Make room in the Wisconsin fish record book, Louis Spray and your 69-pound, 11-ounce muskellunge. A new musky may be crowned state record, perhaps as early as 2014. The same goes for a dozen other species, including premier game fish such as walleye, northern pike, largemouth bass and smallmouth bass. It’s part of a new state record fish program in the works by the Department of Natural Resources.
Beginning in 2014, the agency plans to separate kept fish into two categories, Legacy and Modern Day.
In addition, it plans to form a Live Release category.
The program will move 13 longstanding but “unverifiable” records into the Legacy category, said Karl Scheidegger, DNR fisheries biologist who coordinates the state record fish program.
“The methods and standards of today are different from yesteryear,” Scheidegger said. “We want to continue to recognize the historical records, but start a category for fish caught and verified in the modern time.”
Scheidegger said the impetus for the change came from inside and outside the department. Some people outside urged the DNR to either substantiate or vacate old records.
And some within the department wanted the record-keeping process to be as consistent and verifiable as possible.
When he checked the files of records from yesteryear, Scheidegger said he found “nothing for many of them.”
“By keeping them in the Legacy category, we’ll continue to honor them,” Scheidegger said.
According to the DNR, 13 state fish records “do not have the standard documentation of today’s record fish.”
The 13 records destined for Legacy listing are: Largemouth bass (11 pounds 3 ounces, caught in 1940); smallmouth bass (9-1, 1950); common carp (57-2, 1966); channel catfish (44-0, 1962); muskellunge (69-11, 1949); tiger muskellunge (51-3, 1919); northern pike (38-0, 1952); yellow perch (3-4, 1954); green sunfish (1-9, 1967); brook trout (inland, 9-15, 1944); lake trout (inland, 35-4, 1957); lake trout (outlying, 47-0, 1946); walleye (18-0, 1933).
Beginning next year, the agency will begin to accept entries that meet minimum qualifying weights for the 13 vacant species.
The minimum weights will be about 75% of the Legacy records.
The minimum qualifying weights for the Modern category are: largemouth bass, 8 pounds 6 ounces; smallmouth bass, 6-12; common carp, 42-13; channel catfish, 33-0; muskellunge, 52-4; tiger muskellunge, 38-6; northern pike, 28-8; yellow perch, 2-8; green sunfish, 1-3; brook trout (inland), 7-7; lake trout (inland), 26-7; lake trout (outlying), 35-4; walleye, 13-8.
The other 55 species (everything from American eel to whitefish) documented and entered into the state record book by current procedures will “roll over” into the Modern category.
Several Modern records are likely to be set in the first year, including smallmouth bass and walleye. Fish in excess of the minimum qualifying weights are caught each year in Wisconsin.
But the Modern musky mark may remain open for a while. A musky over 50 pounds is a real rarity. And then there is the question: Will the angler want to kill it? Read on….