I used to get real p'ed off when I saw these things happening. Now I understand that I won't change things by p'ing and moaning about them. I understand that its a legal fish, legally taken. But, legally he can kill one day. Doesn't necessarily make it moraly right. I don't mind seeing a few pike speared where there are lots of pike, where I live its a heritage thing and have friends who spear PIKE. In my family tree there have been some men who have speared. But, I personally don't condone the spearing of big muskies because I know that its been the demise of many lakes. I just wonder if the guy knows that his trophy was caught and released twice, IMO. Somehow, I just get calloused to the whole thing. This year a learned of several giants killed, one 40 + pounder from Gratiot, and another (the state record I would guess) from the St. Mary's, by hook and line fisherman. The later was a well known muskie fisherman from the area who promotes catch and release.
That's a shame. I can almost guarantee that fish came out of Sanford.
Keeping with the happy,
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Not a spreared fish or even a catch and keep, but a how not to release a fish video.
"MuskyPimp" said:
That's a shame. I can almost guarantee that fish came out of Sanford.
From an e-mail forwarded to me on Saturday:
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2008 4:22 PM
To: ??
Subject: Sanford lake musky……
This musky was speared through the ice this week in Sanford Lake by one of the guys that I work with son – Measurements are – 48" long, 45lbs. and has a girth of 27" at the belly. Watch out the next time that you go swimming in Sanford – turning out to be a real nice musky lake –
Like Steve alluded too, getting ticked doesn't do much good. Personally, I'm getting fairly immune to such pics, having seen so many up here through the years. The recent stocking really helps alleviate the pain…lotsa beer doesn't hurt either. Times are still looking up in these parts – C&R is growing, bass guys don't hate them quite as much, poaching is down, and, oh yeah, did you hear we got fingerlings in 2007! Holy balls! Halleluyah!!
So I know of the culprit a little bit. Actually one of the 'good guys' as far as our local spearers go. Spears almost all pike, has passed on many muskies in the past, and obeys all laws. I plan on taking him on a few guided trips around the state this year…who knows, maybe he'll be a member someday? If not, and he continues to spear muskies occasionally, his conservationist-type attitude needs to spread throughout the Michigan darkhouse ranks anyway. I think his 'look and release' attitude is still in the vast minority, but hopefully that's changing.
BTW, I may have baited him into to lying to all emailers, sorry about that Don. I had just heard of all the PM's he was getting by other spearers, and really didn't want the towns of Curtis, Cheboygan and Indian River showing up with pitchforks in hand. So I encouraged him to take some heat off the scarce resource and keep the lake to himself…it sounded like he already had that idea anyway, and hopefully has been fibbing to anyone who contacts him all along. Sounds like that list has been growing. Amazing traffic that Michigan Sportsman site gets. Anyway, I would encourage folks not to PM or email him anything nasty…he's got a few rude notes from musky guys, and it is certainly doing no good.
FYI, given the exact location of where she was taken, and the look of the fish, it certainly could have spent a moment in one or more of our hands up here. A beauty for sure, but it might surprise some folks to know that this hog barely cracks his top 5 of muskies that he has seen from the lake. Scary potential in these waters.
From jwoody:
I'd rather not say. (and I'm not normaly like that) I would hate to see the lake I have speared my entire life
end up like Budd, Ovid, or the other lakes with a Muskie population. I normaly let the few I see go by but this one is going on the wall!
I don't understand this statement's sentiment. The lake obviously already has a muskie population; why is he "afraid"? Afraid muskie fishermen might use "his" lake?
Can someone please explain this to me?
"hemichemi" said:
From jwoody:
I'd rather not say. (and I'm not normaly like that) I would hate to see the lake I have speared my entire life
end up like Budd, Ovid, or the other lakes with a Muskie population. I normaly let the few I see go by but this one is going on the wall!I don't understand this statement's sentiment. The lake obviously already has a muskie population; why is he "afraid"? Afraid muskie fishermen might use "his" lake?
Can someone please explain this to me?
He's afraid that Sanford will get a spearing ban put on it like Ovid and Budd.
What he is getting at there is that those lakes he listed currently have spearing bans. So he doesn't want his favorite lake to be off limits to the darkhouse fellas. The more sportsman that hear of the susceptibility of these big gals in the hard water season, the more the DNR eventually will hear, the greater the chance of updating the outdated spearing ban list…at least that's what he's thinking. Personally, I think that mentality is giving the law makers a lot of credit…change is slooooooow with such things.
edit: whoops, a duplicate post…quickdraw Schultz beat me to the punch.
Ah; thanks. But just because there's a ban in some "muskie" lakes doesn't mean EVERY lake with muskies would need a spearing ban, does it? It seems to me Ovid and Budd are much smaller than (presumably Sanford), and would be more profoundly adversely affected by having a few big muskies taken by spearing each year, so it makes sense to have a spearing ban in smaller lakes, if anywhere.
In any event, it was a legal size and I have no complaints about him taking it legally.
Touchy subject. Many schools of thought regarding that last point. Yes Ovid and Budd are considerably smaller (400, 175 vs. ~1580 acres) but the total number of muskies in Sanford is likely less than the total number of muskies in Ovid. So, would you like to protect a lake that has fewer to spare and grows trophies, or a lake that has a very solid population of mid-sized fish, but would literally be like shooting fish in a barrel if it were not protected? Should lakes that rely solely on natural reproduction be protected above all others? The musky fisherman's answer is that all of the above should be protected, but with the ingrained culture in our state, that isn't reasonable. In actuality VERY few of the naturally sustained lakes have a ban, and in locales where a ban was never in place, sportsman have always had the right to spear so removing that right on the fly would be met with huge public outcry. Better to talk in terms of closed season (perhaps a slightly less touchy subject?), or better yet maybe size limits. I'd sharpen folks' spears for free if all trophy waters (Black, Intermediate chain, Titt Chain, Margrethe, Hamlin, South Man, etc) had a 50" size limit!
Bottom line is that NO musky fisherman would like to see muskies removed from his/her favorite lakes, period. Regardless of whether their lake harbors 6 fish/acre or 0.1 fish/acre…we just love these darn things too much!
some would argue that is not a PROBLEM with a higher- or, as noted, any- size limit. Just forces you to be darn sure and err on the side of caution, right? Not likely. Be assured plenty of sub-legal fish [b]are/b] in fact un-speared, that is dead-released under the ice, or just kept anyway because the odds of being checked by CO are so low.
Some excellent statements. They do look bigger looking down the hole in January thats for sure. Kind of like that net shrinkage thing. I know for a fact that guys use their decoys as a way of measuring the fish they intend to take. Although, in low light, when most of the fish are active, its a lot harder. Here's a selfish statement…….c'mon global warming!
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