Faith in the Survey Counts/Assessments?

I realize this might be like a lot of things pertaining to ML in that it could open a can of worms—but we’re all fisherman so opening a can of worms isn’t a bad thing for us.

With this year’s fall assessment done minus the completion of the number crunching I’m wondering what everyone’s attitudes are towards the survey counts?

On a scale of 1 to 5 with five being as precisely accurate as possible and one being totally inaccurate and not reflecting populations of fish in the lake whatsoever, please list the number that best councides with your confidence level in the survey counts. Again, five being you’re 100% fully confident in them, and one being zero confidence in them.

If you wouldn’t mind sharing why you’ve arrived at the number and what has caused you to think what you do about them, that’d be great.

I should just ignore this section as it always goes the same direction.

IMO the survey will show what GLIFWC wants it to show. So I guess #5 eh? After all, figures don’t lie if liars don’t figure.

Before anybody gets bent out of shape. I’m not suggesting the ground level worker-bee’s in the DNR would lie. I’m just saying between the survey and when it’s released the numbers will reflect what GLIFWC wants them to reflect.

Thanks for the response. It’s exactly what I’m looking for with one exception due to me not explaining the scale very well. You’re not wrong since the last line on them I said 5 means having 100% confidence in the counts and you’re right…it sounds like you have total confidence in the counts.

To clarify, the 100% confidence and being a 5 would mean you believe the counts are a true reflection of the fish populations in the lake. They follow scientific method and produce unbiased numbers that aren’t influenced by anything other than the relative population level of the respective fish species being sampled.

So you’d actually be a 1 or maybe a 2 Dutchboy since you’re fully confident that the numbers are infuenced by what amounts to politics, for lack of a better term to describe it.

Even if you stated the ground level DNR worker bee’s were in on cooking the numbers for GLIFWC it wouldn’t irk me in the least. You’re entitled to your opinion and I appreciate you offering the explanation that you did. I don’t agree with it but still think it’s a fair take.

I was going to wait and try to respond last but I might as well answer my own question now.

I’m a 4.

I am pretty confident in the counts accurately reflecting the fish populations in the lake. I think the sampling methods are good and they’re conducted with little to no bias influencing the results. I’m not a 5 because I don’t have 100% confidence in really any wildlife population survey. There’s just too many unknown variables that produce outlier years. I.E. individual survey years where with the benefit of hindsight years down the road, the numbers end up skewed higher or lower than the fairly clear longterm trend; years that are anomalies.

Other than the possibility for anomalies I think the assessment data has consistently been pretty dang accurate and not gone against any of my own personal observations when on the water.

For those of you willing to take the time to review the data before commenting, here you go. Link to the 2019 Mille Lacs LL Survey. Also the notes from the 2019 DNR/Tribe meeting.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1pokt8mqc8ykxp7/AADiIUmsMBIwKuY6mNFuB8yVa?dl=0

I would give the DNR a 4 because the DNR puts a lot of effort into getting data from ML and I have no constructive ideas on how to get better data to use in regards to the condition of the lake. I don’t give a 5 for a couple of reasons. A few years back when the SMB regulations changed and allowed for up to six bass to be kept, this was not based on any science in regards to the bass population. This was admitted during the SMB round table at Agate Bay last fall. Also because after attending the last couple of committee meetings it is apparent to me that the DNR has allowed the committee, due to loss of members, to become dominated by local business owners who I believe are only looking out for their own bottom lines, no thoughts given to those of us who are non-business owners and our views.
For folks that like to just complain, get involved, attend/join the meetings, volunteer to help with surveys, contact the DNR with your suggestions, etc. From my interactions with the DNR in regards to ML, all my interactions have been very positive, well except that the DNR does not currently have a way for us to get data without having to ask for specific documents, such at the LL surveys, scientific papers, etc.

When I was an intern and subsequently a surveyor working for the DNR out of their Aitkin field office in the mid 2000’s, I helped do some fall assessments one time. Bear in mind I was a field person and the biologists compiled the data and then released it. I have no reason to doubt what they did or are still doing is accurate, but this was also 15 years ago and the lake has changed significantly since. Take that for what its worth.

2.5 because I believe the surveys are conducted consistently and in good faith by the DNR. However I believe, like you Jonesr, the results of the survey have too many variables to truly give a good indication of the biomass and are therefore unreliable as a hardened management tool. Add in GLIFWC’s closed door negotiations on the quota and it’s basically worthless beyond giving them a way to say they are managing it “scientifically”.

Ill give the fall assesment a 3 due to all the years of data they have to compair with.

on the other hand, the angler survey, catch rates, and hook mortality are a complete joke. Having a handfull of college students at a few accesses around a lake the size of Mille lacs, asking people how many fish they caught, is pull numbers out of air. Think of all the tire pumpers trying to act cool over with the creel associates and over inflating there catch… i still dont understand how they can justify they are even close. there are literally thousands of accesses around the lake if you include privet ones, they dont have a clue whats going on.

Frankly…does it really matter how accurate we think they are?

It is what it is, whether like it or not or agree with it.

I will offer my opinion in that I believe it has stabilized somewhat, which I think is more important than exacts.

I look back at the past 5+ years and part of what I define as stabilized is the overall acceptance by both anglers and businesses that it’ll never be what it once was.

The outrage, bellowing, complaining, finger pointing that erupted some 5 years ago has continued to fade with each passing year.

I look at the remaining businesses/resorts that were doomed to close years back still around and doing business. Most survived fine. (even covid hasn’t killed them yet). Those that closed had other issues.

From the anglers view, many still come to fish the lake despite it being handicapped compared to others.

Sure there are still some who will not return and make sure to lodge their complaint and even an occasional gripe from a business.

But it is much quieter around here now as it has become more widely accepted as “it is what it is”.

I give the boots on the ground MNDNR employees a 4. Their assessments are done with the best intentions and minimizing the variables that they can. I firmly believe this and that they get bashed far too often.

The reality is, the MNDNR does NOT have much say over Mille Lacs walleye harvest regardless of data. Co-management is a BS phrase. They’re just simply passing on the information that has mostly been dictated by the bands. As long as the bands have the authority, and the MNDNR continues to cling to this co-management phrase… nothing will change. I’d be far happier if the MNDNR just admitted they’ve been effectively neutered with regards to Mille Lacs.

lunker33 wrote:

on the other hand, the angler survey, catch rates, and hook mortality are a complete joke. Having a handfull of college students at a few accesses around a lake the size of Mille lacs, asking people how many fish they caught, is pull numbers out of air.

As a former surveryor, you can go kick rocks. I did my job every single day I was scheduled to when I was a surveyor. I did it accurately and I reported it accurately in a timely manner. If you think the system is a failure then lobby the legislature or DNR on how to change it but to verbally bash the peons at the bottom of the totem pole who are doing what they are asked to is low and disrespectful.

Wow Gimruis sensitive much. Don’t think he verbally bashed the surveyors. You are the one that called yourself a peon. Pretty sure he was commenting how he thought the system was flawed.

gim wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>lunker33 wrote:</div>
on the other hand, the angler survey, catch rates, and hook mortality are a complete joke. Having a handfull of college students at a few accesses around a lake the size of Mille lacs, asking people how many fish they caught, is pull numbers out of air.

As a former surveryor, you can go kick rocks. I did my job every single day I was scheduled to when I was a surveyor. I did it accurately and I reported it accurately in a timely manner. If you think the system is a failure then lobby the legislature or DNR on how to change it but to verbally bash the peons at the bottom of the totem pole who are doing what they are asked to is low and disrespectful.

Agreed.

I’ve never understood the disrespectful behavior towards CO’s, surveyors, etc. They are doing their job. There’s no need to put them through the ringer or bash them. The reason they have that job is because they are likely outdoor enthusiasts just like most of us here.

I witnessed a guy on Pool 4 absolutely unload on a ~70 year old gentleman doing survery work that calmly waived with a friendly smile as a boat pulled out slowly and said “How’d it go out there?” without even leaving his chair. I then walked over to the idiot that F-bombed the surveyor and told him what kind of trash he is and that I felt sorry for his wife and children (right in front of them).

Ripjiggen wrote:

Wow Gimruis sensitive much. Don’t think he verbally bashed the surveyors. You are the one that called yourself a peon. Pretty sure he was commenting how he thought the system was flawed.

You can go kick rocks too.

To confirm, I WAS a peon. I was a college friggin’ intern. I wasn’t there to enforce laws or pull hair or kick tires. I was only there to collect and gather information that the biologists used in their databases and population formulas. People saw me in a uniform and some freaked out and once I explained to them what I was doing, most of them were more than willing to answer a few simple questions. Glad I never ran into a total jackass like you or the lunker out there.

what are you even talking about. Please explain what was offensive I really would like to know. Is it because he called them college kids.
Please explain what hurt your feelings.

For the record you know nothing about me. Know even less about how I have ever interacted with a CO or surveyor. Apparently you can see and understand things that are not there and call others names. Bravo.

gim wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>lunker33 wrote:</div>
on the other hand, the angler survey, catch rates, and hook mortality are a complete joke. Having a handfull of college students at a few accesses around a lake the size of Mille lacs, asking people how many fish they caught, is pull numbers out of air.

As a former surveryor, you can go kick rocks. I did my job every single day I was scheduled to when I was a surveyor. I did it accurately and I reported it accurately in a timely manner. If you think the system is a failure then lobby the legislature or DNR on how to change it but to verbally bash the peons at the bottom of the totem pole who are doing what they are asked to is low and disrespectful.

A couple of weeks ago I witnessed a surveyor get verbally abused at the landing. I was pulling my boat out for the season and the surveyor, a woman in her 70s asked about the catch rate. I had not been fishing I was just taking my boat off the lift. She noticed some weeds on the axel of my trailer and as I cleaned them off we simply talked. It was a pleasant conversation. While this was going on, another boat was being loaded on to a trailer at the ramp. This boat and truck stayed far away, then the driver got into the truck and took off fast, swerved around me nearly hitting my son-in-law and without slowing down he pulled out of the parking lot tires squealing, and accelerated at full throttle down the lake road. He was clearly trying to avoid the surveyor. She followed him to a house just down the road and was going to ask him to about his catch and ask him to clean off the mass of weeds that were draped off the trailer. He got out of his truck and started screaming at her. “YOU F___ING C_NT B_TCH YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO FOLLOW ME!!!!” I could hear him clearly from down the road. She left terrified and intimidated and asked if I would be a witness in her report.

That was one classy sportsman. Treating a very nice woman in her seventies with respect…

lunker33 wrote:

on the other hand, the angler survey, catch rates, and hook mortality are a complete joke. Having a handfull of college students at a few accesses around a lake the size of Mille lacs, asking people how many fish they caught, is pull numbers out of air. Think of all the tire pumpers trying to act cool over with the creel associates and over inflating there catch… i still dont understand how they can justify they are even close. there are literally thousands of accesses around the lake if you include privet ones, they dont have a clue whats going on.

Gimruis, I’m confused as to why this would offend you???

None of it is directed at you specifically. There’s nothing in it that accuses anyone of not doing their job, or being incompetent. I sincerely can’t see anything in it that is offensive.

I think he raised a lot of valid questions. The people in the DNR are employed by the owners of the resource, and they’re paid to manage it for the owners—that’s us, the public. If there’s something any one of us doesn’t understand we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge it and ask questions.

If you owned 160 acres of Central MN hardwoods and had a land management company in charge of improving the property so you can try to utilize it as the highest quality habitat it can be. If they were doing something and you didn’t understand the reason behind why they were doing it I’m betting you would ask them.

This is the same thing really, and I think lunker pointed out something most of us don’t understand and is challenging it. Unless you can explain to him (and myself) how they take into account the factors he listed and mitigate the flawed data from skewing the creel survey, and it’s something really basic to the point of us not knowing it is offensive, I don’t see any grounds for getting upset. C’mon man, you’re better than that. Overreacting and getting offended ruins legitimate discussion. I’m not trying to gang up on you and if I thought he said something offebsive I’d be taking your side. Hopefully you can let it go, no harm no foul, because it sounds like you are going to know a lot more about than the rest of us since you have experience.

I’ve always wondered how they account for what I’ll call the “Angler bragging bias” in the creel survey. I’m assuming you talked to more than one guy you knew was full of it.

It works both ways though. There are plenty of guys who are going to see the DNR uniform and tell you they didn’t catch jack. So to some degree a fair amount of the misreporting will cancel itself out.

How they do creel surveys on a lake where anglers don’t have anything in their creel due to it being catch and release only is a great question. Correct me if I’m wrong but at every other body of water they conduct creel surveys they’re actually observing and recording the physical fish anglers have kept (with the term creel becoming somewhat antiquidated since the only time I use or see fisherman with an actual creel is when I’m trout fishing in the SE part of the state).

I’ve always assumed they’re plugging different quotients into different algorithms to plug into their different models that mathematically address the factors that would otherwise skew the results, but I have no clue what any of the math is. Did they ever go over that with you at some point? I’m interested to hear any insight you might have from the experience had gained actually doing it.

The way I look at this, unless they drain the lake there’s no possible way to accurately count every Walleye. The next best thing is to come up with some “method” and apply it consistently over a period of years. That should indicate population trends one way or the other. It’s not perfect but it’s possible. Gimruis did his job.

SR

ptc wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>gimruis wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>lunker33 wrote:</div>
on the other hand, the angler survey, catch rates, and hook mortality are a complete joke. Having a handfull of college students at a few accesses around a lake the size of Mille lacs, asking people how many fish they caught, is pull numbers out of air.

As a former surveryor, you can go kick rocks. I did my job every single day I was scheduled to when I was a surveyor. I did it accurately and I reported it accurately in a timely manner. If you think the system is a failure then lobby the legislature or DNR on how to change it but to verbally bash the peons at the bottom of the totem pole who are doing what they are asked to is low and disrespectful.

A couple of weeks ago I witnessed a surveyor get verbally abused at the landing. I was pulling my boat out for the season and the surveyor, a woman in her 70s asked about the catch rate. I had not been fishing I was just taking my boat off the lift. She noticed some weeds on the axel of my trailer and as I cleaned them off we simply talked. It was a pleasant conversation. While this was going on, another boat was being loaded on to a trailer at the ramp. This boat and truck stayed far away, then the driver got into the truck and took off fast, swerved around me nearly hitting my son-in-law and without slowing down he pulled out of the parking lot tires squealing, and accelerated at full throttle down the lake road. He was clearly trying to avoid the surveyor. She followed him to a house just down the road and was going to ask him to about his catch and ask him to clean off the mass of weeds that were draped off the trailer. He got out of his truck and started screaming at her. “YOU F___ING C_NT B_TCH YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO FOLLOW ME!!!!” I could hear him clearly from down the road. She left terrified and intimidated and asked if I would be a witness in her report.

That was one classy sportsman. Treating a very nice woman in her seventies with respect…

I’m thinking I know the lady you are talking about. She’s one of the few that works landings for both AIS and the creel survey that isn’t DNR, she works for Crow Wing County.

She’s extremely nice, and very thorough. By far the most thorough I’ve seen for boat inspectors.

I’ve been solo the times I’ve come across her and not in a hurry so I’ve enjoyed the pleasant chit chat with her. I will say though that she needs to be a little more aware of what’s going on and understand that a busy landing is an organized system that unless there’s a jackazz who is organizing his boat and loading gear while parked in front of the ramp, it moves quick and efficiently. The last time I saw her was about a month ago at the Garrison South landing on a Saturday and there were guys getting held up that were getting visibly annoyed. I came in and docked solo and then backed in while there was a group of guys she was inspecting. The guys were good dudes and courteous and not blocking the ramp, they knew what was up and it didn’t bother them that I cut in front of them to pull my boat knowing I could do it before she’d clear them to launch. I was completely loaded up with the boat strapped down, plugged pulled, all that stuff but had to wait twenty minutes to leave because another group pulled in and were waiting behind the guys I cut in front of. Like I said, there were plenty of guys getting visibly frustrated because she had them wait to launch ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, etc.

If it sounds like I’m justifying the behavior of the guys who were swearing at her, I guess I am a little. They shouldn’t have lost their cool or pulled out like they did, but it wouldn’t shock me if the reason they did was because she held them up a half hour when they were itching to go fishing.

Again, the old lady is very nice and I enjoyed some chit chat but if I hadn’t ended the conversation with her once I saw another guy pulling in I’d probably stil be there talking to her. A little more awareness of what’s going on and realizing there are guys she’s talking to that just drove two hours on little sleep because they want to go fishing that bad would go a long ways. It shouldn’t take as long as it took for numerous parties to launch I’ve witnessed her hold up IMO.

gim wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>lunker33 wrote:</div>
on the other hand, the angler survey, catch rates, and hook mortality are a complete joke. Having a handfull of college students at a few accesses around a lake the size of Mille lacs, asking people how many fish they caught, is pull numbers out of air.

As a former surveryor, you can go kick rocks. I did my job every single day I was scheduled to when I was a surveyor. I did it accurately and I reported it accurately in a timely manner. If you think the system is a failure then lobby the legislature or DNR on how to change it but to verbally bash the peons at the bottom of the totem pole who are doing what they are asked to is low and disrespectful.

LOL, Gimruis, as others have aluded too, this was not a knock on the creel workers, the world needs more college educated hard working people like yourself. Im sure you kicked ass and took names while working for the MNDNR, and i am greatful for your service, sorry for any misunderstanding.

My point is that the MNDNR or whoever is behind the curtain doing the statistical anylisis for “total kill”, can not possibly belive they are anywhere close to acurate. Unfortunetly it is the honor system which obveously has flaws, considering anyone can tell them whatever they want. Mind you, the creel team is probably at only a handful accesses around the lake, and that might be overestimating. I really only see them at the Garrison access, and i never see them on the north shore accesses when driving around the lake. With that said, how can they possibly know or even say how many people are on the lake at one time to get a “catch rate” or “total kill” for the day.

Its a joke, and someone needs to hold the MNDNR or whoever is comming up with this imaganary number accountable. Yes it is an IMAGINARY number, no one is keeping any fish with the exception of a few lawless individuals… i wonder if they count the illegally harvested fish? correct me if im wrong, Mille Lacs has to be the only lake around that will shut a lake off over an imaganry number.

done, off my soap box, and Gimruis hopefully you will except my appology.

lunker33 wrote:

there are literally thousands of accesses around the lake if you include privet ones, they dont have a clue whats going on.

I don’t fish the lake and have no dog in the fight, but I will say that this statement does hold more water than the lake does. Until a solid way to included private residences, docks and launch sites, a guesstimate is the best number available in any study. I’m betting that if these “other” ports of entry were statistically included with accurate information in with the public landings and resorts garnered information the lake would be completely closed to walleye fishing. Maybe sometimes its best to leave a sleeping dog lie.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>lunker33 wrote:</div>
there are literally thousands of accesses around the lake if you include privet ones, they dont have a clue whats going on.

I don’t fish the lake and have no dog in the fight, but I will say that this statement does hold more water than the lake does. Until a solid way to included private residences, docks and launch sites, a guesstimate is the best number available in any study. I’m betting that if these “other” ports of entry were statistically included with accurate information in with the public landings and resorts garnered information the lake would be completely closed to <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleye fishing. Maybe sometimes its best to leave a sleeping dog lie.

Tom, Just thought I’d offer a little more insight as I am a daily observer.

Yes, the estimates are primarily derived from their “hocus pocus” formulas and methodology.

But it is more than a blind throw of the dart.

First of all lunker says there never census takers on the north shore which is not true as I’ve encountered them at both Red Door and Fisher’s.

But that’s not really the main point. With observers stationed around the lake it is relatively easy to count how many boats are out fishing.

Not every single one, but a pretty accurate one nonetheless. For example, from my deck I can look south and count how many boats are fishing in Garrison bay, looking straight out how many are on Myr Mar and the flats farther out. Looking to the east how many are on the north shore.

I guess what I’m saying is that it is not all blind and they can get a reasonable count of how many boats are out on a given day regardless of where they left shore.

Of course the next thing is applying their formulas to the observed angler effort.

And that’s where the water gets muddy, counting boats is the easy part. Creel survey’s help them refine their data to plug into “the fish population estimator machine”.

Disagree completely. From shore there is no way anyone can count the boats on the mud flats. Heck the person at let say the garrison landing can’t see anything but maybe garrison reef. They are not counting boats they are counting trailers which in itself is ridiculous as half of the boats are not even targeting walleyes. From the access at the casino you can maybe see one corner of flat. Beacon Harbor you can barely even see the lake. I have been on the lake countless times thinking oh nobody on that flat going to go try and as soon as I get close there are several boats on it. Sorry Andy but they are not up on a perch able to look out on the lake like you stated or you are able to do.
Not sure this is a major part of the made up number anyway as I think the angler survey which we all know how people like to brag about their catch rates are used more frequently with the counting of trailers, which can also be skewed by which way the wind is blowing.

As others have stated I do not blame the survey people. Even though Gimruis thinks I am a jackass (still not sure why) they are just collecting the data the formula itself is complete guess and closer to a dart shot than accurate. So that part I will give a 1.

The fall assessments I give a 3.5. Years of data of this kind is good info. However making regs based on one assessment in the fall is not at all accurate. Fish have fins, they do not live by a calendar and conditions from year to year vary greatly during the survey. If quotas were not set behind closed doors maybe my faith would be a bit higher here.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Disagree completely. From shore there is no way anyone can count the boats on the mud flats. Heck the person at let say the garrison landing can’t see anything but maybe garrison reef.

I think the angler survey which we all know how people like to brag about their catch rates are used more frequently with the counting of trailers, which can also be skewed by which way the wind is blowing.

Here is where I think you underestimate the DNR. If nothing else, estimating angler pressure is something they have done for many years.

Kind of unfair to suggest they would be way off the mark on this one.

An exact count of boats out on the flats or elsewhere around the lake is not needed.

Using a sample size can easily be used toward a mathematical conclusion.

If 50 boats are observed in Garrison bay, that will equate to a number as would observing only one boat in Garrison bay.

I believe they have long since accounted for variables such as windy side/calm side, other less likely fished areas.

Obviously these are not exacts but I think they can get a reasonable pulse on angling pressure/hours on a given day.

I don’t have the formulas the DNR uses, but from my small corner I can tell days of heavy pressure compared to days of very little pressure.

I can see your point Andy. That perspective as it relates to how many boat are seen on the water has a hole in to though in that some boats may not catch a single fish yet still fall under the umbrella of those that do. AND there is no way to positively address how many fish are actually caught and/or are coming in with those who have their own private dock/launch site.

Again, I haven’t got a dog in the fight. However, from the standpoint of being 100% fair, I don’t think any census taking should be done without one non-native and one native being a team doing it. Make that mandatory. Then make it mandatory that these closed door pow-wow, snake dances, be 100% NOT admissible when it comes to levying a quota. Those meetings should be wide open to the whole public. Closed doors makes them un-qualifyable and so prejudicial that I’m amazed the government hasn’t lowered the boom on the activity. Move the meetings off the reservation and make it public. OR.

Just from the standpoint of the racial appearance of the tribes dealing with this I say just tear up the highways that come and go from the reservation land and barricade the cut-off points. The tribes don’t pay road taxes, non-whites do. The whole issue is nothing but racism against anyone non-native and this needs to be seriously addressed. This alone is what has pi$$ed me off for several years.

No doubt you have an excellent vantage point to get an idea of the lake’s use and have a good grip on when its busy or not busy. I marvel at the lake every time I see it so in a way I’m envious of what you have there.

I don’t know what the math is but I think it must work fairly well. Otherwise the tagging and recapture population estimates would be way off and they’re always pretty close. They’re never exact but they’re closer to what I’d expect them to be.

Regardless of what stat we’re discussing there’s a check and balance to it. Very few if any estimates are done that don’t have a corresponding different way of getting the same estimate. If they don’t fall in line with each other that means one of them, or both, are off. From the little I’ve taken the time to dig in and review they’ve all been with the margin of error for one another, but not super close either. If they were always exact to each other…well, that wouldn’t be statistically possible. They’d have to be cooking the books.

An example of what I’m talking about would be how in recent years (if my memory serves me right) the estimate was there was 765,000 in the lake based off their modeling that’s used for setting the quota. They did a tag and recapture check of it and the numbers penciled out to be like 715,000. The official estimate ended up being around 750,000 due to a higher confidence level in the modeling for the quota so that weighed it.

Science based wildlife management is anything but an exact science. Keep in mind that estimate of 750,000 is probably plus or minus 25,000 so there’d be like a 95%+ confidence level of the population being in the 725,000 to 775,000 range.

Is it perfect? Hardly. But no one has ever claimed that. Is it good enough to manage the lake with a fairly high degree of confidence that the DNR has a pulse on which direction the population is going? Absolutely.

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Ripjiggen wrote:</div>
Disagree completely. From shore there is no way anyone can count the boats on the mud flats. Heck the person at let say the garrison landing can’t see anything but maybe garrison reef.

I think the angler survey which we all know how people like to brag about their catch rates are used more frequently with the counting of trailers, which can also be skewed by which way the wind is blowing.

Here is where I think you underestimate the DNR. If nothing else, estimating angler pressure is something they have done for many years.

Kind of unfair to suggest they would be way off the mark on this one.

An exact count of boats out on the flats or elsewhere around the lake is not needed.

Using a sample size can easily be used toward a mathematical conclusion.

If 50 boats are observed in Garrison bay, that will equate to a number as would observing only one boat in Garrison bay.

I believe they have long since accounted for variables such as windy side/calm side, other less likely fished areas.

Obviously these are not exacts but I think they can get a reasonable pulse on angling pressure/hours on a given day.

I don’t have the formulas the DNR uses, but from my small corner I can tell days of heavy pressure compared to days of very little pressure.

Again they don’t count boats out on the lake they count people launching. Basically taking an hourly rate and multiplying it out. At certain launches at certain parts of the day. They do not take weather conditions in to affect. You are right they have been doing it for a long time. And the lake has changed some since they came up with this formula. Remember it is now one of the top Smallmouth lakes in all of the country. More boats now than ever since they came up with this formula are targeting a species that wasnt targeted 20-30 years ago when they came up with this formula. Counted the same as those fishing walleyes. Even though they most likely catch way less and by depth and tactics probably gut hook fish even less.
Extrapolate that out with what people tell the creel person in their catch. Remember most creel surveys on most lakes are done by what’s in the live well. This formula was at one time as well. Extrapolate that with their ridiculous hooking mortality percentage and boom your dart throw at how many fish were killed that day week month.
So my faith in the accuracy of that number is 1.

As I stated I have more faith in them knowing the overall biomass but apparently the two sides don’t necessarily agree on that number or at least what’s safe to hook kill and toss back. You sure would think the scientist on both sides would come up with the same number since you know it’s statistics and science that come up with the number.

^^^I’d have to imagine they’ve updated their modeling to account for boats that are launching to bass fish or even just pleasure boat. It wouldn’t be hard to get a fairly accurate count of the boats that are fishing specifically for walleyes out of the total boats that are launching from a few of the most heavily used landings and extrapolate it across the lake.

All you need is a sample size of 120 to plug it in on a bell curve and it won’t change by more than plus or minus 3% from there on out. Whether you have a sample size of 1,200 or 120,000 it’s going to be the same plus or minus 3% of what existed at 120 as long as the sample group isn’t polluted.

Maybe I’m giving the DNR too much credit but I’d have to imagine they’ve observed the increase in bass angling hours and found ways to account for it. I could be wrong, it’s happened plenty of times before….just ask my ex-wife.

Well I could not find any information stating they have changed their formula since they gave the formula in 2001. So if they did that would be news to me. Remember it’s angling hours they are calculating not walleye angling. Are you suggesting creel survey people check what type of boat is being used. I would highly doubt that. Sorry I am just skeptical in how they get there hooking mortality number and the creel survey is part of the equation along with the other parts that I am skeptical about.

You two are like a couple of bickering children. Just let it go already. Both of you bitch and complain but really offer no better solution other than attacking the DNR and their system of estimating fish populations. If you don’t like it or the people that do it, vote for an elected leader that has the ability to make change that suit your needs. I’m done commenting on this subject now.

gim wrote:

You two are like a couple of bickering children. Just let it go already. Both of you bitch and complain but really offer no better solution other than attacking the DNR and their system of estimating fish populations. If you don’t like it or the people that do it, vote for an elected leader that has the ability to make change that suit your needs. I’m done commenting on this subject now.

Good move along. As you have brought nothing to the table except calling people names anyway and telling us how well you counted when you were in college. Dodging the question on how you were offended. What was your point to jumping into this thread in the first place?
Again nobody is being attacked here. Well unless we count your useless comments.
Discussing surveys done on Mille Lacs. Nothing more bud.