muskie growth rates?

ccmovi8 · Post by **ccmovi8** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:10 pm

I have recently found a lake near me that was stocked with GLM. my question is what are the growth rates in muskie? the lake was stocked about 10 months ago and they were on average 10-12 inches. how long will it take for this lake to be worth fishing for a decent size Muskie.

swanezy · Post by **swanezy** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:18 pm

several years, probably in 3 years fish will be in the 30 inch range, or they should? Would depend on the forage base i assume as well

Scott Williams · Post by **Scott Williams** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:57 pm

Fingerlings stocked in the spring? And great lakes muskies?

Jim tenHaaf · Post by **Jim tenHaaf** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:03 pm

Probably not the GLS muskies... I'm assuming you saw some of them when they were little? They are mostly spotted when they are young.

ccmovi8 · Post by **ccmovi8** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:19 am

Jim tenHaaf wrote:Probably not the GLS muskies... I'm assuming you saw some of them when they were little? They are mostly spotted when they are young.

no i just foun stocking data online. I have not been to the lake yet, I was just wondering how long it would take for the fish to get to decent size seeing how they were recently stocked in the lake. they were stocked in October of 2010 and averaged 9.96 inches. I hope it is a good lake for them with plenty to forage on because it is the only lake near me that has been stocked recently.

ccmovi8 · Post by **ccmovi8** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:21 am

Scott Williams wrote:Fingerlings stocked in the spring? And great lakes muskies?

sorry i had the wrong info. it was fall and there northern's not GLM.

Post by **Will Schultz** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:38 am

ccmovi8 wrote:
Jim tenHaaf wrote:Probably not the GLS muskies... I'm assuming you saw some of them when they were little? They are mostly spotted when they are young.
no i just foun stocking data online. I have not been to the lake yet, I was just wondering how long it would take for the fish to get to decent size seeing how they were recently stocked in the lake. they were stocked in October of 2010 and averaged 9.96 inches. I hope it is a good lake for them with plenty to forage on because it is the only lake near me that has been stocked recently.

Keep in mind this table is an average of all fish sampled, it includes male and female and it is not an even number of male/female.

ccmovi8 · Post by **ccmovi8** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 12:06 pm

Thanks Will.

Chris Barton · Post by **Chris Barton** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:26 am

When viewing the table above it might be best to just focus on the Thornapple Lake information. The DNR has alot of data from the egg takes over the years and in my opinion this is the best representation of growth rates for Michigan. Yes, there are some lakes with first generation fish that are growing faster and some lakes that are growing slower. I can only assume that the DNR does not have enough data for the other lakes in the table to show really accurate growth rates.

Post by **Will Schultz** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:09 am

Cisco chain is likely the only one w/ limited data. The others are based on hundreds of fish. The numbers are drastically skewed by the greater number of male vs. female fish in the data. To know what the maximum size is for a given year class only the females should be looked at after age 3 as there can be up to a 6” size difference in an age 4 male vs. female.

LonLB · Post by **LonLB** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:22 am

Will Schultz wrote:Cisco chain is likely the only one w/ limited data. The others are based on hundreds of fish. The numbers are drastically skewed by the greater number of male vs. female fish in the data. To know what the maximum size is for a given year class only the females should be looked at after age 3 as there can be up to a 6” size difference in an age 4 male vs. female.

I hope that is the case with the Hudson fish. I will have to reconsider plans to fish it for full weekends at a time, and go elsewhere.
Unless those growth rates are because of a Male bias.

Post by **Will Schultz** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:52 am

LonLB wrote:
Will Schultz wrote:Cisco chain is likely the only one w/ limited data. The others are based on hundreds of fish. The numbers are drastically skewed by the greater number of male vs. female fish in the data. To know what the maximum size is for a given year class only the females should be looked at after age 3 as there can be up to a 6” size difference in an age 4 male vs. female.

I hope that is the case with the Hudson fish. I will have to reconsider plans to fish it for full weekends at a time, and go elsewhere.
Unless those growth rates are because of a Male bias.

I would have to go back and look at the data but if I remember right the Hudson data is a 2:1 ratio of male to female.

Steve S · Post by **Steve S** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 5:36 pm

I think the numbers are kind of skewed, but if you want to stay away from Hudson, that's o.k. with me!

LonLB · Post by **LonLB** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:22 pm

Steve S wrote:I think the numbers are kind of skewed, but if you want to stay away from Hudson, that's o.k. with me!

My plan is to head over Fri night, fish, sleep in the Bronco, or a small tent, fish all day sat, sleep, fish half the day sunday and come home.

But that will probably only be every other month.

Steve S · Post by **Steve S** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:36 pm

That sounds like a real good plan!!