Michigan Muskie Alliance

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.

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

Fingerlings stocked in the spring? And great lakes muskies?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thanks Will.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

That sounds like a real good plan!!