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INDIANA
MUSKIE PROGRAM There
aren’t many muskie anglers anywhere in the world who have landed a 50-inch
class muskie, but Indiana has one now and, Indiana’s fisheries chief
says there are more monsters out there to be caught and that the next
two or three years could produce great muskie fishing in several Hoosier
lakes and flowages. “The
first one I caught here in Indiana was up at Lake Webster. It was May 1st, it snowed and nothing
was biting. About 11 o’clock Jim Bagnoli (Indiana Muskie Hunters) asked
me what I wanted to do. We
decided to fish our way back to ramp.
I tied on a six inch bait and trolled it behind the boat.
He said they would want a bigger bait than that.
Heck, I thought it was a pretty big bait. Then, wham, the fight was on! It was big and strong. I just wanted to see the fish. Then it porpoised
a good way from the boat, and I saw its back was as big around as my
thigh,” said fisheries chief, Bill James. James
added that they had no landing net, but another boat came to them, handed
over a net and they landed the fish.
It was a 44.5 inch behemoth, and as big a muskie as you are likely
to catch anywhere, including Wisconsin, Minnesota or the St. Lawrence
River. Lake
Webster, located in Koskiusko Co., is Indiana’s premier muskie lake
at this time. The current state
record fish, Indiana’s first record muskellunge to hit the 50-inch mark,
came from Webster last year. Darrin
Conley of Winona Lake took the 42.5-lb. fish from Webster Lake on April
1, 2002. According
to James, Lake Webster, located south of Wawasee, has been stocked for
20 years and now a nationally recognized muskie spot, holding more than
just one 50-incher. Russ
Warye’s book, “Premier Waters of North America,” lists Webster as one
of the nation’s top muskellunge lakes.
That’s a pretty big leap into muskie angling lore for a state
where native muskies all but disappeared in the 1960s. Indiana’s
muskellunge stocking program now includes 10 lakes, three of which are
south of U.S. 40 and within easy driving range of this newspaper’s circulation
area. The stocked lakes and
the numbers stocked in 2002 are: *Lake
Tippecanoe, Kuskiosko Co.: 1,125 fish stocked, paid for my Hoosier Muskie
Hunters. *Barbee
Chain, Kuskiosko Co.: 4,250
*Ball
Lake, Steuben Co.: 700 *Skinner
Lake, Noble Co.:625 muskies *Loon
Lake, Noble Co.: 1,110 *Bruce
Lake, Fulton Co.: 1,976 *Palestine
Lake, near Warsaw: 1,450 *Plover
Lake, Atterbury FWA: 536 *Sandpiper
Pit, Johnson Co.: 136 *Bass
Lake, Sullivan Co.: 1,760 (Bass
Lake has shown good muskie potential, and it is just an hour drive from
Bloomington.) *Brookville
Reservoir, Franklin and Union cos.:
14,568. The
total number of young muskies stocked in 2002 was 32,106, an all-time
record said James. According
to our fisheries chief, 11,000 muskies went into Brookville in 2001. He called it “our shock absorber lake,” meaning
that any surplus muskies produced in the state’s two muskie hatcheries,
Fawn River and East Fork, go to Brookville.
The recommended stocking level is five fish per acre, and that’s
how many muskies went into the other stocked lakes. To stock Brookville at that rate would require 25,000 young fish.
Keep
in mind that Cataract Lake received surplus walleye for years, and it
has produced good walleye fishing now for several
years. Brookville has
the potential to produce big muskies.
Muskie anglers have already caught fish in the 40-inch class
there, and James predicted tremendous muskie fishing potential there
in the next three to five years. Indiana’s
stock comes from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Hoosier Muskie Hunters bought their fish
from a Minnesota hatchery, and they were under 9 inches long for stocking
in 2002. Muskies from the East
Fork Hatchery came out in two groups, one batch at 8 inches, and the
other at 9.5 inches. The Fawn
River muskies came out at an average 10.5 inches. When
stocking any game fish into existing fisheries, bigger is always better,
said James, and our hatchery mangers have learned a lot in the past
few years about successful muskie stocking.
“This
was the first year we were able to finish our fish with minnows. All of our full production fish were fed a
diet of live forage for a minimum of 30 days before they were stocked. In the past, they were raised on dry pellets.
Results were less than spectacular,” he added.
By finishing the young muskies on minnows, they learn to feed
on what they will find in the wild.
Now,
young muskies are moved from dry food tanks to minnow-infested ponds
where they don’t have to look very hard for food.
James said that 95 percent of the young fish placed in the minnow
ponds survived to be stocked, a phenomenal survival rate. You
can find more about Indiana muskie fishing, including photos and maps,
on the internet at http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/fish/fishing/muskie.htm WALLEYE
RECORD DISALLOWED According
to DFW Chief of Fisheries Bill James, Scott Hoswell’s potential new
state record walleye catch, a 14.47-lb. hog caught Dec. 11 is “not going
to be accepted,” because Hoswell caught the fish inside Port of Indiana
waters which is an area closed to fishing.
“He was up front about it and told us the truth,” said James. The fish would have topped the existing state record by a quarter
of a pound. Next
Week: More Hoosier muskellunge
information, including muskies in the Little Blue River, oldtime Hoosier
muskies, and muskellunge genetics.
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