Some feedback from the biologists that have reviewed the study outline is below. My main concern and that of Jim Diana was the use of pens to retain muskies, mostly because it hasn't been done much.

Feedback:
Pen problems…
Everyone thinks that the muskies will beat themselves up in net pens and we would have almost total mortality. Everyone who has held them for a few days in pens, as well as people who have taken them in trap nets, all commented on their problems with muskies beating themselves up on nets. So we have to rethink the netting ideas, or actually abandon them as the dnr will not likely give us permission to try it.

Tag vs. retain for study…
The design almost everyone preferred would be to catch the fish, mark them with pit tags, then release them back to the lake and try to recapture both types later. Evaluating mortality of fish taken by boom shock or fyke net for pit tagging to those handled during angling would be by return to the fyke nets/boom shocker, etc. in future years. If we were able to get a reasonable proportion of the fish in sampling, then we could probably recapture both types with enough numbers to get survival rates for both types of pit tagged fish.

Poor handling…
Most people also questioned the whole idea of handling fish poorly. Most of them believed that we already know poor handling can kill fish, and the real question is whether good handling can keep them alive at enough of a rate to allow catch and release fishing in midsummer. They would prefer to see just handled fish by angling compared to fish taken by standard sampling techniques, with the timing issue being the main point for comparison of angled fish. That is, 2 treatment groups (mid summer and either early spring or late fall fishing with hot or cool temperatures) compared to the early spring netted/shocked fish would be hard enough to fill out with fish and still get many recaptures.