What should Wisconsin's statewide minimum size limit be?

[AWH]

[Phishin]

I know you Wisconsin guys aren't gonna like this, but I think if WI has any chance of being a musky fishery like Canada or MN even, it's gonna have to increase its size limits and lock up it's Indians.

[55starfire]

i was waiting for this poll to come up...

zach sanders

Guys see my post on muskiefirst"show me where in wisconsin bigger size limits work...... They have not not as far as I can see. The srain of musky we have is what we have. You cannot compare them to the others especially the spotted. This is an age old arguement and we have to look at the Bone lake study and the lakes that have had higher size limits for some time. I fish several and do not notice any more big fish then befor. lets see what happens in the winnebago system with the spotted they are stocking.
We beg for more and bigger and to be honest we should be happy we have the great fishing we do in wisconsin, Yes it would be nice to have some trophy lakes and I believe the stocking of the spotted is the way to go.
God I love catching them even if there only 40 inches. please look at that post some great replies.
Sorry to mention the other site guys.
Don Pfeiffer

Any 34" Wisconsin kept Musky regardless of the strain certainly has the potential of becoming a 20 pounder.

[Muskyhoun]

I don't know what I did wrong on the above post but my username didn't come up. I'm strongly for a 45" size limit statewide in
Wisconsin. I've been fishing Little St. Germain off and on since the early sixties and I think raising the size limit on that lake is going to definitely make a big difference within the next five to ten years. Fishing pressure on that lake even back then was too great. It was a heavily stocked lake and many of them never got a chance to grow up. Back then the size limit was 30" and I remember catching about three dozen in one season on this lake and 70% of those were undersized. I've been a catch and relase fisherman from back then already but the majority of fishermen were keeping everything over the 30" size limit. I was really happy to see the size limit raised to 45" on Little Saint. A beautiful body of water.

[MuskieMike]

I just went into my local bait shop tonight before I went out fishing (boated 1 33"er if anyone cares) and there was a polaroid taken today in the parking lot of a 46 1/2"er caught in a local lake and kept ... I have no idea if this guy planned on mounting it or what but it just made me sick ... This wasn't from a big lake with a lot of natural reproduction and the numbers of fish in my area are way down (what I believe is due largely to uncontrolled spearing) ... There is no doubt in my mind we need to preserve the fish we do have and even if they don't grow to be 40 pounds, i guarantee they'll have a lot better chance than they will hanging on some guy's wall ... the limit needs to be atleast 48" in wisconsin lakes ... I don't think any reasonable musky fisherman would consider a 46"er a true "trophy" fish and shouldn't have any reason to keep it ...

Mike

It always seems to be length limit increases to improve the fishing, why doesn't the idea of one pole per angler ever seem to be brought up. I imagine that would affect 'your' type of fishing too much.

[Big Fish]

One pole per angler would effect more then just musky fishermen. It would effect all fishermen. Good luck getting that passed in this state. Lets start where we have a chance and can get the most done.

Then in two years this can start all over again but instead of 'people keeping too many 36" fish' you can change it to 'people keeping too many 40" fish'. I suspect the issue is the fishermen, not the size of the fish.