Tagged Muskie

For those folks out fishing on the St. John River watershed who have not heard, the State of Maine is tagging Smallmouth Bass and Muskellunge for research on how they are existing in the ecosystem, by monitoring things such as growth rates, population estimates and movement patterns.  We have caught several tagged bass over the last couple of years, but we were able to catch our first tagged muskie this past summer.  It wasn't large, but the tag protruding from it's back made it a very neat catch.  An interesting note was that this fish had not traveled very far from it's tagged location and it's growth was pretty much stagnant from the year before.  This brings to light an important fact for people who are interested in bringing these fish home, in that these fish take years to get to trophy size.  A 3 1/2 -4 pound smallmouth could be 10 years old and most likely a 40" muskie is at least 10 years old if not 12 or 15 years old.  This makes these species much more susceptible to fishing pressure than a shorter lived species such as a brook trout.  If a 40" muskie is killed, it takes 10 years to grow it's replacement, so keep that in the back of your mind as you are catching these fish.  Back to the tags, please support the research if you catch a tagged fish and call the number to report it.  Just write down the tag number and you can send the fish on it's way.