Study Shows Musky are Long Ranging

They are often called "the fish of a thousand casts," but that may not be an appropriate title for the musky any more in West Virginia.  Recent years have showed an increased number of musky in West Virginia waters. Today catching them is becoming more and more common. 

As the population has increased, angler attention and education about them has improved as well.  Twenty-years ago only a few diehard and dedicated musky fishing enthusiasts would commit themselves to an exclusive musky fishing trip.  From time to time they would be rewarded with a single fish.  Today, it’s not uncommon for anglers to catch one–and maybe even multiple muskies on an outing in West Virginia.

The West Virginia DNR’s musky research has been helpful in improving those odds.  Currently the agency has two projects underway. One is studying those fish on the Elk River and another on North Bend Lake it Ritchie County.  The studies are aimed at finding movement patterns.

"We’ve been following fish we have tagged," said Biologist Scott Morrison. "If we recapture a tagged fish we can get some growth rate information."

Morrison says on the Elk River they’ve documented one fish that moved more than 60-miles.   Researchers also determined the fish on Elk River seem to grow faster than fish in comparable waters of the Buckhannon River and Middle Island Creek.

The research on North Bend Lake is a tad more sophisticated.

"We’ve tagged 24 fish with transmitters and we have six receivers throughout the lake.  If a fish comes within 150-yards of the receiver it will record the individual fish," Morrison said.

Morrison says they have more than 700,000 records of those 24-fish in what is now the third year of a five year study.   He says the information they’ve revealed has been interesting. 

One conclusion is when the musky are ready to spawn, they are on the move.   Morrison says last winter was certainly unusual and it appears the musky this year spawned two weeks earlier than normal and they were cruising in search of a nest when the spawn was on.

"They probably spawned around March 20th," he said. "They didn’t do a whole lot of movement in January, February, and early March.  Then they started moving like crazy.  Some of them were recorded on three different receivers in one day."

Another revelation of the North Bend Lake research is concrete evidence some of those fish get through the dam.

"We thought we had fish getting out of the lake and into the North Fork of Hughes River," said Morrison. "But one of our tagged fish was caught by an angler about 30-miles down stream."

The last recording of that fish in the lake was only a few days prior to the musky being caught.  

It’s all valuable research and fact which Morrison says they’ll use once the studies are done to determined if there need to be different management strategies involved in musky fishing all over the state.