Hotspotoutdoors

Considering the sucker fishing pressure...those muskies i'd wager are over educated or dead.

I fish both lakes regularly and over the entire summer i saw 1 musky that got throat hooked.

So what is the big deal on the sucker fishing? Ill admit it, i do it. I cant afford to drop the money on all of the musky lures and so forth being a college student. So does that mean i shouldnt fish for them? I fish both lakes regularly and over the entire summer i saw 1 musky that got throat hooked. Did it die? Probably and its sad to see. But how do you know those floaters you see are from sucker fisherman? Couldnt they just have well have been casting and kept the fish out of the water way to long? I do use QS rigs and have given quite a few of others i have had to people using single hooks. But if they want to fish with single hooks so be it. They have just as much right to the fish out there as anyone else. They just may need a little bit of guidance to get them on the right track.

Not a good sampling of data to make a sound conclusion from, sorry. 1 person out of thousands, literally.

It's somewhat painful to read/hear about how selfish some people are. We're dealing with an apex predator here, low density. If you look at the stocking records and made a poor assumption that all the fish stocked survived, that's still such a small number of fish in ANY of these lakes, we're recycling them intensely. Then you look at the sucker guys, many of whom keep or kill their catches because "they have just as much right as anyone else". (and yes i realize that lure fisherman can keep/kill fish as well but it's not as high of a risk, also that not all sucker fisherman keep etc)

It's a terrible mindset to carry that it's "your right" to keep/kill an apex species. Just because it is, doesn't mean it's a smart approach to take. If you enjoyed the hunt of that fish and kept it, that's making a significant impact on the ability of yourself and others to repeat that experience. Considering the time it takes for that fish to grow and get replaced in a system, why chance it?

Take some of the view points across this thread and now apply them to THOUSANDS of people who just want to catch "their" big muskie for whatever reason. It is the responsibility of few who think beyond an instant that can affect the outcome for many.