I attended the Fall Meeting of the Musky Clubs Alliance of Wisconsin. There was much discussion about adding $50,000 to the Alliance’s Endowment fund to provide annual scholarships to UWSP fisheries students. This would be a one time donation, with the earnings from the fund providing scholarships ninety in future years. Ultimately, it was decided to leave the endowment as is and donate $6000 for next years scholarships.
The National Championship Tournament is always looking for help setting up, taking down, etc. They are also looking for sponsors to put advertising on the back of tickets. The Clubs are asked to donate 5 lures each, to give to the kids in the tournament, of which there were 80 last year.
Tim Parks, DNR Fisheries, was at the meeting and talked about all things muskies including:
-The Walleye initiative, which affects the number of muskies raised at the State hatcheries.
-VHS, which is still a big concern and threat to the fisheries.
-How to produce a better product ie. muskies’ survival rate, which size fish do the best when stocked.
– How stocking is more difficult in Northern waters due to low conductivity in the water.
-How the DNR looks at stocking quotas. Tim discussed how the musky population is down in Lac Couderay, maybe due to habitat degradation, while Spider Lake is still overpopulated.