Draft long-range plan for muskellunge and large northern pike

The Department of Natural Resources has developed the draft Long Range Plan for Muskellunge and Large Northern Pike through 2020 with considerable input from a variety of fisheries stakeholders and fisheries managers. The purpose of this plan is to guide fisheries management of muskellunge and large northern pike in inland lakes of Minnesota for the next 12 years.

Recommendations for Muskellunge

• Increase pure strain muskellunge opportunities by up to eight additional waters for a total of 103 pure strain waters, by the year 2020. Candidate lakes will be geographically distributed, approximately two per DNR administrative region based on described ecological criteria, trophy potential and social considerations developed through a public participation process.
• Manage muskellunge populations for ?trophy? angling opportunities through stocking, size regulations, season closures, existing spearing bans, and promoting voluntary catch and release.
• Conduct spring population assessments that include mark and recapture population estimates to evaluate stocking effectiveness and population status.
• Continue to monitor and evaluate muskellunge management and the associated fish communities through standard lake surveys and special sampling.
• Evaluate the capacity of public and private production to meet management needs. Identify additional capacity if necessary to maintain program objectives.
• Evaluate the number of lakes managed with tiger muskellunge and potential to substitute pure strain muskellunge in select metro area lakes.
• Increase public awareness of the role the muskellunge within fish communities.

Recommendations for Northern Pike

• Improve angling opportunities and population size structure through regulations to reduce the annual harvest of large pike.
• Continue to evaluate the effectiveness of the current experimental and special regulations, currently 106 waters, through netting and creel surveys.
• Consider managing up to 125 lakes statewide with regulations intended to improve size structure.
• Conduct research to evaluate management and inform future decisions.
• Increase public awareness of importance of large pike to fish communities.

Recommendations for Spearing

• Continue to provide opportunities to spear northern pike.

Information

The Department greatly appreciated the considerable input received during the comment period. We heard from more than 550 people regarding their perspectives about the draft long range plan for muskellunge and large northern pike. DNR staff reveiewed comments. The revised plan is posted below.

• Complete plan (82 pages | 1.6 MB)