Sturgeon Bay question for Cpt. Doug.

[perchoreno]

First, enjoy reading your threads here. Familiar with some not all your fishing grounds.

I was curious about Sturgeon Bay area of Green Bay, was up there recently and spotted both
"mud" and Great Lakes musky mounted in the "Sunset Grill". Spoke to somebody there and they
said the "mud" varieties had come out of Sturgeon Bay, and the GL variety out of the Fox.

Is there a natural population of WI strain musky in Sturgeon Bay or was that a historic stocking
population before they started stocking GL strain up there?

[Captain Doug Kloet]

Hey Perchoreno,

First of all thanks for the kind words on my threads.

To answer your question on Green Bay and Sturgeon Bay. All the muskies that have been stocked are the Great Lakes strain muskies. To give you a little history muskies are native to Green Bay and Lake Winnebago, but the fish were eliminated in the bay during the mid-1900s by over-fishing, pollution, habitat degradation, and interactions with exotic species.

Muskies were reintroduces in 1989 to parts of the bay and the Fox River followed by more extensive stocking in the mid 1990’s to more areas. The only natural reproduction that I am aware of has taken place on the Menominee River and that has been very limited. Also there has been some tiger muskies caught in the Sturgeon Bay area which means there must be some there also. The other mounts that you seen at Sunset where probably Wisconsin strained which are actually barred muskies. I would think that those probably came from another system but not sure.

If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

[Captain Doug Kloet]

Just wanted to add some more information. I found this on the Wisconsin DNR website for the bay of Green Bay Door county. This may be what they are talking about at Sunset because the strain is unspecified. Also the northern x muskellunge below would be tiger/hybrid muskies.

Year Location Species Strain Age Class # Stocked Average Length
1985 GREEN BAY MUSKELLUNGE UNSPECIFIED FINGERLING 801 11.00
1985 GREEN BAY NORTHERN PIKE X MUSKELLUNGE UNSPECIFIED FINGERLING 6,126 6.00
1985 GREEN BAY MUSKELLUNGE UNSPECIFIED YEARLING 801 11.00
1983 GREEN BAY MUSKELLUNGE UNSPECIFIED FINGERLING 5,110 8.33
1982 GREEN BAY MUSKELLUNGE UNSPECIFIED