Any news about shutting Mille Lacs down?

They are at 91% of harvest. Anyone at the meeting last night?

I saw a post from Steve Fellegy on BookFace that says “Probably no Walleye closure on Lake Mille Lacs…. Most likely won’t reach quota..”. Take it for what it’s worth. I wasn’t there.

Here’s the DNR reporting from the creel survey.

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/millelacslake/creel.html

This shows 77% but I assume buzz has the most recent segment totals.

v

Ya the issue right now is the warm water and the use of live bait together. Until the water temps start dropping (September?), mortality will be high if using live bait. Once guys start trolling cranks heavily in the fall with cooler temps, mortality will not be nearly as high.

Just my opinion, but I don’t think there will be a closure this season.

What is the water temp right now?

It was about 74 last weekend. +- 3 depending when and where

I agree that live bait fishing causes a lot of hooking mortality. That coupled with pulling fish from 30 feet plus has a lot of dead walleyes washing up on my shore.

Oh good Lord, here we go again with all the dead walleyes floating in ML because the water is warm and the fisherman do know what they are doing. Like Slawrenz said the water temp is only 73-75. Extremely cool for this time of year on a normal year. 2nd there are not many people fishing that I see this time of year, so very few people are killing a lot of walleyes by hook mortality and 3rd, most of those dead fish you are seeing are tullibee, not walleyes and they are not dying from hook mortality.

I am on the lake most weekends. I have seen a lot of dead tullibee floating (end of July to early Aug) and not very many walleye at all.

I was there Saturday and only saw tullibee.

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Not sure where I read this, but it has been recorded that over abundance of plastic is a contributing factor in the mortality? I assume plastic from jigs, not straws from drinks?

sticker wrote:

Oh good Lord, here we go again with all the dead <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleyes floating in ML because the water is warm and the fisherman do know what they are doing. Like Slawrenz said the water temp is only 73-75. Extremely cool for this time of year on a normal year. 2nd there are not many people fishing that I see this time of year, so very few people are killing a lot of <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleyes by hook mortality and 3rd, most of those dead fish you are seeing are tullibee, not walleyes and they are not dying from hook mortality.

It is unlikely that I will change your mind. But the last few weekends, I have had to bury 2-4 walleye that have washed up dead on my beach. It may not be hooking mortality. It could also be that the fish were taken from 25′ or deeper. Walleye caught from that depth are unlikely to survive.

I don’t see live bait rigging causing any higher mortality rate than trolling cranks… Sure I’ve hooked fish deep before but have always been able to get it out safely. If you can’t get the hook out without killing the fish then cut the line. Or go from under the gills. I’ve yet to hook a fish I couldn’t get the hook out of unless it was down its throat. With pulling cranks, I end up with more back trebles lodged in gills due to them getting hooked by the first one then their thrashing around sinks the back hook into their gills.

Try a circle hook. Also you can remove the front trebles from your crankbaits.

rjthehunter wrote:

I don’t see live bait rigging causing any higher mortality rate than trolling cranks… Sure I’ve hooked fish deep before but have always been able to get it out safely. If you can’t get the hook out without killing the fish then cut the line. Or go from under the gills. I’ve yet to hook a fish I couldn’t get the hook out of unless it was down its throat. With pulling cranks, I end up with more back trebles lodged in gills due to them getting hooked by the first one then their thrashing around sinks the back hook into their gills.

Tell that to the DNR. Their studies and research say that live bait causes up to 60% higher mortality than artificial lures this time of year.

Barbless hooks next?

Soon followed by “hookless lure regs….”

gimruis wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>rjthehunter wrote:</div>
I don’t see live bait rigging causing any higher mortality rate than trolling cranks… Sure I’ve hooked fish deep before but have always been able to get it out safely. If you can’t get the hook out without killing the fish then cut the line. Or go from under the gills. I’ve yet to hook a fish I couldn’t get the hook out of unless it was down its throat. With pulling cranks, I end up with more back trebles lodged in gills due to them getting hooked by the first one then their thrashing around sinks the back hook into their gills.

Tell that to the DNR. Their studies and research say that live bait causes up to 60% higher mortality than artificial lures this time of year.

The DNR “studies” also says that there aren’t any Walleyes in the lake…

I almost strictly use live bait. I have not had one single fish hooked deep or not swim away with enthusiasm this year. Been out about a dozen times since opener. The last time we were out, we saw 3 floating fish, 2 were Tullies.

gimruis wrote:

Tell that to the DNR. Their studies and research say that live bait causes up to 60% higher mortality than artificial lures this time of year.

Was that the study where they put caught fish in holding nets basically until they died?

Ya that sounds like one of them. One of many. The DNR isn’t the only entity that says this though. Other scientific, educational, and managerial bodies have founded that in general, live bait is going to cause higher mortality than artificial lures will. This is true in almost every species of fish. Part of the reason live bait is banned in bass and muskie tournaments – they want to release their catch and reduce the chance of mortality.

Just to clarify, I’m not discounting or denying what you or RJhunter has indicated. Its August. The water is warm. They’re probably being caught in deeper water. These are all factors, in addition to the bait/lure that is used.

A few years ago they were going to ban live bait for the entire season because that was the only way they said they could keep it open all season. So they did, but all the bait shops and launch businesses cried “wolf” and said they can’t fish without live bait so that decision was reversed. Sure enough, it had to close early.

gimruis wrote:

Ya that sounds like one of them. One of many. The DNR isn’t the only entity that says this though. Other scientific, educational, and managerial bodies have founded that in general, live bait is going to cause higher mortality than artificial lures will. This is true in almost every species of fish. Part of the reason live bait is banned in bass and muskie tournaments – they want to release their catch and reduce the chance of mortality.

Just to clarify, I’m not discounting or denying what you or RJhunter has indicated. Its August. The water is warm. They’re probably being caught in deeper water. These are all factors, in addition to the bait/lure that is used.

A few years ago they were going to ban live bait for the entire season because that was the only way they said they could keep it open all season. So they did, but all the bait shops and launch businesses cried “wolf” and said they can’t fish without live bait so that decision was reversed. Sure enough, it had to close early.

I don’t doubt that live bait has a higher hooking mortality than artificials, I do doubt that specific study as well as their hooking mortality estimates in general, as well as hooking mortality as a legitimate management tool. Its just too arbitrary and too many variables to be accurate imho.