If you ever hear a Midwesterner point out the “fish of 10,000 casts,” you will be certain they’re speaking about muskies. Every area in North America has its personal fish species that represents the top of angling prowess, from allow within the Florida Keys to steelhead within the Pacific Northwest. These fish are nearly all the time on the bigger and rarer facet of the spectrum, which is a part of why they’ve change into shrouded in thriller and idolized by anglers through the years. This is particularly true of muskies, therefore the nickname. But why are muskies so arduous to catch?
A group of researchers on the University of Illinois not too long ago got here up with some definitive, science-based solutions to that age-old query. They did this by learning a gaggle of muskies in a laboratory setting after which fishing for them for 35 days straight in a managed atmosphere. Their outcomes have been revealed within the North American Journal of Fisheries Management late final month.
How Researchers Tested Their Theories
This scientific inquiry into why muskies are often called the fish of 10,000 casts was led by University of Illinois graduate scholar John Bieber together with Bieber’s advisor, Dr. Cory Suski. Dr. Suski explains that the thought behind the experiment got here from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, which raises muskies in hatcheries and releases them in water our bodies throughout the state. The DNR had been conducting netting surveys at one explicit lake, and after seeing the sheer variety of muskies that lived there, they have been curious why catch charges weren’t greater.
So, the company loaned 68 hatchery-raised muskies to Bieber and Suski, who spent the subsequent a number of weeks learning these fish in a laboratory setting. Each fish was individually microchipped and positioned in a tank, the place the researchers ran experiments 4 most important behavioral traits: exercise, aggression, boldness, and exploration.
“Fish do have personalities,” Suski explains, “just like other animals and people.”
After gauging and recording every muskie’s character, the researchers then took the 68 fish and stocked them in an experimental pond. The pond was emptied of different aquatic species beforehand, and so they stuffed it with minnows so that every one the muskies have been content material and equally well-fed.
Then got here the enjoyable half. Bieber and Suski fished the experimental pond with typical gear for 35 days straight. They lined each inch of water utilizing each mixture of lure and presentation they might consider. At the top of the 35 days, they’d caught seven fish.
Lessons Learned from Muskie Fishing for 35 Days Straight
Suski says the most important takeaway from the experiment was that sure muskies have been extra “predisposed to capture” primarily based on their character traits. He explains that total, the fish they caught have been bigger, much less exploratory, and fewer aggressive than the others. This additionally falls according to the species’ total feeding habits. As solitary apex predators, muskies wish to patiently lie in wait after which ambush their prey instantly.
“They just prefer to live under a log by themselves,” Suski says. “We have to basically hunt for them and hit them in the face with a lure. And we tend to only hook them when they’re sitting still and quiet and are ready to clobber something.”
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Another attention-grabbing lesson that almost all hardcore muskie anglers would echo is that muskies are extraordinarily delicate to angling strain. Out of the seven fish that have been landed over a 35-day interval, 4 of them have been caught through the first day of fishing. The muskies grew to become much less receptive to lures in every week that adopted. Suski and Bieber by no means hooked multiple fish per day after that, and most days they walked away from the pond skunked.
None of the fish have been caught greater than as soon as, both, which reinforces the concept that muskies smarten up and shut off fairly rapidly when lures begin flying of their route.
“They wizen up for sure,” Suski says. “There could be a bunch of different things going on there, and the literature would say it’s the ‘noise of the angler’ they’re responding to. But [muskies] definitely become more wary and less receptive when pressured.”
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Suski provides that the most important takeaway for the DNR is that catch-and-release practices are important to a robust muskie fishery. The concept right here is that if some muskies are virtually uncatchable, whereas others have personalities that make them extra vulnerable to seize, anglers may have extra success within the long-term in the event that they launch the catchable fish again into the breeding inhabitants.
“If you catch a fish that has the right combination of personality traits to hit your lure, be gentle with it and put it back,” Suski says. “Because hopefully that fish will continue to have babies, and we can keep those vulnerable personality types in the population for longer.”