Some local guides still practice Set-Line Slaughter An Editorial: By Craig Sandell It was reported that a 52-inch musky weighing more than 40 pounds was found washed up dead on an island on the northeast end of the Chippewa Flowage on June I by three anglers from Illinois...certainly a disheartening site for someone who has traveled all that way to fish the Chippewa Flowage. The dead musky apparently expired this spring after ingesting a single-hook sucker rig last fall, according to local musky guide Scott Allen, who examined the fish on June 2. A swallow-hook rig was found coming out of its mouth. According to Allen and a number of other anglers and guides, the fish is another example of the waste of a natural resource caused by some anglers who fish from shore with sucker-baited set-line rigs each October and November. The set-line fishermen may or may not get to a rod when there is a bite. They cut the wire leader and release many of the fish, thinking they will live. But the fish end up dying, Allen said. Allen stated that "The (52-inch) musky may have broken the line while battling an angler or wrapped the line around a stump or log and broke it before the set-liners got around to checking their fishing rods. "Last year in the Hayward area, there was only one 40-pound-plus musky that was known to have been caught,"
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