DNR presses muskie stocking plans in targeted Minnesota lakes

Minnesota officials are seeking public input on expanding muskellunge stocking to select lakes, including Big Marine Lake in the east metro. But while the DNR says muskie fishing is taking off, stocking has been controversial in some lakes.

Besides Big Marine, lakes being considered for expansion next year include the Fairmont chain in Martin County and Gull chain in Cass County. Two chains of lakes in Otter Tail County — Franklin and Lizzie chain, and Loon chain — are under consideration, although no more than one of the three lakes within those chains will be chosen, the DNR said in a statement Monday.

The agency said it posted signs at those potential muskie lakes and began talking with local angling groups and lake associations last summer. Comments are now being taken at public input meetings and online. The agency plans public hearings starting later this month.

The DNR calls muskie fishing one of the fastest growing segments of Minnesota sport fishing. But its stocking efforts in some lakes have come in for criticism.

In Otter Tail County, some homeowners around Pelican Lake say the DNR's longtime efforts to stock muskie there have gone too far and that the muskie have grown into monsters that eat all the food and damage the walleye fishery. DNR officials dispute that notion and say Pelican Lake is healthy.

The new muskie expansion proposal, they say, is simply intended to provide additional muskie fishing opportunities by stocking a handful of additional lakes with low densities of the fish.

"Fisheries research work in Minnesota and Wisconsin shows that muskellunge coexist with healthy populations of walleye and other important game fish," T.J. DeBates, the DNR's east metro area fisheries supervisor, said in a statement.