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with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources set out years earlier to do exactly that. The knowledge gained from their studies set the stage for Kentucky’s current muskellunge fishery. “The early work of department biologists, in particular Dan Brewer, Jim Axon, Lew Kornman – but also others – was critical to the successful muskie fisheries established today,” said Mike Hardin, assistant director of fisheries for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. The department now raises and stocks muskie to keep numbers up and maintain a
Jim Axon (left) performed early muskie studies along with Lew Kornman (far right and facing page). Biologist Al Surmont holds the scale.
trophy fishery. The allure of catching the muskie of a lifetime draws anglers to Kentucky from across the Midwest. Each spring, the Professional Musky Tournament Trail holds its season opener at Cave Run Lake. The event drew more than 90 boats last year, with the top anglers hailing from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kentucky and Illinois. Tournament Director Tim Widlacki said the quality of the fishery is a big reason that it keeps coming back. “The anglers love it,” he said. “We get great support from the community and the chamber of commerce – and the fishing is outstanding.” Distinguished by a torpedo-shaped body and duck-billed mouth teeming with sharp teeth, muskies pose a serious challenge for even the most experienced angler.
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om Willis caught his first muskellunge while fishing the Licking River near Blackwater Creek in 1970. Although just a high school junior at the time, it’s a memory he still cherishes to this day. “That one was 40 inches,” he said. “I was using a Zebco 33 with 20-pound line and a rod that I had built.” A momentous change to the Licking River was on the horizon. By 1974, a dam placed across the river at the northern extremes of the Daniel Boone National Forest created Cave Run Lake and eliminated a significant amount of prime muskie stream habitat. Elsewhere around the state, other dams built for flood control emerged across the range of this native species. Realizing they needed to learn everything they could about muskies, biologists
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Early studies laid groundwork for state’s current muskellunge fishery • By Kevin Kelly 8 Kentucky KentuckyAfield AfieldSpring Spring2015 2015
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E.J. Crossman, writing for the American Fisheries Society, noted the muskellunge went by such nicknames as ‘waterwolf ’ or ‘tiger of the waters.’ Crossman wrote the fish was “in every way formed for the life it leads, that of a fierce and daunting marauder.” Many people may associate this premier freshwater sportfish with lakes and rivers in the Upper Midwest, yet its natural range dips into Kentucky, where the Ohio strain is native to many streams in the state’s Pennyroyal and Eastern Coal Field regions. Muskies are native to several streams within the Green River, Kentucky River and Licking River basins. The damming of portions of those waters from 1967-1974 created the state’s holy trinity of muskie lakes – Green River, Buckhorn and Cave Run. “Those fisheries developed as we learned more about the muskie and how to raise bigger ones and fewer of them to be able to have a whole lot better success,” said Axon, former assistant director of fisheries with Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. Most of Kentucky’s muskie fisheries are supported by stocking. Each spring, biologists collect broodstock from the Cave Run Lake tailwater and take them to the nearby
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Minor E. Clark Fish Hatchery near Morehead. Hatchery employees hatch the eggs then raise the fish until they reach 9 to 13 inches. Teenager Sarah Terry’s state record muskie exemplifies what can come of these. Terry’s fish, caught out of Cave Run Lake in 2008, weighed 47 pounds and measured 54 inches. Biologists had not studied muskies and had done little management work with the species in Kentucky before 1967. That year, department biologists launched a study of native muskie populations in eastern Kentucky streams with an eye toward a stocking program. “Bernie Carter was the director of fisheries and I think he already had in mind proposing a hatchery below Cave Run, knowing the Corps of Engineers planned to impound that and sacrifice all that habitat and spawning area,” Axon said. “At the same time, he was looking at what we could do to supplement the native muskie streams that weren’t impacted, and see how we could improve our management and practices in providing a fishery in the streams that could augment what’s already there.” Brewer played an important role on both fronts. The Iowa native studied muskie as a fisheries biologist and later served as the first superintendent at Minor Clark hatchery. “Dan’s work was key to getting Kentucky’s muskie program started in the right direction,” Hardin said. Brewer was two months out of college when he took the lead on the muskie stream study. The study documented everything from the size and structure of native muskie populations to the minimum size of mature muskie. Research also focused on spawning, survival of young muskie, growth rates and what factors limited muskie populations. The study ultimately provided a base-
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Sarah Terry with the mount of her state record muskie, caught in Cave Run Lake. line understanding of muskie in Kentucky. “The whole outline was basically set up by Bernie Carter,” Brewer said. “The conservation officers were a big help because they surveyed from the beginning whether they even had muskie in their streams. They familiarized us with the streams.” Kinniconick Creek, North Fork of Triplett Creek, Beaver Creek, the Red River and the North and South forks of the Licking River were studied first. The list eventually expanded to include the Little Sandy River, Tygarts Creek, Big Goose Creek, Sexton Creek and Sturgeon Creek. Biologists hauled their department boats behind station wagons. Launching boats with a car rather than a truck often proved a chore, especially in rugged areas. “The conservation officers would show us the easy places, but there weren’t that many, so they’d show us the places that maybe we could get in,” Brewer said. “Local farmers would help us. A lot of times we’d just stop at their place after we got to know them and take their tractor down and put in. We’d have to back shocker boats through heavily-wooded areas and it could take a long time.” The terrain wasn’t all that made it treacherous work. In one instance, Brewer remembers hanging the boat trailer on a hump in the road. He started walking to the closest farm for help when a dog broke loose from its chain and started chasing him. When
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he finally reached the house, Brewer peered through a window and found himself staring down the barrel of the farmer’s gun. “He says, ‘You open this door and you’re dead.’ But he pulled me out in the end, thanks to some smooth talking,” Brewer recalled. To see how many muskies were in a stream, study crews used electrofishing boats and hoop nets. They also employed sodium cyanide, a toxic chemical Built during the impoundment that came in powdered form or shaped of Cave Run Lake (top), Minor like a soap bar. Clark Fish Hatchery is the cradle “I remember we put it out once and of Kentucky’s muskie population. I fell in,” Brewer said. “I survived. But I also Muskellunge broodstock collected remember sometimes in the evening my arm from the adjacent tailwater are would go to sleep.” processed by hatchery employees Brewer heard (right). The resulting eggs are many stories about legnurtured from-fry-toendary muskies during finglering until they are this travels. “Iron Jaw,” ready to be stocked. for example, was said to haunt the Licking River near Triplett Creek. Local lore had the fish getMuskies are voracious feeders and ting entangled with a expensive to produce. With the possibarbed wire fence during ble exception of the lake sturgeon, they a flood, then snapping the are the most expensive fish the departwire to free itself. ment raises and stocks, Hardin said. “People claimed they’d Each muskie costs about $1 per inch to see this huge muskie with raise to stocking size. barbed wire in its mouth,” Kentucky Fish and Wildlife raises oto Brewer said. “I don’t think around 10,000 muskies annually; this rchive ph A R FW KD it’s true, of course.” year’s crop will include almost 6,300 fish Project assistant Charles Gorham took up to 13 inches and another 3,800 up to over for the study’s last year, while Brewer 9 inches. Typically, lakes receive the largattended hatchery management school in er fish while streams receive the smaller Alabama. ones. Dave Baker photo Together, they determined streamAxon studied the development of dwelling muskie averaged 29 inches and Cave Run Lake’s muskellunge fishery generally spawned for the first time at age really spawned there. I would just get out in during the immediate years after impound4. They found pre-spawn movement started the stream and walk along the side looking. ment. He advocated stocking 9-inch muskie near the end of March. Spawning typical- It was hard, but I found a couple.” because that size survived better than the ly occurred in shallow waters in the lower The Minor Clark Fish Hatchery opened smaller fingerlings. and upper ends of pools by the third week in 1973 as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers “By 1976, the fishery took off because in April to early May, when water tempera- neared completion of the Cave Run Lake we had 3-year-old muskies that year that tures averaged 55 to 60 degrees. dam. Beaver Creek, North Fork Triplett got to 30 inches or better,” Axon said. “The Muskies drop their eggs on stream bot- Creek, Tygarts Creek, the Red River and fishery looked great at that time but sort of toms and the eggs cling to gravel, vegeta- the North and South forks of the Licking tapered off when the rest of the population tion or other debris. A surge of high water River yielded the original broodstock that got established. We went to 12 to 13 inches laden with mud and silt can wipe them out. enabled production of native strain muskie (for stocking) and found that seemed to be If everything goes right, the eggs hatch in at the hatchery. the best size to get good survival and main11-14 days. Today, all muskies stocked in Kentucky tain a high-quality muskie fishery.” The muskies that delighted Brewer the are reared at the hatchery. Any muskellunge Green River Lake received its first most weren’t the trophies. “I think the hap- caught in a Kentucky lake likely started life muskellunge in 1977. Studies there revealed piest I’ve been to see a muskie was on Beaver in Minor Clark Hatchery, as natural repro- that larger fingerlings had a better chance Creek,” he said. “I just wanted to see if they duction in lakes is minimal or absent. of reaching 30 inches by their second year
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due to lower predation and the cooler water temperatures found during fall stocking. The department initiated a follow-up of muskie streams in 1980. Axon and Kornman, among the study’s authors, noted in a 1986 summary that Tygarts Creek in Carter County proved the best stream for muskies among the 14 streams studied. Sexton Creek and Goose Creek, both tributaries of the South Fork of the Kentucky River, faired poorly in Brewer’s original study. However, water quality had improved by the time of the second study and researchers now rated these as high quality muskie streams. Collins Fork, which empties into Goose Creek just south of Manchester, had deep pools that muskie preferred and produced one of the highest rates of muskies rolled to the surface by the department’s electro-fishing boats. “We’d go up there and there would be fallen trees in the way,” Axon recalled. “I’d just rev up the old Merc and shoot over ‘em and say, ‘Hang, on.’ We had a conservation officer with us one time. It was funny because, boy, Tom Willis fell in love with muskies after catching his first one 45 years ago.
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he knew to hang on. He couldn’t believe we were doing that to get to the next pool to chase muskie that we knew were ahead of us. That was a ball.” Adequate habitat and food are keys to the muskie’s ability to feed well and grow quickly. The species needs structure such as fallen timber for concealment to ambush their prey. It takes an average of five to six years for a muskie to reach 36 inches in a lake, and a longer time in streams, which makes catch and release by anglers all the more important for a muskie to reach trophy size. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife is now studying the impact of a 2010 regulation that increased the size limit of muskies to
36 inches at Cave Run, Green River and Buckhorn Lakes. A measure to establish a 36-inch size limit at Dewey Lake in March 2016 has been approved by the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission and is pending final legislative approval. Elsewhere in the state, a 30-inch size limit for muskie remains in effect. The four lakes are scheduled to be stocked with muskie this year. When there is hatchery surplus, and often there is, muskie will be stocked in streams. Barren River, Kentucky River, North Fork Kentucky River, South Fork Kentucky River, Station Camp, Sturgeon Creek, Tygarts Creek and Drakes Creek are first in line this year. Green River, Licking River, North Fork Triplett Creek, Kinniconick Creek, Little Sandy River, Red River and pools No. 8 and 9 of the Kentucky River would be next. More than four decades after catching his first muskie on a homemade rod, Willis hooked more than a half dozen muskies over a three-day period while fishing Cave Run Lake last fall. One measured 45 inches. Cave Run has become a special place for him because it melds the past with the present. “I do so much better on muskie from the lake,” he said. “But I still love the creeks. I am always wondering what is around the next bend or below the next riffle.” n Spring 2015 Kentucky Afield 11