Angler Preferences

Greetings fellow anglers.  I thought I would start a discussion on angler preferences.  

A fairly frequent theme I often observe is oppositional viewpoints regarding high minimum length limits for gamefish.  They are often times mistakenly viewed as as being prescribed to a lake to solely provide a trophy angling opportunity; when in actuality the high minimum length limit may be applied to provide an action/C&R opportunity.

Balancing angling opportunities with science, social and economic objectives can be a challenge.  What's your preference?  Catch & Release, Harvest or Both?  Why & where?

I'd like to hear your justification for planting musky in lake Geneva... as mentioned,  a place where trophy sized pike were fairly common... to me, it was a give to the musky organizations,  of which I was a member of one at a point in time...

less an improvement to the fishery,  but more giving in to a musky lobby 

I'm willing to listen to an actual natural resources reason,  and not a financial reason,  ie, financial support from musky organizations 

There are some new harvest opportunities in 2020 with the addition of the northern pike slot on a few lakes in WI, 25-35" protected, 2 bag, 1 over.  I hear you loud and clear littleluck, you want harvest & improved size structure.  We will provide additional  stakeholder input opportunities for BM soon.  We will look into alternatives including 26x2, slot & 40x1.  Also looking at Lac LaBelle walleye, and 50" min for muskies countywide.  Just keep in mind this is only a discuusion at this point.  Next spring hearings for WCC is 2021 for effect in 2022.  Thanks for the feedback, good discussion.

A variety of opportunities to serve a diversity of Anglers.  In a perfect world, high abundance of a given species would always align with harvest regulations. Where the waters get muddy (pun intended) is when population levels are abnormally volatile due to poor habitat, human disturbances, invasive species, above average fishing pressure or all of the above.  These situations are often times a great fit for more restrictive regulations that ensure enough individuals survive to maintain a self sustaining, naturally reproducing population.  Natural mortality on degaded habitat can be above average.  Adding high exploitation to high natural mortality can result in the continued decline of a population.   This is where I believe more conservative regulations fit well.  Taking harvest off the table allows a population to rely mainly on mother nature to decide, instead of adding angler harvest on top.  That's when regs are hard to understand.  Gotta go, deer coming.

I'm not a fan of stocking Lake Geneva with musky... was a lake where a true trophy northern could be had... we won't know if they will be impacted, but soon... no reason to stock it with musky except to provide a destination near the border, imo

I LOVE KEEPING THOSE 25inch and over walleyes in the bay you smoke them tasted just like ham

I think it would be tough to come up with a default slot limit that worked well statewide. Too many factors such as size of the water body, water fertility, genetics, harvest rates,  natural reproduction, etc that would make it tough to pull off.   The idea behind the slot is you're protecting the size and age class that has the most successful spawning rate.  If natural reproduction is low and the fishery only exist due to stocking the slot serves no purpose. Or Lets just say they're is statewide walleye slot of  18"-21" for whatever reason the walleyes in the lake seldom exceed 20" so there isn't any science behind not harvesting that fish.   States tried the one size fits all approach with statewide minimum lengths for decades and they didn't provide the protection that lakes with trophy potential needed and in some instances were too restrictive and allowed lakes to become over-populated with a bunch of stunted fish.  I see the same thing happening with a default slot limit.  While not completely immune from politics and economic factors there is some science behind how the DNR establishes size or slot limits as well as bag limits.   If person wants to find out the regs for body of water it doesnt take much effort.  

Keep in mind the OP is the person who is responsible for the Big Muskego 40" debacle...