Scrappy wrote:Will, I was a bit taken aback with the stat you quoted for fingerlings going into the Titt Chain. That is quite a few fish in the chain as a whole but that isn't really a fair comparison in my mind.
That was exactly my point and why we all need to be on the same page. The Titt. chain has been stocked with all the fish it needs, the problem is they aren't going where they need to go. If 23,000 fish had been split between Sanford and Wixom over the last four years would anyone be complaining? Probably but
I hope not.
There is plenty of room in the program for the newer lakes if we continue to encourage the DNR to evaluate the stocking list. If Secord, Ross and Smallwood were removed from the list then it allows fish for Sanford and Wixom without the new lakes being a consideration. Encouraging the DNR to remove some lakes and reduce prescription numbers in lakes like Murray, Ovid, Round, Long, Osterhout, etc.
The problem is that when these prescriptions were written they didn't have a good idea of what would happen. Now that we have some data we can see that most of these lakes don't need to be stocked at 4/acre unless we're trying to start a reproducing population (Winyah, Hamlin, Margrethe). The put and take lakes like... well... nearly every LP lake on the list should probably be stocked at no more than 2/acre every other year.
Lastly, as said numerous times... I know everyone wants "their" lake stocked up to its potential. However, to keep throwing tons of fish at lakes that will never have natural reproduction is just buring resources. The top priority of MMA and the MI-DNR should be the lakes like Winyah, Hamlin, Margrethe, Long and the numerous UP lakes that have natural reproduction. If the strain we're stocking doesn't reproduce there then lets find one that does.
What if the muskie program goes away?
If we keep dumping tons of fish into these lakes, regardless of their trophy potential, in 15 years what will we have? Most importantly, what will we have left behind for our children and their children? Unfortunately this discussion is a perfect example of our society and the "what's in it for me?" attitude. If all we're doing is supporting a put an take program then maybe we need to create a pay to play type system like they have at game farms. You pay your $250/yr to fish on a lake and that money goes toward stocking that lake.
The more these discussions progress I realize maybe I'm not the right guy for this job. In 30 years I want to be able to talk to Tyler's son/daughter about how they caught their first muskie on a lake that MMA helped put on the map. I don't want to reminisce with Tyler about how we used to have a bunch of lakes with muskies but they're all gone because my generation was short sighted.
Self interest is for the past, common interest is for the future.
