Visit the Team Iceshanty Proshop
Mackinaw is just another name for lake trout; no difference between the two fish. The last few years there have been several lake trout up to 6-7 lbs. caught at Lake DeSmet, some in open water, some through the ice. Over the last 25-30 years a few larger lake trout have also come out of DeSmet.ClearCreek
Might shoot my self in the foot. But as of Memorial day lion club derby 2017. 14'lb lake trout where being turned in. Hoo aaaa there are no lake trout in Desmit. I don't know what your talking about. LOl so not a lot but a few are being caught. Hopefully one day 20 years from know we will have a hog in there. If I'm wrong but they grow around a inch a year so average pup is 20-25 inches. So have quite a few years before we get trophy quality.
How many thousands of dollars in stocked rainbow trout do you expect it to cost to grow your trophy Laker?
Who cares? Food for bigger fish is all those little rainbows are good for. It would be awesome to have a fishable population of lakers in there. They need to throw something new like cisco, smallmouth and tigers in there and see what happens.I only hear of the occasional walleye being caught through the ice; if someone is catching them they're not talking about it.So how much are you willing to pay additional for $1.50 trout to feed these lakers for 50 years .Maybe a gate fee at desmet?Someone has to pay or they stop stocking when the trout return to creel drops to an unacceptable level.
DeSmet is not owned by the game and fish nor the department of parks and hysterical sites. Pretty sure you will not see a gate fee anytime soon. The funding comes from your licensing already. And remember they just increased license fees. If wanting to pay more for fishing "rights" send a donation to the game and fish. Please don't encourage the bilking of more funds out of the citizenship. All the more traffic DeSmet gets it would cost more in G&F salary to collect the monies and red tape to disperse the funds. If this is true, not sure why trout are being used for forage when there are other less expensive forage species that could be used. Shad, smelt etc... Or should I ask are other forage species more beneficial and less expensive then trout? Wonder why there's no big spiel about the cutthroat in DeSmet with all these invasive, non indigenous species being introduced like in other cutthroat waters. Oh that's right, its only the walleye or the "illegally introduced walleye" that eat native trout. So on one hand we use trout to feed the lake trout in DeSmet but the lake trout in Buffalo Bill don't eat trout, only the walleye do?Its getting hard to see through the smoke....
Thanks for explaining it better than I could. I watched an interesting show recently about how lake trout illegally introduced into Yellowstone lake has caused a tremendous decline in the Elk population. I was very skeptical at first but they explained it very well how the lake trout eating the Cutthroats caused the grizzly bears to begin eating the elk calves when they used to be eating the cutthroat at that time of year. Illegal fish introductions have caused major problems in many places in the country. I wish there was a better way to stop them.
Sounds like a Chaos Theory explanation. Elk decline due to lakers? Maybe wolves play a larger role in elk, deer populations declining than a lake trout?
DeSmet is not owned by the game and fish nor the department of parks and hysterical sites. Pretty sure you will not see a gate fee anytime soon. The funding comes from your licensing already. And remember they just increased license fees. If wanting to pay more for fishing "rights" send a donation to the game and fish. Please don't encourage the bilking of more funds out of the citizenship. All the more traffic DeSmet gets it would cost more in G&F salary to collect the monies and red tape to disperse the funds.
Not to add more smoke, fire, and craziness to this post (although I can't top cutthroat shortages causing elk calf deaths) but where does the madness
Responsible scientific "studies" also showed the ice caps would be gone by now too. I don't buy the cutties are even partly responsible for elk calf declines, or that wolves cannot detect elk calves by sense of smell. The whole thread should be tossed imo lol.