An FYI for Mille Lacs resort owners

I hadnt considered that side of things necessarily. I can understand how muskie/smallmouth fishing won’t bring the charters back

To many of the Replies to this post remind me of this!!!

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Perhaps the era of launches has ended?

Last I checked the world population was about to surpass 8 billion on this planet.

Historically, what really stays the same over time? Not much….

Adapt or perish seems to be a reality.

If I was a resort on Mille Lacs, I would start a weekend bass league… Just an idea for someone.

Before I get beat up, I don’t follow what every resort up there is doing, so if one already is, awesome!

Ten plus years ago Red went through the a similar situation (Walleyes – Gone).

It took teamwork from the DNR, Locals, and indian tribes members; AND 10 years to bring it back.

When constructive teamwork begins success will follow.

Lets ALL help.

Up North Local

Except the causes for the declining walleyes were different between the two lakes. Red was over fished. ML was mismanaged.
Red was fixed by turning off fishing and stocking.
ML is still mismanaged. ML will not be fixed until the management changes tactics. For that to happen, management needs to own up to their mistake. Until then, it’s just pissin’ in the wind.

Maybe the resorts have a right two biatch about the management. Will the DNR take them serious if the resorts advertise that everything is rosy while taking the opposite stand with the DNR?

djshannon wrote:

Ten plus years ago Red went through the a similar situation (Walleyes – Gone).

It took teamwork from the DNR, Locals, and indian tribes members; AND 10 years to bring it back.

When constructive teamwork begins success will follow.

Lets ALL help.

Up North Local

And during those 10 years the resorts survived and capitalized on what was historically a secondary species, trophy crappies, and people drove hundreds of miles to catch them. Just a few weeks ago essentially all of the Bassmasters pros were saying that ML is the top lake in the country for trophy sized smallmouth. I understand it is a bit different than the crappies in Red because targeting smallies in the winter is darn near impossible, but on the flip side there are many nonresidents who are willing to travel during the summer to catch trophy smallmouth.

Kyhl wrote:

Except the causes for the declining walleyes were different between the two lakes. Red was over fished. ML was mismanaged.
Red was fixed by turning off fishing and stocking.
ML is still mismanaged. ML will not be fixed until the management changes tactics. For that to happen, management needs to own up to their mistake. Until then, it’s just pissin’ in the wind.

Maybe the resorts have a right two biatch about the management. Will the DNR take them serious if the resorts advertise that everything is rosy while taking the opposite stand with the DNR?

Bingo! We have a winner!

Kurt Turner wrote:

Perhaps the era of launches has ended?

Last I checked the world population was about to surpass 8 billion on this planet.

Historically, what really stays the same over time? Not much….

Adapt or perish seems to be a reality.

Perhaps the era of launches has ended. Tough pill to swallow when some of the larger resorts with up to 3 boats or might have half a million invested. Not so easy to just write that off. And the smaller outfits that only have launches? Only option then is to shut it down and lock the door. Unfortunately not all of them can turn their property into a McDonald’s playland. Perhaps they can figure out a way to go on some kind of public assistance…ha!
Adapt or perish? Oh so easy..eh? Won’t argue with you on that but I’ll let you tell that to the Iron Ranger in Eveleth or Hibbing. Just that simple!

“Adapt or perish? Oh so easy..eh? Won’t argue with you on that but I’ll let you tell that to the Iron Ranger in Eveleth or Hibbing. Just that simple!”

Yes Adapt or Perish. In some of these cases adapting might mean sell everything and choose a different career. Tough pill to swallow for sure but as you pointed out, whats their alternative? Sit at the bar complaining until the bank shuts the lights off?

Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention 5 years ago, but it sounds like people are either blaming the DNR and the Natives right?

So we have two things, natives netting a bunch of fish during spawn, seems not ideal.

DNR mismanaging the lake, ie: ill-advised slot?

Obviously people have been complaining about the netting and we realize there’s nothing we could do about it, so let’s move on to the DNR.

Did people not realize the DNR ‘mismanaged’ until it was too late? I guess what I’m asking is did the resorts see the writing on the wall but continued to run charters and keep every possible fish to keep the business afloat?

I know the netting has an impact, and the slot, and blah blah blah. But everyone ignores the impact anglers have had. I am not sure if I’m ready to blame this 100% on the DNR or the natives. How many people(not saying the people here) have the attitude “well I only get to keep 2 fish now so I’m damn sure going to keep them”. How many people have freezers full of fish on Mille Lacs from 10 years ago but still keep a limit every time they fish?

I’ve watched the winter bite on LOTW get progressively worse on the south shore over the last 3-5 years, while the summer/spring/fall bite has been steadily good. What’s the difference? Well there’s 10,000 ice fishermen fishing the reefs in the winter while a fraction of that is there in the spring/fall. I don’t care how big a lake is, fishing pressure affects it.

…Try a limit of one fish Phil (and a limit of 0 this past season…). People ain’t filling freezers with that limit… …RR

roosterrouster wrote:

…Try a limit of one fish Phil (and a limit of 0 this past season…). People ain’t filling freezers with that limit… …RR

I’m not talking about this year, or last year, I’m talking about the years leading up to these years.

philtickelson wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>roosterrouster wrote:</div>
…Try a limit of one fish Phil (and a limit of 0 this past season…). People ain’t filling freezers with that limit… …RR

I’m not talking about this year, or last year, I’m talking about the years leading up to these years.

…keep going back..The lake has had pretty stiff reg’s for years that doesn’t allow “freezer filling” which means it’s not the angling that is hurting the lake…Enjoy that coffee! …RR

No regs actually ‘allow’ for freezer filling, and the limit was 4 walleye through 2012. So how many people went up for the weekend on opener and kept a limit of 4 walleye Saturday? And then a limit of 4 on Sunday? And then a limit of 4 every other weekend of the summer? I can’t find the regs from 2008, but 2009 – 2012 had 4 fish limits. So that’s like, 4 years ago?

Mille Lacs was called a walleye factory for a reason, I’ve heard it a million times on LOTW or about Mille Lacs before all this mess, “hook and line will never cause a dent in the population, that’s why it’s okay that I am bringing home a triple possession limit”

Is it really so unbelievable that over-harvesting had an impact? I’m not trying to say it’s 100% fishermen’s fault, as that’s pretty silly, just suggesting it could have played a part and will continue to play a part in any walleye-related population issue, people gotta have dat walleye meat or their lives are over.

Maybe a post of Will’s from back in June should be posted at the beginning of every thread debating the issues with ML.

Note the graph that shows that Mille Lacs walleye harvest has been declining since 1999. The point being, ML was not over harvested when the average harvest since 1998 is less that 200,000lbs when prior to 1998 the average harvest was greater than 400,000lbs per year.

Something else happened that caused the decline of fish being able to survive into adulthood. Narrow slots that target specific year classes maybe? Overly protecting trophies maybe?

philtickelson wrote:

No regs actually ‘allow’ for freezer filling, and the limit was 4 walleye through 2012. So how many people went up for the weekend on opener and kept a limit of 4 walleye Saturday? And then a limit of 4 on Sunday? And then a limit of 4 every other weekend of the summer? I can’t find the regs from 2008, but 2009 – 2012 had 4 fish limits. So that’s like, 4 years ago?

Mille Lacs was called a walleye factory for a reason, I’ve heard it a million times on LOTW or about Mille Lacs before all this mess, “hook and line will never cause a dent in the population, that’s why it’s okay that I am bringing home a triple possession limit”

Is it really so unbelievable that over-harvesting had an impact? I’m not trying to say it’s 100% fishermen’s fault, as that’s pretty silly, just suggesting it could have played a part and will continue to play a part in any walleye-related population issue, people gotta have dat walleye meat or their lives are over.

Mille Lacs was (and still is with the proper changes) capable of sustaining harvest levels significantly more than what have been taken for the past 10 years. The problem is that for years YOY (young of the year) walleyes were not surviving to maturity at anywhere close to historical rates.

The harvest numbers were actually significantly lower after the treaty management was enacted at which point the slots were put in place. The issue being that the unintended affect of the slot was to create an un-natural population of large walleyes which then began to eat baitfish at unprecedented (and unsustainable) levels. Once they had decimated the perch & tullibee populations by the late 1990’s it led to unprecedented cannibalism of young walleyes in the early 2000’s resulting in the downward spiral bringing us to where we are today.

Understandably there is some natural variation that comes into play as well but my belief (as well as that of most of the resorts) is that the harvest could have remained at or close to it had been in the past if the regulations had been adjusted to reduce the # of walleyes over 20″ to bring the walleye population back into balance.

– Harvest totals chart created from data taken on DNR website.
– Baitfish and large walleye proportion charts taken from Dick Sternberg PERM white-paper.

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philtickelson wrote:

No regs actually ‘allow’ for freezer filling, and the limit was 4 walleye through 2012. So how many people went up for the weekend on opener and kept a limit of 4 walleye Saturday? And then a limit of 4 on Sunday? And then a limit of 4 every other weekend of the summer? I can’t find the regs from 2008, but 2009 – 2012 had 4 fish limits. So that’s like, 4 years ago?

Mille Lacs was called a walleye factory for a reason, I’ve heard it a million times on LOTW or about Mille Lacs before all this mess, “hook and line will never cause a dent in the population, that’s why it’s okay that I am bringing home a triple possession limit”

Is it really so unbelievable that over-harvesting had an impact? I’m not trying to say it’s 100% fishermen’s fault, as that’s pretty silly, just suggesting it could have played a part and will continue to play a part in any walleye-related population issue, people gotta have dat walleye meat or their lives are over.

Phil you conveniently forgot to mention the tight slot…If you don’t catch fish from 18″-20″ it’s tough to get that limit now isn’t it? That is part of the restrictions that made the limits so tough to get thus NOT being able to fill freezers. Been fishing that lake religiously for 35 years Phil. I got a comeback to everyone of your claims that its the fisherman that are part of ruining the lake…Fact remains that before the DNR and nets (which btw cannot release fish!) the lake ran itself…Next? RR

I had a GIF for Will as well but I’m pretty sure everyone heard that mic drop…..

And Will Roseberg with the walkoff winner!

And yes, I did just comment so I can come back to this the next time ________ is blamed for the down fall of Mille Lacs Lake walleye.

djshannon wrote:

Ten plus years ago Red went through the a similar situation (Walleyes – Gone).

It took teamwork from the DNR, Locals, and indian tribes members; AND 10 years to bring it back.

When constructive teamwork begins success will follow.

Lets ALL help.

Up North Local

It took money from the DNR to stock Red, period.
The bands then built a cannery and are accepting fish to be commercially sold. What was learned is the DNR will throw money at a problem with no requirement that you don’t abuse the resource again.

roosterrouster wrote:

Phil you conveniently forgot to mention the tight slot…If you don’t catch fish from 18″-20″ it’s tough to get that limit now isn’t it? That is part of the restrictions that made the limits so tough to get thus NOT being able to fill freezers. Been fishing that lake religiously for 35 years Phil. I got a comeback to everyone of your claims that its the fisherman that are part of ruining the lake…Fact remains that before the DNR and nets (which btw cannot release fish!) the lake ran itself…Next? RR

I didn’t ‘conveniently’ forget anything. Do you think the people filling their freezers are abiding by the ‘strict slot’? Every article I’m finding pre 2012 shows a 4 fish limit of walleye under 18″(under 17″ in 2012), you’ve ‘conveniently’ misinterpreted every one of my posts. Congratulations on fishing the lake for 35 years, but who cares. I’ve been taking craps for over 30 years but that doesn’t make me an expert in digestive systems.

You guys can suck up to Will as much as you want(sorry though, I think he’s seeing someone already), I’m not solely blaming anglers for the situation(and never was), just suggesting they could be part of the problem and that most refuse to be part of the solution. 99% of people fishing Mille Lacs aren’t interested in long term management/longevity of the lake, they are interested in limiting out the x# of weekends a year they fish there. This is your cue to misinterpret this as ‘everyone here is in that 99% even though I never suggested that and most are obviously in the 1%’.

Will, thanks for posting actual facts/studies as opposed to whatever it is everyone else is posting. What I see in those charts is very interesting, I don’t know how the DNR calculates harvest totals, so understanding that a bit more would be helpful for me. Is that just surveys at the landing? Not sure how accurate that is, but hopefully it’s at least calculated the same way for that whole time period. Lord knows technology has changed a lot(so has the population) since the 1970s.

It honestly looks like Mille Lacs had a potential size problem pre-treaty as they were over 50% higher than every other lake on the chart. So either the treaty exacerbated the problem or it’s a coincidence in timing to the problem getting worse. Would be interested in seeing the other lakes numbers pre and post treaty if they were available, to see if the size increase is just limited to Mille Lacs(probably is, but would actually make a much stronger case for a treaty impact to have same breakout for other lakes). As it stands it’s a pretty ‘arbitrary endpoints’ chart unfortunately. Again, not saying it’s not true, but that’s not exactly bullet-proof evidence. Do you know how long the pre-treaty time period and post-treaty time period is on that graph? It doesn’t specify how they define ‘pre’ and ‘post’ treaty.

I’m not suggesting they aren’t related, but can you see the problem with this type of thing, there’s no control comparison(and likely one doesn’t exist unfortunately, it’s not like there are 10 other lake mille lacs we could test on)but Brian Dozier hit .215 in May and .369 in June. If I had some insider knowledge that he started tying his shoes differently on June 1st I could make a chart that shows a HUGE increase in his batting average and put a snazzy ‘pre bunny ears shoelace knot’ and ‘post bunny ears shoelace knot’ label on there and it’d be….. a pretty terrible chart.

Seriously, I’m totally on board that the netting is terrible and the dnr management probably sucked. I’m not on board with anglers having no impact.

You know what I don’t see in the yearly harvest chart? Two consecutive years of HIGH harvest(’76 and ’77 the only exception, which was before even Rooster was ever gracing the shores of Mille Lacs and ’06-’07). You know what I do see? Every year of high harvest is followed by a significant drop in harvest the next year. I suppose that was all because the Indians and DNR?

1984 – 1985: Over a 50% decline in harvest, taking 4 years to bounce back to 1984 levels.

1989 – 1990: ~30% decline in harvest after highest reported harvest in history to that point in time.

1993 – 1994: ~80-85% decline over the next two years after by far the highest reported harvest in history.

1996 – 1997: ~50% decline in harvest after another high harvest season.

1999 – 2000: ~60% decline in harvest. This is the year they were granted treaty rights wasn’t it?

Everyone in here looks at the charts and goes ‘oh, that suits my stance on the matter’. Unfortunately, it suits mine as well but you guys can’t be bothered to actually analyze anything that’s not streaming across the ticker on Fox News.

OOOohhhh burn, mic drop, I’m an edgy dude, etc. etc. etc.

Will Roseberg wrote:

The harvest numbers were actually significantly lower after the treaty management was enacted at which point the slots were put in place. The issue being that the unintended affect of the slot was to create an un-natural population of large <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleyes which then began to eat baitfish at unprecedented (and unsustainable) levels. Once they had decimated the perch & tullibee populations by the late 1990’s it led to unprecedented cannibalism of young walleyes in the early 2000’s resulting in the downward spiral bringing us to where we are today.

Interesting point on the Tulibee, I’ve heard rising water temps affected the tulibee population drastically. Got a chart of max water temp by year to compare to the tulibee population? I know they don’t do well in warm water.

It would make sense that more large walleye would hurt the tulibee population as well, but would ten 25″ walleye eat more small tulibee than 50 14″ walleye(or whatever the appropriate comparison is)?

Simply put

Say the the lake can support 1000 lbs of walleye.
you could have 1000 1lb fish that would eat smaller prey of more variety
you legislate slots to prevent fish harvest and you have a lake of 100 10 lb fish that can eat larger prey as in adult perch tulibee . Causing the prey to produce.
prey species run low cannibalism takes over. Plus you protect other predators such as pike and muskie and they prey get hammered worse.

You can look up studies regarding bass vs wallye one was just published in the in fisherman where the pumped fish stomachs and released bass and walleye of all sizes for a number years in NW Wi. 83% of walleye stomachs pumped had bass or walleye in them. They found 1 bass with a walleye in its stomach out of thousands.
You cannot create a lake of monsters and sustain it period. this was all predicted to happen but DNR choose to do what they did.
The lake can never return to what it was with this type of management.

Mwal

Phil no reason to get defensive. Here is the Blue Ribbon report, there is more data and charts than most would want to analyze. The two most telling, in my preconceived biased opinion, are the Biomass greater than or equal to 14″ (356 mm) on page 20 and Figure 15 on page 29 showing the survival of year 1, 2, and 3 yo walleye. There is a pretty clear nosedive post 1999. Are nets entirely to blame? No, but it’s pretty clear the combination of netting during the spawn and a slot that skewed the biomass to larger size is to blame. Bringing this back full circle, that is why so many resorts are still (justifiably imo) upset at the DNR. Particularly when they (resort owners and Mille Lacs centric fisherpeople) said this would be the end result.

https://www.d.umn.edu/biology/documents/Ahrenstorff2_000.pdf

Found one for you though Phil

You guys are too funny. I made a chart too. This is from the real walleye harvest data Will posted(total pounds were estimated, but should be pretty close).

As you all know, one of the most influential songs of our time was released in 1992, that is of course ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ by Billy Ray Cyrus. It’s long been hypothesized that Billy Ray’s hit song was a key contributor to the decline in walleye after a strong 1992 season.

We averaged the walleye harvest from 1989 – 1992 versus the harvest from 1993 – 1995, and the results are pretty telling. Have a look.

I see really good evidence that anglers absolutely have an effect on the walleye population, but as they say, ignorance is bliss.

Here’s a quote from a DNR dude about the Tulibee thing:

Jacobson has been studying the fish since 2006, and DNR gillnet data chronicling the decline of the fish goes back decades. What’s happening is the fish are getting “squeezed,” Jacobson said: Nutrient runoff from developments leads to algae growth — and inevitable death. Dead algae fall to lake depths, where decomposition consumes oxygen, driving the tullibee higher in the water column. Meanwhile, hotter summers heat the lake from the top down, and increasingly, tullibees find themselves in waters that are lethally warm. The result is a die-off of large numbers of the fish.

The tullibee – foundation for walleye, muskies – in peril

Sorry, I know that doesn’t fit in with the narrative. Since Tulibees are in decline on the whole am I to assume that the treaty is affecting Tulibee populations on lakes throughout the state?

Hopefully the DNR and Indians get their act together, because we all can see that walleye harvest is amazingly stable when they aren’t involved! No big swings in the past whatsoever.

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Seriously Phil. in order to save you from a heart attack you win. Now go chill out to some Thursday night football! …RR

People my age don’t really have heart attacks, and I’m not that worked up. This is basically how this has gone:

you guys: Tribal netting and DNR mismanagement had a large impact on the walleye population on Mille Lacs.

me: I agree those things had a large impact, but is it right to ignore the impact anglers have?

you guys: No, you don’t get it, tribal netting and the DNR had a huge impact!

me: yeah, I don’t disagree, but I believe anglers have had an impact now and in the past as well.

you guys: *graphs and articles showing some evidence of tribal netting and dnr mismanagement impact on fishing*. :smugface: See! Haha yeah mic drop we’re the best.

me: yeah, but there was large population drops in the past before the netting or dnr mismanagement how do we explain that?

you guys: NO, look at the graphs and the articles! Netting made a big difference! Here’s more articles and charts.

me: ….

So much for having an actual discussion…Didn’t catch any of the game but I’m catching up on some South Park right now

Should we tell em? Or just let him think he’s got this…..hmmmm