State could benefit from increasing lakes stocked with muskie

[Spiel]

State could benefit from increasing lakes stocked with muskie

 

April 18, 2009

Howard Meyerson The Grand Rapids Press

 

 

Ever wonder about the value of big fish? How an area known for big bass, walleye and pike can capture an angler's imagination? How anglers will fork over big bucks to make a special trip to those waters or go to extraordinary lengths to enjoy them?

 

On the West side of the state, it's big salmon and steelhead. We have a prospering lake fishery for both and active river fisheries up and down the shoreline. In Lake Erie, its walleye. Huron, too. It's lake trout in Lake Superior, large hulking fish that can reach 40 pounds.

 

Even the diminutive perch or bluegill can get angler's going when the fishing is good.

 

Size always is good for fishing. It helps local economies. Fishing gave the state a $1.7 billion boost in 2006, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey. It isn't chump change.

 

Which is why I found the DNR's new muskellunge plan interesting and important. You might think so, too. Public comments are being taken until April 30. In June, the plan goes to the Natural Resources Commission for adoption.

 

The plan calls for expanding the number of waters where big muskie can be found. Right now, there are 111 waters where they can be fished. Only 77 of those have self-sustaining populations. The rest are hatchery products. Natural reproduction doesn't occur.

 

That is mostly because the state uses northern muskies, a strain we get from Wisconsin, which need back bays and shallows to spawn. Development pressures and non-point pollution have resulted in habitat conditions where muskie eggs get covered with silt and do not hatch.

 

The new plan calls for development of Great Lakes muskie broodstocks, a strain native to Michigan and one that can spawn in rivers, rather than muddy shallows. It proposes planting and growing them in drowned river mouths and lower rivers, where they would reproduce successfully and become self-sustaining, saving the state money by eliminating the need for hatchery plants.

 

River mouths are places where muskies can feast on sheepshead, suckers and other rough fish that many feel have become too prevalent. They could reduce those numbers and create a trophy fishery at the same time, an idea many think could boost tourism.

 

"We're trying to increase angling opportunities," said Kregg Smith, a DNR fisheries biologist and co-author for the agency's new muskellunge management plan. "(This approach) will provide anglers with the opportunity to catch big muskies and a way to control non-game fish populations that are now out of control."

 

Great Lakes muskies, he said, still exist in certain Michigan waters such as Lake St. Clair, Torch, Skegemog and Elk lakes. They died off on other river systems as dams were built which limited their upstream spawning migration.

 

Easier to stock inland lakes

 

Michigan's choice to use the northern strain to stock inland waters was a matter of convenience. Wisconsin already grew them. Michigan hatcheries had little space to spare.

 

"It was easier to bring their fingerlings into our limited hatchery," Smith said. "Since that time, we have improved the facility which now gives us the opportunity to collect our own (Great Lakes muskie) eggs in Lake St. Clair."

 

Michigan started with tiger muskies, a hybrid of northern pike and muskie. But it stopped stocking them in 1992, when it switched to northern muskies.

 

The plan now calls for developing three Michigan broodstock lakes for the Great Lakes strain and keeping one northern muskie broodstock lake. The young northern muskies would be planted in waters such as Murray Lake in Kent County where there is little chance of natural reproduction. Smith estimates it will take 8 to 10 years for that to occur.

 

"We are very supportive of the plan," said Will Schultz, president of the Michigan Muskie Alliance, a group of conservation-minded muskie fishermen working to preserve, restore and protect muskies. The group promotes and practices catch and release fishing.

 

Shultz said his group has minor concerns about stocking rates and hopes to see the state adopt a two-tier legal size limit to protect spawning muskies on waters where they naturally reproduce. The plan calls for maintaining the current 42-inch minimum size limit for anglers.

 

"A 48- or 50-inch limit would be appropriate," Schultz said, explaining that Thornapple Lake muskies may be mature at 42-inches, but one grown up north might mature more slowly. It could be 7 years old and 45 inches before it reaches maturity.

 

Fun to catch a whopper

 

That's enough time, you might imagine, to produce a very big fish. Anglers do want them on the wall, Schultz said, but they recognize the inherent value of the fish. Muskies are a limited resource, not unlike sturgeon.

 

Some muskies might be 15 years old. They are capable of living 20 or 30 years. Kill them off and anglers lose future generations. The anglers take a picture instead. The muskies' value alive outweighs its value on the wall.