Indiana Muskie Fishery now compared to the past?

[Toad]

Wondering what the thoughts are of everyone (if anyone is out there) of the current status of the Indiana Fishery. Personally I have seen a drop in the numbers of fish we are seeing and catching in Indiana waters in comparison to what we experienced when I personally started fishing 6 years ago. Not sure if I am just losing my mojo, but even on my favorite waters I have a harder time getting fish to move and harder time getting them to bite. It's been a hard couple of years in 10 and 11, but really I look back at the numbers and they have been steadily decreasing over the years. Not sure if anyone has an oppinion on why or not, just wondering if I am alone in my observation.

[ALVW]

Definately agree with you Toad. Just look at the results of the Classic the last couple of years. While I do not fish the Indiana lakes a lot like some others do, I am definately having a harder time locating fish. Oh, we still put fish in the boat and actually the numbers caught does not seem to be down as much as the number of follows we used to see. For us this has been especially true on Webster since the weed kills. It makes it much more difficult for us to locate fish. I guess the days of 20+ follows per day are gone for awhile. It kind of had us a bit spoiled. Anyway, in the long run it should work out, less fish, less fisherman will come and it will give it a chance to increase the numbers again.

Al

[ToddM]

Water quality the past couple years has been very poor compared to years past. The other thong that has happened is that these lakes have seen a life cycle of fish. Now the population will decrease some and level out. I have found that rainy years do not help the water quality nor did killing the weeds. I think the heyday fishing is over for the most part.

[Toad]

Kind of the same thoughts I have on it, nothing definite, but seems less activity and certainly a lot less follows for sure. I know the number of boats is a lot less. I remember the parking lot it used to be, but this year we were out the first week in November and there were a handful of other boats on WEbster. On a weekend of all things. I remember days with 20 plus follows and I wasn't even around in the REAL heyday. Life cycle is something I wondered about, I mean, after a certain point, a lot of the young muskies that are put in are being eaten by big muskies, and the numbers of giant shad balls out on webster that you run into are not as common as they used to be. Might be they are eating themselves and their food source out of house and home. I don't know if the floods had any affect either, but if they are catching numbers of fish below the freeman dam, that means fish are making it down through the river and a couple big lakes just to get there. If it is a case of fish going down stream, maybe we can look forward to another population explosion in a few years that fills in the gap. Hard to know. Maybe Brookville will be the next big lake.

[ALVW]

I have seen many more report of muskies in the tippy river and increasing numbers in th Wabash River as far down as Terre Haute. I think a lot of muskies did leave with the floods.

[Toad]

Well, then if there are a significantly less number of fish, maybe we could see a population explosion in a few years as the young fish might have less pressure of being eaten by bigger fish. You never know. I know everyone says that the numbers of muskies netted last year was huge, but I don't think it is necessarily due to large numbers of fish, but a lot bigger and better nets than they had in the past since they got new nets.