MN musky size rule to max out?

[Lee Borgersen]

            Minnesota muskie minimum size rules could max out

A 50-inch muskellunge is a big fish.

But is it too small to keep? What about 52 inches? 54?  

How about 55 inches? That's the statewide minimum size limit being pushed at the Minnesota Capitol by muskie aficionados, a full 7 inches longer than current rules and 5 inches longer than a plan the DNR is moving ahead with.
 
  more fish tails.........
The proposed 55-inch minimum, which has decent prospects in the Legislature, would blow every other state's regs out of the water like a 50-pound 'ski attacking a surface lure.

It's a timely topic, as next week muskie junkies will gather in St. Paul for George's Minnesota Muskie Expo. The show is a place to shop for gear, get oneself in a postwinter state of mind, and celebrate Minnesota's generally accepted status as the nation's top muskie destination.

The late George Wahl, who founded the event that now bears his name, would likely be among a number of long-passed muskie supporters pleasantly shocked to hear that the current debate isn't about how small a muskie should be to kill it, but how big: huge or super-huge.

"I think a lot of those guys wished something like this would happen, but I don't think they really believed it ever would," said Paul Hartman of Blaine, a friend and fishing partner of Wahl's who now owns the expo with Wahl's widow, Marlene.


CONSERVATION HISTORY
Wahl, whose claim to fame was inventing the Eagle Tail lure, was among a generation of muskie anglers who preached the virtues of catch-and-release muskie fishing long before the fish became the money-making TV star it is today. Their likes included Robert Horley Sr., who operated the Sanctuary Resort on Lake of the Woods, where he was known to threaten guides with termination if he ever learned they killed a muskie. This was during a time when muskies were often kept for food.

In the 1940s and '50s, muskies could be fished any time of year, with no minimum size. A daily limit of one fish wasn't enacted until 1956. Horley was renowned for his ability to catch 40-pound fish during a period when such fish were disappearing fast -- and would soon all but vanish -- from many waters in the Upper Midwest.

The man who gets the most credit for championing muskie conservation is Gill Hamm, a St. Paul construction contractor who in 1966 founded Muskies Inc., today the country's largest and most influential muskie-based organization. What followed was a gradually accelerating movement to research, stock and increase respect for muskies.

Even wildlife biologists took convincing. At the time, a fish over 40 inches and 20 pounds was considered a rare trophy and worthy of mounting on a wall. Hugh Becker, a Minneapolis native and early member of Muskies Inc., in the '50s started his own study, tagging fish and then releasing them. When they were caught again -- and often had grown much larger -- he served it up to researchers as evidence that catch-and-release worked.

In the late 1970s, he worked with the Department of Natural Resources in a similar study that convinced the DNR that his was a viable conservation approach.

In the early 1980s, Minnesota restricted its season and adopted a 36-inch minimum size limit. In 1993, it was raised to 40 inches. By 2007, when the state adopted the current 48-inch minimum, the culture of catch-and-release had become almost universal among hard-core muskie anglers, with Internet forum participants often chastising anyone who intentionally killed a fish.

Photographs and graphite replicas, based on pictures and measurements, became the standard for bragging rights, not a stuffed carcass. And the fish began to grow bigger, with lakes like Mille Lacs, Vermilion and Bemidji yielding numbers of monstrous fish, well over 50 inches. That some likely would have bested the state record of 54 pounds, which has stood since 1957 -- but couldn't be proved because a verified weighing would often mean death to a fish -- became accepted.

But, some say, it wasn't to last.


WORD GETS OUT
Aided by stocking programs in waters well outside their native range around the Great Lakes and upper Mississippi River, muskies experienced a surge in popularity across the country. Minnesota's reputation soon outshone Wisconsin's and provided a more-accessible alternative to Canadian waters. State survey data suggests 31,000 people fished for muskies in 1991; today, the number is believed to be more than 110,000.

"Word has gotten out that this is where to go in the country if you want to get a 50-inch fish," said Shawn Kellett, vice president of the Twin Cities Chapter of Muskies Inc., which is behind the 55-inch proposal. "We've been catch-and-releasing for 25 years to grow these fish, and out-of-staters are coming in and catching a fish-of-a-lifetime and taking it home."

Heavy fishing pressure is a phenomenon few muskie anglers -- who cast over large expanses of water and can't clump together like walleye boats -- enjoy. But seeing an actual decline of large fish is unacceptable, they say.

"We've become concerned about the sustainability of the trophy muskie in Minnesota," John Underhill, co-chair of the Minnesota Muskie and Pike Alliance, told a Senate committee earlier this month. "The guides on the bigger bodies of water are not catching the mid-50-inch-plus fish like in the mid-2000s. Many are heading out to (Michigan's) Lake St. Clair or Green Bay."

The current statewide minimum for Minnesota is 48 inches. For comparison, Michigan's is 42 inches and Wisconsin's is 40 inches, although some trophy lakes are higher. Backers of higher minimums point to Ontario, where more than a decade ago aggressive minimum sizes, from 48 inches up to total catch-and-release, were employed on top muskie waters, and the fish grew huger. Last year, following a push from muskie groups, the minimum on the St. Lawrence River was raised to 54 inches.


TWO PROPOSALS
The Minnesota DNR agrees that higher minimums are warranted. The agency is in the process of moving forward with a two-tiered approach that would start with a statewide 50-inch minimum that could be in place as early as the 2015 fishing season. The agency would then take several years to assess which lakes its biologists believe are capable of producing monsters, "these truly spectacular fish" above 54 inches and weighing more than 50 pounds, DNR fisheries chief Don Pereira said. Those waters would be subject to a 56-inch minimum.

That list would likely include about 15 to 20 lakes out of the roughly 100 waters in Minnesota where strong populations of pure-strain muskies roam, some as a result of stocking and others mainly through natural reproduction. (A number of additional metro waters are stocked with sterile hybrid muskies.)

"Our analysis indicates that not every muskie lake statewide has the potential for muskies to grow to 55 or 56 inches," Pereira said.

Kellett and others disagree. "We're seeing 55-inch fish coming out of all our lakes," he said. "The DNR just doesn't see them because there aren't very many fish and they don't show up in their netting surveys." Kellett and Underhill say their plan -- the statewide 55-inch minimum -- is simpler and more complete than the DNR's, which is not actually a law but a rule that could be changed by the DNR.

The DNR isn't opposing the 55-inch idea. The agency is "neutral," Pereira told lawmakers. In an interview, he said the sustainability of muskies as a breeding population, even a trophy sportfish, isn't at issue. By the time fish reach 50 inches -- and such fish are always female -- they've been spawning for years.

"The question is: Do you need to kill a fish like that, that could still grow bigger?" he said. "This is not a conservation question. It's a social question, and I'm perfectly fine letting the Legislature decide the answer."

Sen. John Hoffman, DFL-Champlin, introduced the bill in the Senate, where it's currently included in a much larger energy and environment policy bill. "I've gotten emails from folks all over Minnesota and all over the country who think this makes a lot of sense," Hoffman said.

The bill didn't progress in the House, which means that if it emerges from the Senate, it will become part of negotiations to reconcile the differences between House and Senate environmental bills. The outcome of such events are unpredictable. Rep. David Dill, DFL-Crane Lake, who would likely play a key role in the process, said he's not opposed to larger muskie minimums, but he's not sure 55 inches is needed.

"I really don't know at this point, but maybe something more moderate, something like 50 inches," Dill said.


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