I’m sure some of you suspected something was up over the last month or so with discussions about money, fundraising and how MMA can improve its financial status. There are only a few people on the MMA board that I have discussed this with. I simply didn’t, and don’t, want anyone to panic and think all is lost – because it’s not.
As most of you know money is tight within the Michigan government and Michigan needs to run on a balanced budget. Part of running a balanced budget is that extra money available for certain programs is no longer available. How does this impact us? Wolf Lake has a budget that it needs to work within, in the past (2002 and before) the budget for minnows hadn’t been an issue. Now that the biologists have found the recipe for rearing they have been relying on “extra” money to feed the muskies. That extra money isn’t available in 2006 and the shortfall will be roughly $40,000 for the requested number of fish. What exactly does that mean? Wolf Lake estimates they could raise 20,000 muskies to an acceptable stocking size. This does not mean these fish will stay in the ponds until October, instead they’ll have to be stocked earlier in the fall.
Yes, 20,000 fish is still an encellent number of fish. However, there are requests for over 40,000 fish in 2006 and some requests will not be met.
Don't panic!
Pete LeBaron and I will be working with the district biologists and discussing some creative options for stocking. Some of our lobbying will fall on deaf ears while I’m certain we’ll be successful in other areas. This will be done with the purpose of getting the right fish where they need to be in 2006.
MMA will be allocating every possible cent we can afford to Wolf Lake this summer to help feed these fish.
Expect to see some kind of fundraiser coming up very soon.
Somebody win the lottery – please.
"kid coulson" said:
Can Michigan raise more walleye fry on pelletts then subsidise the muskie
minnow budget with them?
I dont believe walleyes are fed on pellets, they are raised in ponds fertilized to produce the zooplankton and microcrustaceans that they feed on. If the walleye fishermen ever found out that the DNR was feeding walleye fry to muskies, they would raise holy hell, and there are many more walleye fishermen than muskie fishermen in the state. Why not look into finding some ponds to raise fatheads? It would seem to me to be much cheaper to raise minnows than to buy them. My 2 cents.
Ken M.
Cool Ken,
Thats kinda the road I was going down.Not to cut into the walleye stocking
numbers,but to rear a few thousand more for forage purposes.Planton
must be cheaper than pellets so that could be another plus.??????????
ps-what the walleye guys dont know wont hurt em.(unless its a 50"er
taking off one of thier didgets! 
)
57
18
1 Guest(s)