- Details
By Louie Stout
Webster Muskies on the Rebound
Tiny ‘PIT” tags are inserted into young muskies before they are stocked into Webster Lake. When fish managers return to take brood stock each spring, they scan each fish they net to check for tags that provide information on growth rates, survival and whether the muskies they capture are stocked fish or naturally reproduced. (Indiana DNR photo)
Jed Pearson is eager to see what he finds in nets at Webster Lake when his DNR fisheries team starts collecting adult muskies for the hatchery in the coming weeks.
The biologist hopes he’ll see more young muskies as he and anglers did last year. If he continues to find juveniles mixed in with big ones that would be a good sign that DMR fish management changes continue to produce good results.
In case you weren’t aware, 774-acre Webster Lake in Kosciusko County historically has been one of the Midwest’s best muskie fisheries.
However, the population diminished to only a few big muskies about four years ago, prompting DNR officials to revise their stocking and hatchery methods.
Webster, along with other Hoosier muskie lakes, is totally reliant on hatchery-raised fish and stocking efforts.
Pearson is optimistic that the Webster muskie fishing is on the rebound.
- Details
By Louie Stout
Lake Michigan Biologist Brian BreidertIt’s time, said Lake Michigan Biologist Brian Breidert, to begin a new chapter of his life.
The 39-year Indiana DNR biologist retired last week after spending the last 18 years heading up the DNR’s Lake Michigan fisheries team in Michigan City.
No replacement has been named as yet. Breidert’s assistant, Ben Dickenson, will serve in that role until an announcement is made.
“We have a good crew here that can pick up where I left off,” said Breidert, a 62-year-old Iowan who has made his home in Indiana since joining the Indiana DNR in 1979 as a seasonal worker.
Biologists come and go in both Indiana and Michigan DNRs, but this particular job isn’t one of those simple plug-and-play positions.
Dickenson has had a good mentor and will fill in nicely. Even so, Breidert’s steady hand at the wheel of a delicate fishery will be missed.
- Details
By Louie Stout
Is fishing big business in Michiana?
It depends what you consider big business, but it definitely contributes to the economy throughout this region, according to the most recent statistics provided by the American Sportfishing Association and Southwick Associates.
For example, in Jackie Walorski’s Indiana Congressional District 2, 167,062 anglers spent $64.7 million on fishing-related retail purchases in Indiana during 2017.
- Details
By Louie Stout
Giant Walleye Wins Indiana ‘Fish of the Year’
Jakob Kintzele has fished with his grandfather dozens of times in the Michigan City harbor, but on Dec. 21st he hooked and landed more than he expected – the biggest walleye caught in Indiana last year.
You read that right. Not a trout, not a salmon, but a giant walleye. The fish weighed a whopping 11.88 pounds and measured 31.25 inches.
The Chesterton, Ind. angler was on spring break from Princeton University, where he is a freshman studying Geoscience and is a member of the track and cross country teams. When visiting his grandparents in Michigan City, he and grandad Tom Anderson always try to get squeeze in some fishing time.
“Before I went to college, we fished from shore almost every week for steelhead or salmon,” said Kintzele. “I’ve caught steelhead that were bigger, like around 15 pounds, but this is definitely a cool ‘second’ as my biggest fish down there. It was quite a shock.”
When the fish slammed the silver spoon he was winding back to shore, the pole bent hard and line zinged off the spool.
“We thought sure it was a big steelhead, but when I got it to the water’s edge and saw the goldish color and the fin, I was like,‘Whoa! This is a walleye!”
As always, Kintzele was using his grandfather’s tackle, a old spinning outfit spooled with “14- or 20-pound braided line tied to a 10- or 12-pound monofilament leader,” he said.
“After we got the fish in, we looked at the line and it was all nicked up,” Kintzele added. “It was old line, so we were lucky to land that fish.”
Fortunately, they had a net, albeit a small one.
“The net was laughable; maybe two feet in diameter, just enough to get the head of the fish scooped onto shore,” joked Kintzele. “We’ve always carried it and considered it our lucky net.”
As the teenager battled the fish, Indiana DNR biologist Ben Dickinson was watching through binoculars from his nearby office.
“I figured it was a big steelhead, but when I saw that was a big walleye I ran down there to check it out,” Dickinson said. “I told Jakob he needed to let us weigh and measure it and enter it into the Indiana DNR Fish of the Year contest in the walleye division.”
It won easily.
Kintzele planned to release the fish back into the lake, but when an older angler fishing nearby insisted he wanted to eat it, Kintzele gave it away.
“I was seconds away from releasing it, and would have liked to have done that, but the guy wanted it pretty badly,” he said.
In case you’re wondering, the Indiana walleye record stands at 14.25 pounds.
More importantly, you’re probably wondering what a big walleye was doing in the Michigan City Harbor mouth.
If you follow this column, you may recall a story we did not long about Dickinson’s crew finding big walleyes in nets they set for lake trout near the Michigan City breakwall just outside the harbor.
Indiana doesn’t stock walleyes in Lake Michigan. “In the last five years, we’ve encountered about a dozen walleye weighing between 4 to 14 pounds,” he said. “We netted one a couple of years ago that had to be close to the state record. We didn’t have scales to weigh it, but I have to believe it was 14 pounds or bigger.”
Dickinson said he hears of the occasional walleye being caught in the harbor by trout fisherman, but none as big as Kintzele’s.
So how does the biologist explain the recent influx of walleyes?
“There’s obviously a sub-population that hangs out around Michigan City, but we see a similar situation around the Port of Indiana,” he said. “We have limited habitat, but we hear about a few being caught along the southern lakeshore. There’s not a huge population out there.”
Those fish are probably strays that Michigan plants in the St. Joseph and Galien rivers, he added.
“There could be some natural reproduction going on, but we’ve never seen any small walleyes, so that leads me to believe they are from other stockings,” he explained.
Dickinson also noted that biologists are seeing more northern pike, and last year, a big muskie was caught in the Michigan City Harbor by a shore angler.
“The eco-system is changing,” he explained. “The water is clearer and we’re seeing more weed growth in protected areas. Plus, shad and goby populations are healthy so these other fish species in the area have a good forage base to feed upon.”