So I spent a couple of my days off on French....still no ski...no fish seen either. But the real bummer is, I was talking to this guy that lives on the lake and he says a couple of his neighbors are hardcore walleye guys and every time they catch a Musky they kill them because they firmly believe they should have never been stocked and that their walleye fishing has been ruined ever since. One guy even cuts their heads off and lets them dry out on the side of his shed. This was ther most disturbing thing I ever heard. (as far as fishing is concerned) Has anyone ever heard of this happening?
The guy offered to show me the shed but I was so appalled at the time I just wanted to fish to get my mind off of it.

Yes, I heard of this on French before. About 5 years ago I caught a muskie by a dock on French. A older man on the dock tells me he kills every muskie he catches because the muskies are eating all the walleye. I told the guy maybe you and your buddies should release a few of those walleyes.

Smeese- Was this guy on the south end of the lake?


Brian

Its too bad there are people out there that need to be like this. We only have so many lakes with muskies in comparison to walleye what 80% of minnesota lakes have them

Honestly I would have had him show me called the dnr and waited until the dnr got there. If he is killing them all there is a good chance he is taking fish that are under 40" or is french a 48" lake? I cant remember I dont need to they all swim away after pics

Exactly what I was thinking. That's definitely someone that needs to be paid a visit by the DNR. It's hard to measure a fish with only a head. But you can certainly tell if it's well under legal size!

Aaron

So what exactly could the DNR peg these guys with? It seems to me that if the fish are of a legal size, there's not really much anyone can do about it.

about the best arguement for a muskie stamp i've heard yet?

1 per year. per stamp.

Maybe a wanton waste citation. The guy would have to somehow admit to the DNR he did kill them and throw them away but if he's proud enough to admit he is killing them for the good of the fishery to other anglers, he just may flap his mouth too much in front of the DNR as well. Really hard to say. DNR may also just set up an investigation and monitor the guy as they will probably have to catch him in the act.

Yup I am all for a stamp

Or the dnr in plain clothes fishing having a chat with him as they troll by he says too much and bust him

Dnr can be sneaky I think for something such as this

Thats sick.

Me and a buddy chatted with an older gentlemen while ice fishing on Bald Eagle and he said pretty much the same thing, muskies are to blame for small panfish and low walleye pop. and he slits them all hole to hole. We didnt say much to him after that but judging by what we saw of his ice fishing skill he has probably never caught a muskie...

Yeah.....I totally grew up in the area and know quite a few people on the lake. My nephew fishes the lake regularly too so I am gonna investigate this further as I have a general direction of the home or homes. Maybe these people don't catch a ton of them but how thick can the population really be anyways on a small lake to sustain these measures. Between that and the access I might as well head north.

A stamp would not solve this problem, people like this could care less.

Definitely report it, if the DNR hears it enough, they'll do something.

A stamp would certainly do something about issues like this. As the law stands now someone can LEGALLY catch and kill one musky a day during the open season, provided they also "use" that fish that same day, as you are allowed one fish per day, one fish in possession.

A stamp/tag program changing it to one fish PER SEASON would make anyone who does things like this a poacher and much easier to deal with.

It will not stop them from poaching. Same as shoot, shovel and shut up but with fishing. They'll just quietly go about wasting the resource.

The guy who hangs them on his shed will just get rid of the remains or leave them in the lake, no way to prove anything.

Saw about a 35-40 in Northern's head near the garbage at the Forest Lake launch today. Probably by this same type of angler.