Ronix 51

It is ridiculous but unfortunately with limited DEC man power it'd be tough to enforce. Hopefully a heads-up from this season will have them checking next season. Heard similar antics were happening on LSC as well

FishinNY just informed me that the Chautauqua tourney is on June 11 this year (thought it was on the 4th Saturday again therefore I would miss another one for a wedding) so this will be fun to fish it earlier!

the memorial tournament is a great time

I just want to say thanks to all the guys that put the work in to make the derby happen. Ive waited two years to be able to be there for it. Even though I had to leave early I enjoyed talking to a few of you at the dock before it started. Hopefully next year I can stick around for the food! I'm already looking forward to it!

You should try and fish the other MI tourneys we have going as well! They are all a great time and it gets you out on new waters!

Nikki and I will be there next weekend!

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man what a tough day on the water! saw lots of fish some really nice ones too that came up nose-to-ass on our baits but like everyone else noticed the fish were very sluggish. It certainly didn't help our morale to see guys with shiners put some nice fish in the net 20 yards from us all day! Congrats to you guys on capitalizing on a tough bite!

definitely sounds like there is going to be a great turnout this year, looking forward to getting out with everyone!

That's why I asked the questions at the meeting before I joined...no big deal....keep it. I spent the day yesterday fishing the causeway for tigers with shore guys to see what was happening...lets just say I have plenty to work on here and really don't need a club for what I personally am intereasted in and that's change not cash tourneys. No hard feelings just not what I thought I was joining....the 3 year family membership proved a costly mistake I guess. BTW it's an excellent learning experience if you really wanna know what 8the real issues your fish face you should rub shoulders on shore and talk to people...see what you are up against...see you guys in a week and a half.

Justin I am still lost as to why you feel your membership was a costly mistake? Your goals are to enhance the fishery while educating others about safe handling, proper gear, C&R, etc. - the very same goals shared with every member of MI69! Do you really think this club was formed for the sake of cash tourneys...?

From what I gather you're upset with the idea of handling sub-legal fish and rewarding those who do during the tournament yet in your first 2016 report on your website that you posted a link to there you are holding up a sub 36" tiger (and with boga grips nonetheless) and there is nothing wrong with grabbing a quick pic of the fish either (well, maybe not the boga grips) but if you have a problem with the rule of sub-legal tigers being handled in the tournament then this is a tad misleading no?

Well said Steve!

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I like DDDs, nice action to them though I have not gotten bit on them yet (don't use them as much as my other go-tos) but my buddy gets bit on them a lot. He's a fan of the electric shiner pattern I like that and the lemon head

Steve that is a pretty common thought process but not necessarily accurate...fish do no not just make seasonal movements, they make daily movements dependent on numerous environmental factors and large tigers are frequently caught in shallower water throughout the season (just as they are over deep water).

Let me start this by saying these are my opinions...I am not taking the stance that "this is what I think so this is how it should be"...If rule changes came down to a vote by the entire MI club and there is sound fundamental reasoning behind proposed rule changes, then great - that's exactly how it should work in any club/organization. So with that said:

To say that guys casting shallow water (mind you with 7-10" muskie baits ) are purposly targeting "dinks" is flawed...Haha I'm not really aware of any fisherman who purposly likes to catch small fish but call me crazy maybe consider that a boat doing this is covering water searching for active fish and sometimes those active fish are smaller than the 36" harvest limit...a pretty common tournament strategy. In fact, nobody is preventing Justin or anyone else from utilizing that very same strategy during the tournament. Guys like Nalod, Tigerhunter or BlueEye can share some pics of a fish or 5 that show not everything coming out of the shallows is a dink .  Hell, all of us have caught a bunch of dinks tossing big baits over deep water...I may be able to dig those glorious pics up as well.

In my opinion, consistency makes for well-run and enjoyable tournaments. I completely agree with Nalod and Ivan - MI and PMTT use the points system in combination with a big fish format on a nationl level and they don't seem to have any issues with it.  Steve I agree with you - tournaments where fish aren't entered aren't fun...and if tournament participation is the goal, how well does everyone honestly see a tournament run like this appealing to anglers traveling from other areas? I know I wouldn't be interested if say i entered a few mid 30s against an empty field and then my entry fees were raffled off. PS Steve the legal limit on the Niagara is now 54" so I wouldn't hold my breath on filling 3 spots if we hold a tournament there haha.

Again, this should come down to a vote and there should be sound agreeable reasoning behind it...and if this is how it gets voted so be it, I will still fish it because hell it's fishing who the hell doesn't want to fish and it is enjoyable to be out and catch up with everyone. In regards to sending the right message, one would think that the "If I don't get my way then I will take my toys and leave" attitude is counter-productive to sending any positive message at all but hey that's just me.

It's about the message we send. If everyone wants to target, catch, and score little fish thats fine....I'm out. I do not want a prize for catching dinks. I don't need a tournament in the first place. I care far more about the message and how we are perceived...that's why I brought this up at the meeting prior to joining and not 1 person said a thing.

...what message are you even referring to? It sounds like you're claiming that people are intentionally targeting and intending to hook "dinks" with specific angling methods, is this correct?

So wait are all of these changes going to apply to pure breed tournaments as well? I can't say that I really understand the need for these changes...people handle sub legal fish on a daily basis (we've all been doing it for years during every single other tournament) there really is no difference between handling a sub legal fish and a legal fish in regards to possible handling mortality.

I think Joe rigged it...enters last minute an he's a winner! Haha copngrats bud. Great to see how much was donated for a good cause

I'll be there helping out at the Chaos booth Saturday and Sunday...probably will lap the place several dozen times and blow a lot of money haha

Thought I would leave this here since pike regulations have recently been discussed on here: http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/73762.html

There are some changes being proposed concerning walleye and northern pike in the St. Lawrence river and it's tributaries...more notably they are proposing to lower the daily northern pike limit from 5 to 3 which I think is a step in the right direction. I wonder if this type of proposed regulation will open any doors to enhanced pike regulation in other waters as well...

I'm waiting for you to post a custom 9'6XH predator that you "had" to have.

I mainly cast shallow and have also seen an increase in tigers over 36" since the change. The number of tigers we have caught between 30"-36" has gone up quite well since the change.

It could be due to the limit change or it could be us improving our skills....not sure which it is or which I prefer it to be but it sure is nice-haha!

I've fished with you and have seen your skills...definitely not that.

Thinking about this from a different angle.

 

If the lake is out of balance - which I think it is, then look for ways to manipulate it back to balance or quasi balance. 

 

Logic for me is that lakes with healthy musky populations also have a very healthy panfish and perch population - something Conesus does not.  What would help with this? 

 

Since small lakes with stunted panfish populations get a stocking of tigers to alleviate the over crowding.  If a lake has poor panfish numbers, then what would you enter into the system?  Based on my 1st premise - Not more tigers, Not more Pike.  Walleye is irrellevant but always with such high growth rates.  A fish better designed to chase down the alewives in open water (alewives blamed for poor panfish/perch growth rates and numbers).  I have always advocated for hybrid bass (but don't hold your breath)  A hybrid trout perhaps.  Throwing more tigers into the system is analogous to the government throwing more money into everything that they do that is wasteful - which is basically everything.  I don't think this lake would have natural trout reproduction so utilizing a hybrid to get faster growth would be a better option.

 

If doing the same thing repeatedly isn't working then trying something new should always be considered.

 

My rambling is done. 

Panfish numbers are likely not a problem in Conesus...the biomass is huge and it is a very productive system. I am not familiar with the status of perch however. Survival rates of stocked tigers (as they are currently stocked) is very poor...regardless of which water body you are talking about the mortality rates of stocked tigers is very high so keep in mind that just because the state is stocking tigers continuously, the population isn't continuously exploding.

Additionally, esocidae prefer with less-spiney and more linear profiled forage species like sucker, shiner, etc. so generally speaking northern pike and tiger muskie aren't going to prey specifically on centrarchids when given other available forage - of course they do eat them but so do bass and walleye which occur at a much higher density comparatively. You should also note that in the absence of pelagic shad/alewife, hybrid bass very readily select other species like perch, sunfish, and crappie to feed on and they would occur in much higher densities than tiger muskie would...just a thought

Cmon MI folks don't you have an answer or opinion ?

To which topic?

NY definitely needs to reconsider their creel limit on pike...I would like to see a slot limit myself to protect the larger fish that seem to become very vulnerable during the ice season. 5 fish over 22" is outdated IMO.

Steve my guess would be an additional predator species in conesus (pike) help do more damage on tiger fingerling survival, Conesus is larger, has a lot more available habitat, and perhaps has less people specifically targeting tigers so angler catch rates might not depict what's actually going on under the surface. Plus it's hard to target tigers and avoid pike catches there as well.

These are just guesses though

final flight haven't we been over this before?

You're still making blatantly uninformed assumptions (and presenting them as fact, because well, that's how you feel) about fishery dynamics and the waters you fish and now this thread has gotten way off topic because of that and my inability to keep my mouth shut when people like you try to play bait-bucket biologist (My apologies Justin and Trevor). Do yourself a favor: read more (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1577/1548-8659(1981)110%3C604%3ALBPOST%3E2.0.CO%3B2#.Vo65i3lIiUk, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1577/1548-8675(1992)012%3C0474%3AMHSBAS%3E2.3.CO%3B2, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1577/1548-8675(1996)016%3C0395%3ASSSAGO%3E2.3.CO%3B2). Contact your local fisheries biologist and politely ask them why they stock what they do and don't stock what they don't....and stop thinking you're smarter than them.

Invasive or Introduced, you are going to have a negative affect native species one way or another.  Call it what you want but I consider both the same. 

As determined by who? You?  

I'm not entirely sure that I am following what you are getting at but I assume that you are implying that by stocking either tiger or pure strain muskie in a system will negatively impact species native to that system in some way?

If pure muskies are planted in a body of water that they were not in naturally, they wouldn't they be an invasive species?

No, there is a difference between invasive and introduced. Muskellunge in general, are a native species to the major drainages of NY/PA. "Invasive" indicates a negative connotation used to describe a species that has infiltrated a system and has adverse effects to native species and/or ecosystems (think of the round goby).

Do you refer to brown trout as an invasive? They aren't even native to this continent...