Hiya folks,

I get the chance to fish with so many folks over the course of a summer. One of the questions that I get asked repeatedly when someone catches, a nice fish, is, “How old is it?”

The answer may surprise you.

Speckled Trout is one of the shortest lived of our game fish. An old speck is seven, eight, nine years of age. Compare that to a muskie. A muskie’s maximum age is 32-34 years. Now, Walleye and Smallmouth in Northern Ontario, where I’m fishing right now, can be 18, 20, 22 even 23 years old.

Black Crappies and Yellow Perch are similar. Our oldest Black Crappies on Lake of the Woods here are 23 or 24 years of age. The granddaddies, though, are Lake Trout. They can live to be 40, 50, and, in the far North, even 60 to 70 years of age.

So, it’s an interesting question and it varies depending on the species and region.

Happy Fish’n,Gord “The Doc” Pyzer