Cass Lake Muskie Study

[Kevin Cochran]

I have been on Cass the last 15 days. Fishing has been great with lots hitting the net.

Over the last two spawning cycles the DNR has electroshocked and netted roughly 175 fish. All fish sampled have microchips implanted on the left side of the top fin. These fish are easy to identify visually since they have a bottom clipped fin near their anal opening. I have a scanner that reads the chip and enters the data. Hopefully this will give the DNR information that they need to do an accurate population estimate. I will post results of my findings on my website at the end of the year.

If you are interested in muskie fishing in its purest form their is nothing more rewarding than catching true native fish.

[Kevin Cochran]

Update:
Only 3 fish that we caught thus far had chips in them. Roughly 6-9% of the fish caught have microchips. The fish that had chips were 48, 43, 37. We caught approximately 10 fish before I received the scanner and one of those had a clipped anal fin meaning it had a microchip.

All fish that were caught in my boat thus far were captured in the main basin. It is thought that Allen's Bay could have a larger population of chipped fish due to fact the implants took place there. I have only fished Allen's Bay a handful of times this year as I fish the bigger water.

The largest chipped fish didn't have any signs of a clipped fin which tells me this was done last year. The other two I believe were clipped this year and already were starting to heal.

When looking at my sample size it correlates with the DNRs population estimate of the lake. It is estimated at 1500-1700 muskies in Cass. Also looking at the length of fish sampled in my captures it mirrors the DNR's net/electro caught fish.

There is a 54 that was chipped which is the largest sampled of the study. I am still looking for that one. I have a 1 in 1700 chance in getting it. So there is a chance.