I think it may be happening!!

I fished on Saturday on a point on the main lake. I picked a spot which usually works with the big South wind we had. We fished for about 45 min. and caught a fat 24 inch fish. We kept fishing and caught one about every half hour. Which is pretty good fishing for Leech’s standards. All the fish were between 21 and 25 inches. And then it happened. I caught an eater . My second one of year from the main lake. A nice 17″ fish. Then I caught another. Pretty soon we had four in the box. And we caught a bunch more between 10-13 inches. We had way more bites but you how hard it is to hook the small ones. So maybe the lake is finally comeing back. We will see next year.

Pardon my ignorance. If fishing is poor, and one fish every half hour is good–why would you keep fish? I would think that if the lake is that bad they would end all keeping of fish until the population rebounded.

–Whitey

Sounds to me like the fishing is still really good for size. The MN DNR sure seems to keep tight regulations on it’s waters to produce more trophy sized fish. That and to sustain the fisheries is why they modify the slot size for “keepers” on the different lakes.

I’m not too sure that the fishing is that poor. There are still Tribes doing a lot of netting on the lake and collecting a lot of eyes!

Gary do you have any info on the tribal netting on Leech. I have talked to many people and no one seems to have any specifics. Such as where, how much or when. I have never seen any evidence out there. I do spend most of my time on the South side. So maybe they are doing it closer to Federal Dam, Ottertail point and @ stoney point. It sure was good to see those small fish. I have not caught any on the south side yet.

I had the opportunity to talk to a local native up there, who was netting.

He basically told me that all their netting is sold to that specific tribe and generally the older people were the ones that purchased them.

From what I gathered, is that they just net to basically feed their own. With that said, I don’t know the numbers, but I would imagine that it isn’t a large operation.

That is the only kind of netting that may be OK. I don’t like the idea that the guy is selling them. But net a few to feed yourself and a few others in the tribe on your own reservation isn’t as bad as what is happening at Mille Lacs.