Musky Whisperer’s advice: Think like a scientist
Approaching elusive fish has been lifetime pursuit
DNR biologist Jordan Weeks has been living and breathing muskies for 24 years and has the catch rate to prove it. But what really sets him apart is how he does it: by thinking like a scientist.
He’s even been given a classic Wisconsin nickname — “The Musky Whisperer” — a well-earned title, even if his friends give him grief for it.
As a kid, Weeks’ father used morning fishing trips as a reward for his doing well in school. One year, when the weather turned nice early in his hometown of Stoughton, he found that waiting for the May bass opener was hard to endure.
“When I was young, I couldn’t understand why the season was closed. Why can’t I go fishing if I’m just going to let it go?” Weeks recalls thinking to himself. “To be honest, I think it’s a dumb rule.”
He called the Department of Natural Resources office in Madison to ask about it.
Although he couldn’t understand the rationale in their response, he waited until May to cast his first lure. But the question stuck with him all the way into his career as a DNR fisheries biologist. To this day, he says, “I like the thought of manipulating regulations to make fishing better.”
As a senior in high school, Weeks recalls strolling past his school’s agriculture classroom and spotting the class fish tank. He enrolled in the class, and his favorite lessons soon involved feeding the fish, watching them grow, and measuring them.
By then, he had already applied to a college known for its strong natural resources programs: the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
“When I got there, I really understood why I
“I find every encounter with these beasts educational. No catch is insignificant; I learn something from every single one. They’re all stored in my brain somewhere and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’ll help me catch one.’ ” DNR biologist Jordan Weeks
wanted to do what I wanted to do.” He graduated with a double major in biology, and fisheries and water resources.
“He’s a good friend, and a good family man, and a great guy to have working for the state,” professional musky angler Steve Heiting says of Weeks. Heiting is managing editor of Musky
Hunter magazine, for which Weeks writes, and has known Weeks for more than 15 years through the Wisconsin musky community.
Working on his master’s thesis, also at UW-Stevens Point, Weeks radiotagged muskellunge to learn about their movement patterns across lake chains.
“I’ll never forget when he was doing it,” recalls Heiting, who was often out fishing while Weeks was out researching. “I would see him so many times out there in a little 14-foot boat, holding up what amounted to an old-timey television antenna. He was out there every day for months of the year trying to do that.”
The antenna picked up signals from the radio transmitters Weeks implanted in muskies and walleyes in the Manitowish Chain of Lakes in Vilas County.
Weeks discovered that after muskies spawned in specific locations, they would take off, swimming all over the lake chains. But once they arrived at their summer home range, they would stay in a smaller area.
“Everybody had presumed that fish moved from lake to lake in lake chains, but nobody had proved it. His study did, and it had implications,” Weeks says.
Heiting explains that thanks to Weeks’ work, bag limits are set for the entire lake chains instead of for individual lakes.
But Weeks’ favorite finding from his research was how muskies moved after they’ve been caught and released.
“Once you catch a fish from a spot, it may not return for some time, so you need to wait a bit to catch it again,” Weeks explains. “So to me the ‘good’ spots are those you catch multiple fish from, not necessarily a spot you catch a (single) fish from — even if she’s big.”
Weeks says he’s drawn to muskies because they’re so much harder to catch than other fish species.
“I’ve always been drawn to a challenge. The ‘fish of 10,000 casts’ is just that,” he says. “Those other species just don’t seem like a challenge to me.”
His love of muskies has taken him all over the state. He’s moved from his hometown in Stoughton, to Stevens Point, Cadott (Brunet Island State Park), Boulder Junction (Escanaba Lake Research Station), Eau Claire, Spooner, Woodruff and finally to La Crosse, when he was hired to his permanent position with the Wisconsin DNR.
There was just one problem: no muskies in the La Crosse area.
Weeks started working with a local musky club that hoped to bring some muskies closer to home. He happened to have connections to biologists up north who wanted to reduce the number of muskies in Butternut Lake. “I just raised my hand — I’ll take ’em!”
Though many water bodies in Wisconsin have been stocked with muskies, a musky-moving endeavor like this had never been done before. The biologists moved 118 adult muskies down to Lake Neshonoc in 2007. Today, that same local musky club now has a weekly musky league, something it never would’ve been able to do without Weeks’ initiative.
Weeks, 42, is married and has three children, who also fish.
“My wife musky fishes with me. She’s pretty successful as well — (however) she wouldn’t musky fish if it wasn’t for me,” Weeks explains.
As for his three children, he says only the youngest, age 6, is yet to catch a musky. “We’re a family of musky anglers. I think I’m screwing them up because I don’t take them fishing for other stuff much. But they certainly think it’s pretty cool.”
He still fishes with his father, too. “I am very fortunate to be able to fish with my dad,” he says. “We’ve been going on annual trips to Lake of the Woods to fish muskies since 2001.”
Weeks has musky experience from every angle. He’s been a hobby fisherman, an academic fisheries scientist, and now works for the state. But he says he’s still learning.
“I find every encounter with these beasts educational. No catch is insignificant; I learn something from every single one. They’re all stored in my brain somewhere and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’ll help me catch one.’ It’s not even really conscious,” he says.
For the record, his biggest musky catch ever was 50.5 inches — the height of an average 8-year-old human — estimated at 30 pounds. Last time he checked, his catch rate was about 4-5 hours per fish.
One of Weeks’ pet peeves is when people complain about state fish and game rules, but don’t participate in the Spring Fish and Wildlife Public Hearings held by the Wisconsin Conservation Congress.
These annual hearings allow every Wisconsin citizen to comment and vote on proposed changes to regulations, and even submit their own resolutions on what they’d like to see in the future. More than 6,800 people attended the 2018 hearings across the state this April — a better turnout than previous years, but meager compared to the million or more fishing licenses the state issues every year.
When he’s not too busy dealing with muskies at work, or dealing with muskies for fun, Weeks writes, unpaid, for
Musky Hunter magazine. But he’s not just writing fishing tips.
“You can only write articles about the best figure-8 so many times,” he jokes, referring to the casting method.
As research editor, he focuses on scientific research that could help anglers. “I take peer-reviewed, scientific journal articles and translate them so anglers can use science to catch more fish,” he says.
His favorite scientific study so far? “Outside of my own?” he said, chuckling. “Project Noble Beast was my favorite, especially when you consider applicability to anglers. They caught muskies and used stress hormones in their blood to determine their health after being caught and released.”
The work found that the specialized way most anglers handle the fish — including the air exposure that occurs during the obligatory photograph — didn’t hurt the fish.
Weeks says this finding was good news for anglers — and for muskies.
Weeks continues to stay up-to-date on research like this to make sure anglers can have the best fishing experience possible. He says to really excel in the quest for the best musky, you need knowledge. You need to think like a scientist.
“The quickest way to learn is to pay the 300, 500 bucks to go out with a guide to learn a particular lake. Ask them to show you as many good spots as possible. Ask a lot of questions. Why are we doing this here? Why are we fishing really shallow or really deep? Why is this fish in this area? Why would they be here? What are they eating?
“That’s what you’re paying for — knowledge. People need to take advantage of it. Too often people sit there in awe of all the gear, all the fancy lures, and they forget to ask why they’re there. That’s the scientist in me always asking: ‘Why, why, why?’”