"Mayhem" said:
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oe=55575E3Aanother picture of the Black lake 53". This @#$% makes me want to vomit.
Some of those pictures/videos of the Indians piling up muskies in wisconson just proves how easy it is to spear muskies. They decoy well and aren't at all skittish like a pike. They just sit there staring until "thunk" its all over.
Whats funny (not really) about this fish is I had a buddy of mine telling me on Saturday about this huge musky that got speared that he had seen a photo of. I asked him where at and he said "Tahquamenom River". Knowing that wasn't true I had him send me the FB post he saw it on, and sure enough it was this one. The guy who had speared it kept claiming it was a Tahq river fish, which of course to anyone with any musky knowledge is obvious BS. I'm not sure why he'd be worried about other people moving in on his area though, we all know spearing doesn't negatively affect musky populations, right?
Please please please can this year's booth at the sportshow be an anti spearing booth. a crazy one like a bunch of evangelicals, you can't leave till you join us, and if you don't agree with me I'll heal you and make you fall over on the floor crying in repentance!( no offense to evangelicals, just trying to make a point of persistence, not fruitcakery)
"vano397" said:
Please please please can this year's booth at the sportshow be an anti spearing booth. a crazy one like a bunch of evangelicals, you can't leave till you join us, and if you don't agree with me I'll heal you and make you fall over on the floor crying in repentance!( no offense to evangelicals, just trying to make a point of persistence, not fruitcakery)
LMAO!!! Sure — as long as the letters MMA are not on anyone's shirt or on any posters, pics, brochures, cards, or the like.
"Mayhem" said:
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oe=556CFBA7Hamlin lake.
Ryan this looks like the guy that was telling us about the multiple undersized fish his group speared last year.
"Mayhem" said:
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oe=556CFBA7Hamlin lake.
Circle the wagons! [smilie=bud.gif]
Its so hard to refrain from going nuts that people are doing something that is perfectly legal, and know that the frustration is better turned towards the people allowing them to do it… and also have the patience to wait for the process of getting it done!
Ran into a guy who claims to have "speared 5 or 6 muskies out of Gun Lake over the past several years"…….. When i pushed him on it, he told me "anyone can catch one on a hook, it takes talent to stick one though a hole in the ice"!
I fear even if season dates change, these ICEHOLES are still going to kill muskies every chance they get.
A question I have been pondering… I know the spearing crowd is justifying their sport by "history". Thing is, most lakes don't have a history in the sport. why would austin or murray or any of the titt chain, etc. be considered historic??? Also can you imagine if we were allowed to net follows and count them as fish caught? I know it'd be tricky but is their form of "angling" really that easy. I get the anti spearing thing a little more every time I think about it. Who's next, bow fisherman??? I guess I just really don't buy the discrimination thing. unlike with the fly only trout thing with zero scientific basis and only on technique, this is a matter of the ability to harvest or not to harvest, when you limit yourself to only killing the fish, you limit your own ability to go fishing if that harvest is not scientifically/ethically beneficial to the resource.
Thanks to all of you that are directly involved with keeping muskie spearing off limits on LSC. Thanks to everyone else indirectly involved with educating friends & family about muskies and the need to protect them. Every year on the winternet it seems we get to see & participate in the never ending debate about muskie spearing and we all get irritated by the pics of speared muskies. Hopefully one day Michigan will be able to see its true potential as a world class muskie destination. History/tradition has commonly come up as an argument for muskie spearing, but I think the bigger point being made on behalf of the pro muskie spearing crowd has to do with harvest/mortality and the inability of hook & line CIR fisherman to prove 0% mortality. Sure a speared fish is a dead fish, but I guarantee you that some of us have killed a muskie or two because of delayed mortality. I'm sure many of the MDAA crowd feel we CIR fisherman kill more muskies during our open water season of 7-8 months than they do during the 3-4 months of spearing season. Because of this, they feel it would be discriminatory to ban muskie spearing. I'll concede that muskies die every month at the hands of hook & line fisherman, but what is not debatable is the drastic and negative impact on a lake's muskie population when spearing is allowed. That to me is the most frustrating thing about these online debates-the fact that some people don't even care or want to consider options that are better for the resource. I'd like to think most people are like my brothers. They like to hunt & fish and harvest animals throughout the year. However, they are reasonable people and when presented with the right information, they will do what's best for the resource. I guarantee you that if they weren't informed about muskies years ago, they would have no problem sticking or keeping a muskie from Cooke or Loud because the regulations would have said it was completely legal & they would have eaten the fish. They now have a greater appreciation for muskies and would have no problem setting someone straight if they started yapping about muskies eating all the panfish/walleye or saw or heard about illegal harvesting. There will always be some outliers that you will never be able to convince. We all just need to continue to work on the ones that are willing to listen and hope that changes can be implemented at the state level. It's definitely hard to take emotion out of the equation. I'd love to be able to reach my fist through the modem and punch some of these knuckleheads right in the mouth. Fishing season can't get here soon enough!
i do believe that i am starting to experience the overall anger of spearing that most of you have been fighting for quite some time possibly. my first reaction is… what lake and where ill walk out and settle this with my fists. very childish and wont fix anything i know but my point is it bothers me that much. my father was involved in small town politics and it progressed to state wide when he ran for state representative and i always helped from door to door and parades and so on. it was important to win your home town, which i take thornapple lake to heart and try to do so with anyone and everyone that i come across on the waters when i fish. also it helped to have the right people in your corner and faces that the public new and respected to back you up. the spearing problem in the muskie community spreads further than our state and via facebook now i read about it from minnesota and wisconsin. what i dont understand is how come the well known superstars of the muskie fishing arent speaking out on this issue. i dont understand how come when i watch musky hunter, john gillespie, in fisherman, joe bucher, and mania's show that i have never heard this come up. its a very touchy issue but for how sincere they are about the sport when it comes to every issue but this. i ultimately was turned on to this sport by musky hunter. im not the only one. i have no clue even to fathom how to ask this but their faces and a comment for minutes if not seconds on this topic is more valuable then 1,000 hours that i could spend trying. i know it seems far fetched but i will start emailing on a regular basis if someone can give me an address or i can google i just didnt know if someone could give me a "jump start" ill andy duframe this up (shawshank redemption style) and consistently ask for support if you all think its a possible route to go for success. there are other names i know exists that i dont know of ill reach out to all. i supervise on third shift and sometimes spend alot of time staring at a computer at facebook and other meaningless youtube clips. i think that this age of technology is something that we can use to our advantage to the fishing community and getting a 5 second clip on the scientific negative effect of spearing on national television is truly priceless. i know that these individuals feel the same way as we do and most likely it is more important to them than it is to most of us if not all of us combined; it is their life. they eat, breathe, and sleep esox. to truly love this sport the way that they do and to not address this i dont fully understand. i know the ramifications of speaking out against certain factions when running a business can make people shy away, but a line could be drawn especially when the general public i feel is starting to love muskies more and more by the year. new baits, new crowd, expansion in states.. strike when the iron is hot. Spearing holds all of this back and we all see it happen and hate it as a group. this topic needs a billboard face to speak out on this and people will follow suit, or at least i believe that. advertising is huge and yet i only see youtube videos from regular fisherman that are causing wake in this sport that maybe 10 years ago wouldnt exist. i know this is a longshot to say the least, but i cant see how if this happened the public opinion would grow huge in our favor. my father doesnt muskie fish but will still call me and talk about what saric says and he is intrigued. he will be at the banquet this year my sickness rubs off on those around me. these famous individuals could be a beacon of light on a "dark" subject that really more people should hear and see photographic evidence on how over harvesting takes away from not only us, but the future of the sport. i would rather be a part of the domino effect to help fix this problem than catch a state record anyday. we all so much pride in this but all of our voices together wouldnt touch an episode of musky hunter that spent 2 minutes of airtime to speak about this issue. if not on air for whatever reason a podcast even. somewhere a start. i want to take pictures that seem horrific and airbrush them on t shirts and wear them around. i hate sitting and complaining about it i want to "campaign" this issue to the world somehow… its so frustrating. once again i know its such a long shot but it seems to make the most sense at getting the general public to help us out on are fight! sorry for the rant i cant help it…… [smilie=brickwall.gif]
When talking about "personalities" they need be careful with what they say, bad press can make sponsors leave. That said some of these guys will make their feelings known and some would rather not. They're not in the business of making enemies, they're in the business of putting out a good show or magazine and keeping sponsors happy. Pete and I talked extensively about spearing on the phone the other night. He's always been outspoken about their issues in Wisconsin with treaty spearing. Trust me, they're much worse off with the treaty spearing. Oddly enough, Pete is taking some heat right now from muskie anglers in WI for appearing with Gillespie because one of Gillespie's sponsors is a casino despite his history of speaking out against spearing. Just this fall I was shooting a show in N. Michigan and said to the host "I would love to make this show about the potential of this area and how it's being held back by over harvest"… his response "I would loose sponsors over a show like that". Bottom line, they're running a business and it's all about pleasing sponsors and putting out a product that's palatable for the masses. Even Keys, with tens of thousands in sponsorship from Muskies, Inc., doesn't talk about fisheries issues.
The simple answer would be no, there's not a single person on a national show that is ever going to address this issue or anything equally controversial.
The rubber meets the road right here with groups like MMA that are willing to do the work that makes fisheries better. Our best opportunity to reach the general public is through sport shows but despite all the anger and members saying they "want to do something" or "how can I help", we have an impossible time staffing these shows.
On the issue of short fish being speared on Hamlin, there are a ton of reports. I relay all I get to Tonello or the CO.
I finally this year asked Scot Heintzelman in Cadillac to get after Lansing to have Dave Kenyon or Bob Gwizdz hop on a brood lake and do some top-down photos in the water. A lot of these guys are claiming they can't tell the difference when they throw the spear. I know it's no excuse, but it seems pretty sad to me that a search for any resources on this yielded just one Minnesota darkhouse publication from the 1990s. I have a copy of that and it really isn't that special. I know you guys want an outright ban. I wish you luck with that. I would settle for some education and am hoping like hell that the GLS are lighter colored in their spearing holes at the 25-35-inch size.
Speaking of the rubber meeting the road, if you have yet to send in your $ for the upcoming banquet I would urge you to do so. It's the biggest fundraiser for the MMA, and even if you can't attend, consider sending in money anyway as a donation. The value any of us get out of this club is surely worth more than the annual membership rate. Another thing I would urge everyone to do is to commit to taking 2-3 people out muskie fishing this year & use it as an opportunity to educate & build some excitement around our fisheries. I had a great time taking some newbies out last year. One happened to be the sports writer for the Grand Haven Tribune who ended up publishing an article about our muskie fishing experience (although I had no idea he was going to write an article). The other guys were just friends or acquaintances of mine that have never fished for muskies, but we all know the excitement that you can get even if you just have a follow or two, and hopefully they can take away something positive from the experience.
"tundrawalker00" said:
On the issue of short fish being speared on Hamlin, there are a ton of reports. I relay all I get to Tonello or the CO.
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Have you received any feedback from Tonello or law enforcement on this issue?
The short fish misidentification thing is what really drives me nuts, because no matter what regulations we are successful in implementing it will likely remain a problem on waters that have a lot of pike spearing pressure. Of course our buddy Mr. Botek will tell you that he has never once heard of someone spearing a short muskie. [smilie=shrug.gif]
I've challenged Mike Holmes on this before and begged them to put something together so spearers could ID fish. Just proves my argument that they really don't care about the resource. There's a night and day difference if they know what they should be looking for.
Anyone have a chainsaw and an ice house so we can go to a couple different lakes and get some photos of pike and muskies? If they're not willing to do it then we should be the leader in education.
I'd say they've all been in the last 3-4 years. Most are second-hand, but last year I had a guy call me and tell me first hand about spearing 2 in one week. He called to ask if there were any resources to help him with ID. Sounded like he was gonna puke on his shoes. I tried to get him to call Tonello directly.
I'd say I've relayed maybe 8-10 over four years, but it's usually something I hear about weeks, months or a year later. Every winter I hear a few "last winter" stories. I can say that our COs have exhibited heavy pressure this winter, particularly the last few weekends. I got stopped coming off the lake on 1/31 and they were buzzing around on snowmobiles last Saturday night, stopping at every shanty.
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