Michigan Muskie Alliance

This is my first fall seriously chasing Muskies, unfortunately it's also the first fall for some new VHS regulations. Not really sure I understand all the reg.'s yet, but I see suckers are on the prohibited species list, as is just about everything else except for Goldens & fatheads. So am I to understand that suckers will be unavailable for bait this fall? That is unless I get them from the waters I'm fishing?

Guess I'll stop by the bait dealer across town after work.

I did some looking and cant really get a straight answer. I'm not sure I would trust the answer of a bait deale on this as many have declined to follow the regs at all. If it does not come from the lake you are fishing I would say do not use it there.
Kevin

A bait dealer can sell clean fish but must go through the testing process. Catching a sucker in a local river and taking it to your nearest lake would be a violation of the VHS order. If you catch it in the same body of water it is still legal to use as bait.

So the suckers I catch from the Thornapple river would be ok to use in Thornapple Lake?

dlw681 wrote:So the suckers I catch from the Thornapple river would be ok to use in Thornapple Lake?

Not exactly... you can't transport those fish if they are alive. So you would need to catch the sucker and immediately start fishing with it. If you're going to trasnport it you would need to kill it.

you can't transport those fish if they are alive. So you would need to catch the sucker and immediately start fishing with it. If you're going to trasnport it you would need to kill it.

...so if you caught the sucker and immediately quick-strike rigged it and then decided to move , would you have to keep it in the water as you moved from spot to spot or could you put it in your livewell to move?

It would kind of blow to have to...
1. catch two suckers for each angler
2. quick-strike them at once leaving them in the water
3. troll them across the lake hoping to keep one alive for each angler until you get to your spot
4. Then each angler keeps one rod rigged and pulls(kills if still alive) the other so they can cast
5. Then repeat if live suckers are the only thing working.

Sounds too much like trolling for me to even consider bothering with it.

I take transport to mean leaving that body of water, not livewell transport across the lake. In the river to lake example from dlw, it would require OTR transport and that's where the trouble would start.

Wil,
Thanks for clearing that up, oh and by the way suckers still Suck!

dlw681- this just means don't get caught doing it
MuskyPimp- why do suckers suck?

why do suckers suck?

Oh let me count the ways.....oh alright maybe I should have typed "suckers are dicks” Granted my experience with them may be somewhat lacking, because of personal preference, but trust me they are all dicks.

First, if you are drifting even controlled drifting they use their ability to molecularly bond with any structure they can come in contact with. So then you can spend 5-10 minutes separating them from, weeds, timber, mooring floats, the Edmund Fitzgerald or whatever you drift over.

Secondly, they are more needy and demanding than my wife, if you don't remember to keep the live well plug in or keep recirculating their water they die. And they seem to die no matter if you remember to do this or not anyways.

Thirdly, half of them think that they are acrobats. When I try to fish them I go the whole nine yards, break-away rubber band through the nasal cavity anchoring the quick strike rig, shrink tube, T-ed trebles and tailed gun rigged. Eventually when I check whichever of the Brothers Karamazov that is headlining under the boat, he has twisted himself into a work of contortion that would mystify Picasso. The spinner blade of the tail gunner is wrapped in the snap, the hook of one treble is usually through the eye of the other, although if they are only performing one show that day they will hook both trebles through the eyes of the other hook.

Then you can also figure that Cyberlunge will bring one of his celebrated fighting suckers, and usually it’s not a neophyte but the grand champion who will actually charge at an approaching musky. And to make matters worse he has names for his entire fighting stable, one that comes to mind was the infamous Retardo Montalban.

I could go on but my head hurts thinking of dealing with those little pricks again this fall.

DANG! You should write a book like Pete Maina called 'Suckers Suck'.