2009 Stocking Update

[AdsBot [Google]]

I would put my 2 cents in that Silver Lake in Spokane county has all of the muskies it needs. It's probably the smallest lake that holds them, and I hardly go a trip without at least seeing one. The 50 inch limit sounds good to me.

Problem with Silver is that it gets a lot of pressure and there is a lot of poaching that goes on out there from fisherman that don't know the regs and fisherman that don't care. I fish Silver often and I think that the numbers are not as good as a couple of years ago, mostly from fish being kept or not handled properly and you see them floating.
-Frank - Musky Hunter

[Don Wittenberger]

My experience with all of our tiger muskie lakes is that the number of fish caught follows a bell-shaped curve. At first, no one pays much attention to them, so a handful of guys who get in on the fishery early catch large numbers of them. Then the word gets out and more people start fishing for them. It stays "hot" for a season or two, then the catch rate declines sharply. I have seen this happen over and over. Last year, both Tapps and Silver lakes were "hot," and I won't be a bit surprised if there's a dramatic fall-off in these two fisheries this year. That would be entirely consistent with the pattern that has occurred at our other lakes.

I'm not a biologist, so any explanation I offer is guesswork on my part. I don't think it's necessarily a result of the population being decimated, although I'm sure angler mortality (harvest + unsuccessful releases) is a factor. I think there are probably several causes working together. (1) After the muskies have been in the lake a few years, they've eaten down the target forage species to some extent, so the food supply is smaller; (2) as the muskies age, they're bigger and consume more food, so a given food supply supports fewer fish; (3) fish that have been caught and released become warier of humans, and (4) they change their behavior in response to boating traffic and fishing pressure.

I'd like to remark on the latter two factors in more detail. WDFW radio tracking studies at Newman Lake showed the tiger muskies are highly mobile, cruising as much as 9 miles in one day. I personally think that depends on the individual fish, i.e., some cruise a lot but others are couch potatoes (I've seen fish lay in the same spot for several days). A few years ago, a Canadian radio tracking study reported by Musky Hunter Magazine revealed that test fish which were caught and released (a) relocated to a different part of the lake and never again went to the area where they were caught, and (b) never again hit the type of bait they were caught on. It's been well known for years in Wisconsin that muskies in lakes with heavy boating traffic and/or fishing pressure drastically modified their feeding habits: Instead of feeding during the day, they lay dormant (usually in deep water) during daylight hours and moved into the feeding areas after dark. The fishermen who picked up on this habit change began fishing for them at night and cleaned their clocks until night fishing became popular; after everyone was doing it, they became harder to catch at night. What all of this suggests is that muskies are more vulnerable to anglers while they're still naive but eventually get "educated" and become more effective at avoiding anglers.

Anecdotal information from other anglers and my own experience suggests that muskies move from their haunts to new areas of the lake in response to fishing pressure. Typically, they go deeper, and move off the cover that is frequently worked by fishermen, as well as changing location. Last year at Merwin Lake, our boat caught only 1 fish in the areas that were most productive in past seasons, and the rest were caught in areas we normally didn't fish because we'd never seen fish there. This indicates to me that Merwin's muskies have changed their hangouts, although I also feel there's far fewer muskies in Merwin today than there were a few years ago. Which brings me back to the matter of angler mortality. Although I haven't observed people killing muskies, I definitely feel that's going on. In addition, even in the angler group that releases them, there undoubtedly are release failures. Last year, our releases at Merwin seemed more difficult; we had to keep most of the fish in my 60-inch livewell for 15 to 20 minutes to revive them, whereas in past seasons that was rarely necessary and we normally just put them back into the lake and held their tails until they were ready to swim away. The only explanation I can think of is that maybe the average size of the fish we caught last year was larger, and the larger fish require a longer revival time because of their greater body mass. It does seem to me it's easier to release small fish.

[Rosann G]

Don I think you are on to something. Each and every year I find I need to find new water and change presentations. I have learned that if I can find the active smallies depth, that will be the depth that I will find the Tigers. Each year I start my search with smaller baits in deeper waters, as the temp rises I will up size my bait. I do try to work the areas that have been go in the past because of the ambush points are just to good to pass up. I often think maybe one of the fish from the other side of the lake will chose this area when the one I caught left. We need to keep our minds open and our fishing lines wet.
Hope to see you soon
Bill