IMO we have a variety of factors thar are coming into play today including invasive species and a decrease in weed growth. We still see numbers of fish but IMO where are the "big fish" of LOTW, those 54" and greater? Is the average lifespan of a muskie on LOTW not conducive to reaching 54” or more. Maybe a very, very, very small % gets to this mark. Genetics probably plays a role here as the "genetic pool" is homogeneous over the many decades. Very little to no new genetics. Wonder would happen if the "Great Lake Spot" strain was introduced to diversify the genetic pool even more. Seems like a generation of fish is gone from 10-12 years ago. God only has put his creatures on earth, including us, for a certain amount of time. The good and positive thing though is we have a fairly good generation of fish in the 42-49” classes coming through. My average muskies boated 2 out the last 3 years has been around 42-43”. There also seems to be great recruitment of smaller fish in the lake which bodes well in the next 7-12 years. Has the fishing pressure on the NW Angle area caused incidental mortality of these bigger fish? I believe so, it is part of fishing!
Seems like ever since the Control Board implemented better control of the water flow on the lake, the clarity has been improving (which is good in some respects). Has this caused the bigger fish to be more suspended than structure oriented most of their time? If so, why are they not being caught in higher numbers in the fall when trolling? Are the baitfish patterns changing? Has the earth’s climate changes affected the fish behavior and location? Do these larger fish have bigger “ranges” during the calendar period than we believe? There are many questions we can ask each other and ourselves because IMO if you do ask, you do not learn!