyfishing to clarify. The 29 incher on bryant was caught two summers ago. The tigers were caught at hennipen county Crystal last July.
Crystal was discontinued in 2017. That year was a very heavy stocking with yearlings for the size of the lake. (Basically one yearling = 3 fingerlings. One fingerling per surface acre would be a high density and that particular year class in 2017 was 4x that. So there should be some left in there. Last year they should have been around 43” this coming season they will be “47 or so but there will be less than last year. (Seems like we start losing fish after age 5 and usually by age 8 they are almost all gone. Heres the link to stocking in last ten years on Crystal (Hennepin).
www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/showstocking.html?downum=27003400&context=desktop
At this years Musky expo here in Minnesota the DNR had a booth. I walked up the guy manning the both and asked if he was the complaint department! 😂 I did have a nice conversation with him. He sounded on board with what you were saying. I asked why the hell Woman lake doesn’t get supplemental stocking? His answer, Lake Association. They didn’t want it. Once again it’s politics that dictates biology and
Nothing more. I’m 53 and just
Seriously started musky fishing in 2018. Gull lake could be the next boom to bust lake in the cycle?
Do they take public money for stocking? Can we all donate $100 to save a Muskie a year for next 10 years?
I wish. One of the suggestions I made in the survey was for them to determine a stocking quota for each Lake. I know at times they would like to put more fish into the lakes but have limited resources and budgets to do so. My suggestion was to make a separate additional quota of surplus fish that could be stocked with private money, if people are willing to donate or fund the stocking.
I got involved with all this 10 years ago when I was doing a lot of Musky Inc. seminars and kept hearing them say at their meetings that they had raised a bunch of money for stocking, but the Dnr wouldn’t let them stock fish anywhere.
It is maddening to me that there’s lots of money out there that people want to spend on stocking muskies, and they simply can’t do it because of Dnr is holding them back .
Has there ever been a legislative attempt to alter what the DNR has discretion to decline in terms of private stocking ?
@@PattmanlaxWhat’s interesting is the dnr is fine private walleye stocking. Look on lake finder for Minnetonka and look at how many walleyes get stocked privately and compare to dnr quotas and their plan for walleyes but what they are allowing on top of it. The Muskie crowd is treated differently.