To the original question, I think it is a combination of the waning season, change of seasons, school has started, and ML is no longer a destination fishery for most MN fisherman.
In my view, the ML season is over. I like to fish for pike, walleye, musky, and crappies. Aka, “real fish have teeth”, plus a pan fish. I’ll rarely target bass. All of those things I can do within 15 minutes of home. I don’t need to drive to ML to chase musky, pike, and crappies, and I can catch bonus 20″+ walleyes 20 minutes from home.
Pile on top of that the three year deal the DNR signed under the table and I’ve thrown in the towel for now. That deal ensures that there will be summer C&R seasons with closures until at least 2021. It won’t matter if the allocated quota jumps to 500,000 lbs in two years. 50% of that will go to the tribe. 250,000 will go to non-tribal people, minus the prior years overage that we keep running.
2021. Let that sink in.
A lot will change in my life by 2021.
Our vehicles will be paid off.
Our house will be nearly paid off.
I’ll be about 10 years from retirement.
I’ll start shopping for probably my last boat.
And if ML opens back up, I’ll probably be adding a for sale sign up there and shopping for a different place to spend my summers during retirement.
So yeah, I’ve thrown in the towel for now.
There are probably a lot of people that fish ML that are or are close to throwing in the towel after this season’s mess. So I can understand why the ML forum might be quiet.
