2011 Year end totals

[Ty Sennett]

Here they are:

76 total fish larger than 33 inches(I didn't record anything smaller than 33 inches)

10 greater or equal to 47 inches
19 greater or equal to 45 inches
26 greater or equal to 44 inches
55 greater or equal to 40 inches

I kind of neglected charting my muskies but the ones I did record were what I have above. There were at least 30 smaller ones that I did not chart. There is a year class of mid twenty inch muskies right now that is like I haven't seen in years. I didn't see the need to chart those but 30 of them would be underestimating the amount we caught. I didn't put any of those into my year end totals. This might alter the average size but I didn't measure any of them so I didn't count them in the year end totals. I'm sure I missed five or six others or maybe more as this year was insanely busy with guiding and building a garage but I should be close.

As far as baits, Bulldawgs destroyed the rest mainly because the fall bite was so good. The weird thing was that most of our Bulldawg fish were in two to three foot of water throuhgout the fall. Fuzzy's EZ Duzzit Rig also had a lot as it did last year. That rig is so efficient. This is the first year in a long long time that bucktails(namely Ghosttails) didn't beat out everything else.

Overall I would say this year was extremely challenging on the patience. The weed growth was not there. The overall size was quite a bit larger but we didn't see many of the fifty inch fish that we normally do. I think throughout the midwest things were tough. We even had some tougher fishing in Canada than normal. Still, all in all I had some great clients again and had a blast with all of them. Looking forward to next year and a new start on the lake.

[jkahler]

Good numbers! Do you think the small fish are a result of the early spring last year? Maybe they had a better spawn than normal?

[Mark Benson]

jkahler:

No disrespect intended, but wouldn't those smaller fish be 4 or 5 years old???

Ty:

How do your numbers compare to last year??? I could have gone back, but figured I would just ask...

Mark

[jkahler]

I would guess a sub 30" class fish to be pretty young. 5 years should be closer to 33", at least where I fish.

[Ty Sennett]

Those 25 inch fish are three year old fish. Most five year old fish are mid to upper thirty inch fish depending on the strain.

[Ty Sennett]

Mark,

my numbers were down quite a bit from normal numbers. I ususally average 100 per year so this was definitely a tough year. Like I said, I probably missed a few in keeping track but not enough to make much of a difference. Cold springs and hot summers don not add up to good fishing.

jkahler,

Not sure about the early spring last year and seeing the year class of 25 inchers. More than likely it was a good spawn in the spring of 2009 or a good stocking in the late summer/early fall of 2009. Either way it's good to see that many in the lake. We had several days of two of those 25 inchers and a few three fish days with all of them being 25 inchers. Most of them were caught in may and June.