Complete bummer there. But a good lesson to learn from nonetheless – pushing muskies in some areas is just too much of an uphill battle (especially when other areas/lake associations are begging for them!) Tough to conceed such an awesome resource due to unfounded public pressure…sounds a lot like the Gun Lake tale I suppose. Can't win 'em all…

Part of me, probably most of me, agrees completely, but another part, honestly, wonders if it's worth the effort in this particular, loaded case. Just giving my gut feel here. In a perfect world, it would be great to see sound biology win out – after the Long Lake survey, public meetings with the lake association and such, the DNR presents the case for muskies in Long and eventually the locals see the light.

But on the other hand if the majority of anglers continue banding together and whacking all year classes as soon as they become catchable (ala South Manistique, Iron Lake, etc), I just wonder if those fish would be better served somewhere else in the near term? Maybe that's taking too cynical a view…it's just that the wild card here is the extremely high demand and value of fingerling muskies in the state right now. Hate to think that if the fish would have gone into, say Hamlin or others instead, they would be welcomed with open arms, for the most part, by the DNR AND the public. Anyway, I guess in the end the big step forward here that I kinda overlooked is that the DNR is actually sticking to their guns, and siding with science – something that hasn't been done in the past for the Guns/Irons/Murphies of the state.

This is a tough one for sure…gets me riding the fence the more I think about it. But being an optimist, like Rocky, I do think that people can change. We have seen improving acceptance of muskies in the Titt chain big time over the past 2-4 seasons, especially by the huge number of bass guys.

There are other examples of change around here that I can personally attest to: one spearer that proudly told tales of whacking 30 undersize muskies in a season, 8 in a single day, now obeys size/creel limits and acutally passed on the fish of a lifetime because he had already taken a ("much smaller"!) 50"er that morning, and was only spearing dinner (pike) the rest of the day. The baitshop guys, who 5 years ago I personally heard telling customers to slash every musky before releasing, now pushes c&r on all muskies, and warns of violating due to the increased DNR presence on the lake. Set musky lines were commonplace even 3 years ago, though not nearly as much as 5-8 years ago, but now I rarely, if ever see one.

The change didn't come overnight, but through a lot of RAP calls and baitshop/boat launch chatting (mostly by Greg Mochty, Dan Periard, Ron Berry, Bryan Saenz and Scott Scarpelli), there have been major improvements.

Hard to predict the future for Long, though. We had the advantage here of having a good-sized group of great sportsmen, who happened to be musky guys…from what I've heard these kind of sportsmen are seriously outnumbered up there.

And I think Cyberlunge's 'wait until the old bastards die' is actually quite poignant. I have heard c&r fishermen bash all sorts of harvesters, but it seems like the new-age harvester isn't so bad. They typically obey the laws, appreciate the resource, and have a better big-picture view of what they're doing. For some reason the 'old bastards' I talk to still think the well is endless, and they are somehow doing the world a favor by killing every musky, snake, deer, beaver, racoon, hawk, or whatever creeps, crawls, flies or swims within 40 yds of them. Guys like these gave the spearing crowd around here quite a bad rap…since getting to know some of the more conservationist-minded (generally less ancient) spearers I have come to respect their sport quite a bit actually. Still some near-dead poachers around here of course…I think mother nature will breathe a big sigh of relief when they are finally the ones who turn into fertilizer.

All too true… there is a large faction of guys up here that are catch and kill and target them specifically. In their ignorance they believe they are the only ones who know that they exist. We (Dave and I) try to keep our tempers and educate when we can. We are starting to make small inroads here and there but much like culture Northern Michigan is years behind its southern counterparts. Up here people dont buy a house on the lake to fish, it is to impress, so they are only concerned about easy to catch fish to meet the need of the spoiled "I want it NOW!!" little brats that run around the lake. I can only hope that some of the projects pan out, whether it be SE, SW or North. Then at least we can show an example from our own state as a model for success.
Kevin