Where do monster musky come from?

[Ola]

apparently the weather yesterday was lousy in the hamilton-niagara area but was a beautiful fall day up north of peterborough, as my unwitting yet intrepid fishing-companion/son demonstrates with this paparazzi shot:

he's a teen and if i get any closer than this with a camera he ducks - unless he's holding a trophy fish which, sadly for both of us, was not to happen for him in this, his first musky season.

after a slow day with one sub-30" musky to show for it, i was creeping into a logjam to investigate when a 6" smallie literally came flying out of the water 10 feet in front of my yak, arcing about a foot about the surface and landing 6 feet beyond. obviously something massive was chasing the fella so i cast into the corner where the bass came from and immediately latched onto the lurking beast:

the leviathan was finally subdued at boatside:

and then brought out of the water for the manditory trophy shot.

the answer to my question 'where do monster musky come from?' is obvious now - they start out as greedy little musky. even the sub-30" i caught earlier was caught on a super shad rap - quite a mouthful for a fish that size though not as ridiculous as the situation pictured below:

photo op. i love the colours of the musky from this water - emerald green - camera doesn't do it justice:

released so he can grow into his attitude:

[DarkEdge]

Beautiful fish. I'd love to catch a musky one day. If I ever get brave enough to handle one, that is. I got a good little nick from a pike in the spring, I can imagine what a 40" musky could do.

[RichieWalleye]

NICE-- thats a beauty-even if its not full grown-the colors are great. Its quite the view and fishing when you are on a body of water in the North.

I don't know where they come from but I know for sure there is a monster out in Erie- my buddy and I saw it-swear it was over 5ft.

[hugelaker]

muskie grow very rapadly in a muskies first year the eggs hatch and that same fish can get pto 12 inches by mid november, naturally that fish could become an easy 36 inches in the next 2 years providing it has a safe habitat and lots of food to go with it. the only real preditor the musky has to worrie about is anglers and maybe the odd bird of pray that would try and mess with a small muskie, but other than that they have nothing to worrie about, and most muskie anglers, if not all (myself included) practice catch and release when muskie fishing. muskie can also eat fish that are up to 30% of its own leangth thats alot of protien for one meal.

so as far as i am consired monster muskie come from the fact that they are the king of freshwater, they have no predators, very low kill rate from anglers, and an abundance of food.

if looking for monster muskie the rule of thumb is fast small baits in the spring and summer and large slow baits in the fall. large meaning 8-10 inch range.

just remember musky anglers have a responsability to mantain and enjoy the muskie habitat, do not taget muskie with light-med acton rods, anything under 20lb line, or without a proper net that is big enough to keep the muskie in the water boatside while you get the hooks out. the fish should only be out of the water for a matter of minutes for photos and then released safely. if you feal like the fish isnt doing so well after a crazy battle, skip the photo and release that fish, the memories will last a lifetime and we will all believe your story. muskie are delicate fish and will fight till the death by the time the fish gets netted it has wasted so much energy fighting that it only takes a few minutes out of the water to put the nail in the coffin.

nice fish by the way i love thows stripes. musky are just the best freshwater fish out there!!

[hammercarp]

That is a pretty little guy, quite the little terror. The small musky I caught in the past at our cottage on the Trent were always very light in colour sometimes with a violet sheen on their sides. When it comes to growing trophy sized fish I think that there are a lot of factors involved. Genetics is an important one, large parents create large offspring. I believe that another very important one that is over looked is environmental. During the first few weeks or even first few days in a newly hatched musky, conditions must be just right in order to achieve maximum growth potential. Water temperature, dissolved O2 content, pH and water chemistry all are important factors in growth. The quality and quantity of food for them is also affected by this. Musky like all egg scatters are very vulnerable to the variability in nursery conditions.

These factors get ignored by anglers because basically we cannot control them.

I think that the C&R practices of dedicated musky anglers do affect the numbers of big muskies though not in the way most think. C&R fishing for muskies keeps their population at a level where enough of them spawn so that a small fraction of the very small fraction that actually make it to a certain size can reach that maximum potential.

I think in waters that have poor nursery conditions will always produce undersized musky no matter how rigidly C&R is practiced.

[Guest LockedInTheTrunkOfACar]

Look at the teeth on that thing though ... all it has to do is get a hold of a part of another fish and there is fish puree for it to swallow ... fishing one spot there was a small one that was interested in my spinner bait (not a giant one by any means) but it kept a close follow and changing colors it still kept a close follow ... switched to a bigger spinner bait and the follow was more agressive ... tipped it with a giant plastic worm ... a spanko to be exact and the thing went bananas .. it was probably only a 12 to 15 inch fish at best but as soon as I put the 5 or 6 inch worm on it saw the bait as food .... never landed it but the worm was beyond repair ... that would be like me attempting to eat a baby cow instead of a veal chop ... it aint gonna happen (but unlike the muskie I wont try).

[Dan Andrews]

I just gotta admire the nice smooth legs again

[Luvevolution]

that's a pretty, pretty fish. WTG!!!!! I had exactly the same thing happen to me in Martindale pond, but with a baby Pike and a white spinner bait. :^)

hitting a lure that size isn't that far fetched really. predatory fish will hit targets roughly 30-40% of their own size. Muskie are no different than Pike and they are no different than Bass and so on and so on. the difference between Pike, Muskie and other predators is the way they catch their prey. Muskie and Pike are explosive feeders and they see their food differently than other predators, which is why Muskie anglers get a lot of follows, rather than catches. Muskie and Pike ask questions first and strike second. Bass are the other way around. LOL. the size and type of prey dictates the type and intensity of the attack. generally, there are two types of attack and they are the "C" start and the "S" start. the "C" start is the most explosive due to the larger recoil of the fish, but the fish cannot turn from this posture, so the prey tend to be on the larger, lumbering side. the "S" start is less explosive and also allows the fish to change direction if needed due to less recoil. this start is generally used for smaller, darting prey. this is solely from a kinetic point of view, but there are other reasons that are involved in the type of attack that are all beneficial to that mode of attck.

I also agree with Lorne about environment being the key factor on how big a Muskie will get, rather than C&R practices. these environmental keys are crucial throughout the life of the fish. remember that fish have an indetermintate growth hormone, unlike mammals that have a determinate growth hormone. in other words, mammals stop growing at a set point in their life, when that predetermined size is reached. fish on the other hand, do not stop growing untill they die. it would be pretty boring to go fishing, knowing that you could only catch a 10lb Muskie, right? LOL. the environment the fish live in, is the key factor to indeterminate growth. the more suturated the environment is with that type of fish, the less they will grow due to competition. put a smaller number of fish in the same environment and those fewer fish will grow bigger and bigger till they die. this is why Carp grow so big in the environment they live in. square yard for square yard, there are less fish doing the job they do, so they grow bigger doing that job.

Rich

[Ola]

now, if we start applying the little-musky-eat-big-meals-and-get-bigger theory to other fish species we could end up with results like this:

[The Ketchican Kid]

Wow, that makes me chuckle.

[Luvevolution]

funny thing is Ola, I've had the same thing happen in the marina at the end of Lighthouse Rd. and in the channel at the end of Lighthouse Rd.. in the marina, I've caught Bluegill on 4" stickbaits and in the channel, I've caught Alewives on 5 inch Williams Bronze Wabblers. that's quite a sight to see. hahahahahaha

[scapulataf]

I love the fact that Muskie and Pike are crazy enough to attack stuff that is practically the same size as them. I have a picture from a few years ago that was a tiny little pike that attacked my Heddon Torpedo lure and it wasn't much bigger than the lure. I read a little article in an old issue of Muskie hunter Mag someone found, floating in a lake in Minnesota, or Wisconsin, a 40 inch pike that had tried to swallow a 40 inch muskie head first and choked to death.

Sorry for the pike derail in the muskie thread, back on topic. I've never caught a Muskie myself, I'm still waiting. In fact the only one I've seen live besides at Bass Pro Shop is when I was going to Fleming and a couple buddies of mine went to the Scugog after class one day and hauled a bunch of Walleye out of the river and one guy got a 10 or so pounder. I noticed when it got close to shore it looked like it was turning a bit red, was that from stress?

Edit: P.S. I love to colouring and stripe pattern on the little guy pictured in the OP

[Ola]

I love the fact that Muskie and Pike are crazy enough to attack stuff that is practically the same size as them. I have a picture from a few years ago that was a tiny little pike that attacked my Heddon Torpedo lure and it wasn't much bigger than the lure. I read a little article in an old issue of Muskie hunter Mag someone found, floating in a lake in Minnesota, or Wisconsin, a 40 inch pike that had tried to swallow a 40 inch muskie head first and choked to death.

you mean it looked something like this?

sorry. i don't know who this dude is so i blurred him. i'm sure it wasn't as painful as it looks though. now, the fish on the other hand...

[scapulataf]

Similar, but imagine that pike being about 40 inches, and that walleye being a Muskie, that was also around 40 inches.

That was posted on the CCR board a few months ago.

http://www.myccr.com/SectionForums/viewtop...=38&t=33746