1970 Iowa’s First Full Muskie Season
I know that some of you will say "but Vance they had an open season on Muskies back in 1969." But, and I know I'm splitting hairs here, that season didn't start until July and according to the regulations as written in 1969 the season was to run from May 15 - November 30, making 1970 the first full season. Besides that I needed something for the middle of May not July. So here we are. The other nice thing about the 1970 season, it was ten years after the first flight bearing muskellunge fry landed in Decorah and delivered 1,535 muskellunge fry, along with another bag containing suckers to serve as food, to the Decorah Trout Hatchery. Say one thing for those little guys, they arrived in style.
Evidently the staff at Decorah underestimated the amount of cannibalism that the little muskies were capable of as by September when the pond was drained only 80 of the muskies were collected. Those first muskies were stocked into Clear Lake and West Okoboji. After 1960 the muskies arrived as eggs and were first hatched at the Lansing Fish Hatchery before being transported to Decorah for rearing. And evidently they were kept better fed as the survival rates were much higher for those subsequent years.
Below I have attached a couple of articles from the Iowa Conservationist about those early years of the Muskie program as well as a newspaper article from July1969 about the new muskie fishing season.
One of those early young muskies arriving at Clear Lake (Scott Grummer collection)
