These comments are from the DNR Lake Erie fishery manager taken from a snippet in another forum.
About those muskys in the Huron….
Snippet…..
For the past three of four years we have been tagging walleye in the river below Flat Rock (just below Telegraph Rd at the access site) in late March/early April. [Anyone wanting to come and watch is welcome!]. During this operation we have also captured some muskys….and thought they were Great Lakes strain….just running UP the river. However, we took some fin samples and did some DNA testing (real CSI stuff!) – and found that almost all of them were Northern Musky (the northern/inland variety) and their ages coincided with the muskys we stocked in Belleville Lake in 1998, 2000 and 2003. Since this strain is not known to exist in Lake Erie/Lake St Clair – it was pretty obvious that these fish were actually running DOWNSTREAM – over 2 dams! This has made for some interesting discussions of fish mangement. We don't want to mix strains of fish….this may actually result in offspring (progeny) which are not as "fit" to survive. So….for now we have stopped stocking muskys in Belleville. FYI
Wow, big news. And a bit of a bold, potentially dangerous step if they go through with it…I wonder where do they draw the line with any flowing system, then?
I'm sure most fisheries biologists know that dams don't stop muskies, but apparently when the immediate spillage puts them in GLS spawning territory, and DNA testing confirms what everyone already knew – that's the end of that! I guess now Belleville will have to get in line when the GLS program gets going..
I've talked wit G.T. about this a few times prior to the 2003 stocking. The 2003 fish should not have gone into Belleville based on what was known but needed to be proved with genetic samples. To complicate matters those Belleville fish are NOT from our normal Thorn/Hudson fish… OOPS.
Just remember we're still in the early years of a real muskie program and there will be some growing pains along the way.
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