By Louie Stout
Don’t be surprised if you catch a muskie in or around Lake Michigan.
Great Lakes fisheries biologists, including those in Michigan, are discovering the big ol’ muskellunge like to roam outside of their stocking areas.
Michigan biologists Matt Diana and Addie Myers discovered that when muskies embedded with transmitters and planted in Lake Macatawa along Lake Michigan’s eastern shore showed up in the Chicago area.
“We’ve tagged 20 fish with transmitters and are following those fish,” he explained. “At least five were noted by a receiver in Chicago, and when we pulled our receiver from the water at Macatawa, we picked up a signal from a fish stocked in Green Bay that was trying to spawn in those waters.”
When receivers are pulled from each site, biologists can download the information from transmitters and track movement of the fish. Most of the receivers are located around the mouth of rivers.
Receivers are located on buoys throughout the Great Lakes, including Lake St. Clair, one of the Midwest’s top muskie fisheries.
“We will learn more once all of the official data is shared later this year,” said Diana. “We’re getting really cool information.”