musky dying like crazy,,,,,,why,,,?

[joco]

HI ALL

did have more info about the musky dying on the st laurence,,,,,,,,,


there supose to be up,to more then 50 musky,,s found dead,,,,,,,floating on the st laurence,,and one specimen in the 63 inch range,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,suposely found 7 or 8 2 day ago,,,,,,,they find some everyday,,,,,,,and there are all big,,,,,a lot in the 50 inch range,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

i just cant stop thinking about that,,,,,,,,what the impact it will do the the fisheries over there on musky,s,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,for us,,,,,,,for the charters people,,,,,,,,,and etc etc,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,imagine the impact,,,,,,, ,,,,


we never no,,,,,,,,,,,could become,,,,,,,,,,worst then we can think,,can wip out the species down there,,,,,ho no,,,,,


all the big one are usely female,,,,,,,an to be 50 inch she have to be ,,about 20 year old,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,so how mutch time to recover frome this,,,,,,



i would like to have more infofrome cancatchabass,,,,,,,,,,please on that subject,,,,,, if possible,,,,,




this is a very very bad thing happening over there,maby just a tip off the iceberg,,,,,,,,and thats the only they found imagine all the other one not floathing,,,,,,,,,,or not found,,,,,,,,or ,,or,,,,,,,


joco

[Muskiemagnet]

Its not time to panic......yet.

Hopefully this is nothing more than a banner year class dying off from old age. Not likely but possable.

It could be that certain conditions lead to a large kill in any given body of water. There was a huge Muskie kill in the Kawarthas years ago, there were hundereds of Muskie reported dead. Thankfully the fishery never suffered and may even be better now. Could Mother Nature be culling the population for its own good..?? It appears a lot of fish species go through some kind of mass die off once every once in a while. But the question is though.... is it Man or Mother Nature.? And if its Mother Nature, what are the reasons and at what cost to the future.

[JimmyBuffett]

Is the spot where they are showing up dead anywhere near BOQ??? Just curious.

[Muskiemagnet]

The fish are showing up right from the BOQ all the way down the St. Larry past Montreal. Something shoud be made public soon. The MNR and Muskies Canada are surely working on this as a top priority.

[Rex Mundi]

MM comments got me thinking.

This is neither a pro or con post on catch and release or catch and eat just a thought.

Could our education on the CnR of the Muskie fishiery be having a weird effect.

Could it be possible that the Muskie are getting a bit over populated as compared to there food source.

Muskies are CnR on a regular bassis but their food source has a tendancy to find their way to the fry pan more often.

Is it possible that Muskie population isn't being reduced at the same rate and in conjunction with their foor source.

Just a wacky theory from a person with a bad head cold.

[MichaelVandenberg]

Could our education on the CnR of the Muskie fishiery be having a weird effect.

Could it be possible that the Muskie are getting a bit over populated as compared to there food source.

Muskie are the top of the food chain except for Man of course. Could be the Muskie are getting over populated? Might be the lack of bait fish due to the cormorants :):)

Mike

[Tip-up]

The MNR and Muskies Canada are surely working on this as a top priority.

I sure hope so something has to be done.

It's really too bad to have so many muskie die, and we don't know whats causing it, and nothing is going too change until we find out whats happening here, it seems to be all over Ontario

I was reading an article on the net last week(Il try to find it)stating how muskie populations are decreasing in the states, very sad subject.

Im on a search for this article now.

[Michael]

[disclaimer - the following is largely speculative]

I haven't heard confirmation of the muskellunge die-off beyond the Thousand Islands.

There is much we don't know about this unprecedented mortality event. Given the very limited science associated with wild fish health generally, and muskies in particular, it's quite possible we may never know the cause of this. The reality is that the underlying casuse(s) of most fish die-offs remain unresolved. Enough is known at this point, however, to rule out some of the speculations above.

Are these fish dying from lack of food?

Apparently not. The fish are in good weight - well nourished enough to have developed the massively ripe ovaries one would expect in a healthy Great Lakes muskie at this time of year. Many of the dead fish hadn't yet spawned. Some diseases cause wasting (weight-loss) prior to death. This doesn't appear to be the case here.

Is this a natural response to over-population?

Probably not. While we don't really know what the actual population size is, we know that it has recently shown signs of recovery (increased but still low angler CUE) from historic lows. C & R has no doubt had a role in this modest recovery but stable water-levels (which diminish pike spawning success), a spate of El Niño events and generally warmer growing seasons have favoured muskie spawning success and have accelerated growth rates, relative to that of cooler, previous decades. Even with these improvements in the fishery, irreversible habitat losses will prevent the recovery of this stock to historic highs. But...because we don't have a decent estimate of the size of the Thousand Islands muskie stocks, there is no way to estimate what portion of the population has been affected.

The best tool we have for assessing trends in this population is derived from the catch data voluntarily submitted by anglers. In 2004 the average effort required to catch a muskie on the St. Lawerence (entire system) was 38 hours. The provincial average was 15. In Lake Scugog (very high density - no die-offs other than some rare winterkill) it only took 5 hours to catch a muskie. So, these data suggest that muskie density in the St. Lawrence wasn't particularly high prior to the die-off.

At this point we can be very grateful to Muskies Canada for maintaining its Angler Log Program for the last 27 years....it is these data alone that will give us any sense of the long-term impacts of this die-off on the affected waters.

http://www.muskiescanada.ca/Release_Log_Program.php

Another hypothesis...

Every 11 months, a new aquatic species becomes established in the Great Lakes via ballast water. Each animal carries with it a whole entourage of parasites and pathogens. It's quite possible that some of our (immunologically naive) native fish populations will not be able to meet the challenge of new viruses and bacteria. Our native salmonids continue to suffer from whirling disease, which arrived with shipments of apparently healthy brown trout from Europe. Recall how native human populations were decimated by the common cold and influenza, brought to North America by the first Europeans.

There are of course many other possible explanations for this die-off of muskellunge in the St. Lawrence.

Others closer to events can comment more authoritatively on the geographic extent and management response.

Michael

[Mike the 'Tender]

MM comments got me thinking.

This is neither a pro or con post on catch and release or catch and eat just a thought.

Could our education on the CnR of the Muskie fishiery be having a weird effect.

Could it be possible that the Muskie are getting a bit over populated as compared to there food source.

Muskies are CnR on a regular bassis but their food source has a tendancy to find their way to the fry pan more often.

Is it possible that Muskie population isn't being reduced at the same rate and in conjunction with their foor source.

Just a wacky theory from a person with a bad head cold.

It's actually a sound theory. In high school we learnt it and it was called carrying capacity. And ecosystem can only hold so many animals, and once one population animal either:

A-Expands to the point where it can no longer rely on its food source to adequately feed its level of the food chain, the species then goes through a mass dieout due to starvation. Think of it as a way for mother nature to cull its species. Only the strongest will survive and therefore pass on their genes.

or

B-One species is targeted too much by a top predator (in this case, humans and musky share the top spot), then, the food chain collapses. Therefore, again, mother nature needs to cull every other species above that species in the food chain while the species below the over targeted species are able to explode, allowing the over targeted species to rehabilitate back to healthy levels over a couple years, and then the effect of the return of that healthy population allows the culled predators to return to their normal strength.

It's an interesting system mother nature has, but it ensures that the strongest are able to pass along their genes. It also explains why something like perch are so plentiful, while larger and more predatory fish like musky are so much fewer.

Hopefully this is all that is happening and the musky will be able to bounce back quickly.

[joco]

hi all


your ARE RIGHT MUSKIEMAGNET,,,,,ABOUT NOT PANICKING,,,,,,


BUT I DO THINK ITS A BIT,,,,,,,,,,TO MUTCH,,,,,MORE THEN 50,,,,,MUSKY FOUND,,,AND MABE A LOT LOT MORE NOT FOUND,,,,,,,,HO NO,SSSS





THERE SOME PEOPLE FOUND TONS OFF DRUMS(SHEAP HEAD DEAD IN THE BOQ),,,,,,,,,,,,,MABE THERE HAVE THE PROBLEME AND THE MUSKY HATE THOSE AND GOT SOMTHING,,,,,,,,SOMBODY HELS SAW SOME LARGE AMOUNT OFFF PIKE DEAD IN THE SAME REGION,,,,,,,,,


BUT I DONT THINK ITS A LAK OFF FOOD,,,,,,,,,,

WE JUST DONT NO YET,,,,,,,

BUT SOMTHING LIKE THIS WILL HURT A LOT OFF PEOPLE AND ECONOMY IN THAT REGION,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,IF ITS GOT WORST AND WORST,,,,,,,,IF ALL
THE BIG GUIRLS DIY,,,,,,,,,,

HO WANT TO GET A CHARTER TO GO GET A 30 INCH MUSKY,,,,,,,


BUT ITS NOT TIME TO PANICK.........BUT SOMTHING HAVE TO BE DONE QUICLKY,,,,,,,,,,MABE HELP THEM IN SOME WAYS,,,,,,,?



JUST WOULD LIKE WHATS THE COUNT FOR NOW,,,,,,,,,



JOCO

[g unis]

as mike has stated muskies canada has been a mjor contributing factor on logs and data donations.the thing that strikes me is the dead fish. if i wasnt told already i would swear there were nets involved.either way i really hope this is resolved and hopefully corrected. game fish are to valuable to lose

[g unis]

as mike has stated muskies canada has been a mjor contributing factor on logs and data donations.the thing that strikes me is the dead fish. if i wasnt told already i would swear there were nets involved.either way i really hope this is resolved and hopefully corrected. game fish are to valuable to lose

[wolfe]

Rex & Mike the Tender...although a very real ecological occurence, I don't think it's a boom and bust cycle that's getting these muskies. As I think Michael mentioned, the muskies are of a good weight. I think it's another physiological / biological factor(s).

I know it sounds too simple, but this dramatic change in the weather...I'm still not ruling it out. The average size (large ones) has to be more than a coincidence.

It's a concern, no matter what...

W.

[Muskiemagnet]

One thing that is odd, is that whatever the problem is its seems to target very mature females. Not too many male fish would reach the size of the ones found. Nobody has mentioned the discovery of any small fish, that I'
m aware of.

[Cancatchbass]

Since last Friday I have personally pulled 19 muskie from the S. Lawrence. With the exception of a 4 hour period last Friday (in which 8 were found), I was not actually searching for fish. The 11 specimens were found during the course of my normal workday, and most days I covered only a mile or so of the River.

These fish, along with some found by other Park employees are now at the Glenora Research Station where they will be undergoing testing next Tuesday.

Just a couple, I believe, were under 50". The largest I submitted were 57 and 58". The 64" fish - I found and measured her (?) on June 2nd, before actual collection of specimens began:



There are more dead fish washed up on shore areas inaccessible to me. Some are in such a state of decay, they would be of little use in solving this puzzle compared to many fresh specimens.

I do not know the total # of fish that have been processed through St. Lawrence Islands National Park, but saw 4 more specimens today. The 50 figure is probably in the right area. Other additional fish have been taken to Glenora by individuals.

I suspect we are seeing only the tip of the iceburg, as the River is so large and there are many places where fish could have washed up and not be seen. In addition, there are surely as many fish on the N.Y. side, and I understand they have recently been made aware of the problem and are likely going to be doing their own studies.

Apparently Park involvement is winding down, though the fish are still dying.

All these fish are in very good condition (aside from being dead ). They have no sores, lesions or signs of mishandling. There has been at least one male, I'm told, but perhaps that death could be unrelated.

Hopefully, next Tuesday will shed some light on this unfortunate situation.

CCB