mille lacs walleye troubles

I thought I read that the tribe accounts for something like 1/4-1/3 of the annual total harvest, with anglers accounting for the rest. Is that correct?

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Is there access to the quotas the anglers and nets can and did take?

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No. Another sore spot. There is no Minnesota DNR oversight of tribal netting. Most of us who observe the spring netting believe the tribes are going way over quota. They net non stop from ice out until the day before opener. The longer that time span, the more fish netted. The only thing that slows the netting is ice. It’s a complete free for all and the tribes know it.

Even if the MN DNR found the tribes over quota, they have no legal standing to prosecute the case. It’s a complete sham and all of the netters know it.

Even more troubling, some of the netters are no more Indian than me. They are paid workers to do the dirty work.

This has to stop.

-J.

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catching up on my web stuff and caught this!

well said Jon

I could not have summed it up any better.

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I thought I read that the tribe accounts for something like 1/4-1/3 of the annual total harvest, with anglers accounting for the rest. Is that correct?

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That’s a lot of fish in a short 3 to 6 weeks while anglers spread the rest out over a season that lasts from May through February. And don’t get me going on the mortality poundage that is counted as part of angler harvest numbers. Grrrr.

-J.

Jon, our totals start December 1st and ends February. The ice season is included.

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Jon, our totals start December 1st and ends February. The ice season is included.

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Thanks Bob, worse than I thought….

-J.

Well your the expert then with all the information to make an informed decision on to whats going on and what needs to be done,oh wait thats rubbish.I would suspect if you contacted the dnr and didnt whine about the nets everytime you did so you may get a response.Theres nothing the dnr can do about the nets,why do you think they dont want to hear about it.Im not saying the nets arnt hurting but what your saying is if it wasnt for nets we would have no slot and everything would be peachy.Remove the netting thats fine with me,but theres still going to be the same problem.Everyone that goes there leaves with there limit if the fish are biting,times how many anglers,times how many fish,times how many tournaments each season,times how many trips a season an angler take up there each season,I think ya know who takes more fish out of the lake.

Well then I suppose we can assume you are the expert then… I suppose you spend more time up there than Jon… and see 1st hand what goes on at the lake. Where is your place ? I will stop by and we can talk strategy on how there are no walleye 14″-17″…. hmmmm what size walleye has the DNR been having us keep the last 20 years ? Them numbers sound familiar… what size do the people who net in the spring (I won’t lump them all as native, some are blue eyed and blond haired) target with their mesh sizes ? Hmmmmmmm… again sounds like that size. Take a bunch of adolescent, growing, feeding walleyes out, guess what ? The northerns thrive, the smallies thrive, heck everybody knows the muskie are thriving… wonder what they are eating ? (hint small walleye, tulibee, small perch)It is not rocket science… the sad part is, plenty of people knew this years ago but nobody at the DNR would listen. Sure, Dayton lied for a few votes but that was all we got out of him…Now they think they need a blue ribbon panel to figure this out ? It was figured out years ago by people who seen first hand what was happening, I count Jon in this group… he didn’t just come out now, when it got popular to act like you care, he was voicing as others have been. Now in the last year, the DNR acts like this just popped up… actually holding what they called “public input meetings” they were fine as long as you didn’t talk about the real issues affecting the lake…. well, it took decades to happen and now it is here. Now we can either get real and solve all the issues, or sweep it under the rug. What I do not see happening is people standing by and letting another Red Lake happen… shut down to walleye, stocked with tax payer dollars, brought back to healthy, only to be illegally netted again…

For years this lake has been managed as a trophy fishery and it obviously isn’t working for the walleyes anyways. So what do they do now. The biggest problem with our DNR is it is too politicly motivate if their budget was decided by the money they bring in instead of what the beaurocrats deciding what they get they wouldn’t have to kiss but so much. Even in the radio show don was talking about different ideas but only if they don’t impact the local economy. Guess what you can’t do what is best for the fishery and please everyone at the same time. So what should they do to fix it besides stopping netting because we all know that isn’t going away.

start with closely monitoring the netting… count every pound (this will cut down on the number of nets by default, by keeping the gluttons away) you can’t have the henhouse being guarded by the fox then maybe change the slot so the nets and the hook and line fisherman, are not all keeping the same fish…

Just because the dnr is “having” you keep these size fish doesnt mean you “have” to keep them.I fish because I enjoy fishing,leaving with my limit isnt my top priority everytime I hit the water and I suspect if more anglers took the same approach we wouldnt be where we are today,but I understand now its more then likely the nets, now that youve talked some sense into me…

well that didn’t take much (you must have realized the nets take 100% what they catch, the DNR doesn’t make them keep them either)imagine that, the fish they target with the nets & the size the DNR allowed the anglers to take the past 20 seasons are in short supply… makes a person go hmmmmmm….???

the nets are a rallying point for uneducated armchair biologists, but there is no evidence to support that they are a significant part of the walleye decline on Mille lacs. Wont stop people from screaming it through.

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the nets are a rallying point for uneducated armchair biologists, but there is no evidence to support that they are a significant part of the walleye decline on Mille lacs. Wont stop people from screaming it through.

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I am sure your extensive research has led you to your statements…. have you ever witnessed how they “manage” the native quota, at all the landings on Mille Lacs in the spring ? It blows my mind how people think netting has nothing to do with the numbers of fish in the lake… *spoiler alert* if you take 1 fish out of the lake, it affects it… by 1 less fish How the he77 does anybody think that any take, no matter the method, is insignificant ? Talk about armchair blow by

Its hard to solve a problem when you have your mind made up before you start to examine facts. At least thats what my grandpa told me once.

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the nets are a rallying point for uneducated armchair biologists, but there is no evidence to support that they are a significant part of the walleye decline on Mille lacs. Wont stop people from screaming it through.

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Fair enough that you disagree, but since you’re obviously a trained biologist maybe you could elaborate on exactly what is the problem to help educate us dumb fishermen

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Its hard to solve a problem when you have your mind made up before you start to examine facts. At least thats what my grandpa told me once.

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Grandpa also mentioned common sense which you seem to choose to ignore.

Fish taken during the spawn have no chance to spawn. Thus zero reproduction. Fish taken during the season by either hook & line or mortality have spawned. Therefore there is some reproduction.

If you go back and read all the threads pertaining to this subject nobody has said that netting is 100% responsible. All we are saying is that without fixing the netting issue nothing else makes a difference.

I’m sure you and your grandpa would agree.

I think Jon hit the nail on the head earlier… The biggest problem facing this lake is the asinine management approach that has been forced on this lake because of the netting. Logical and biological are two words that have had nothing to do with the slot system that has been put in place for political reasons to comply with a court mandated harvest target. I don’t think that anyone here will disagree that the non-native angler harvest has also been a large factor in getting us to where we are today, but for anyone to say that the nets do not also play a significant role is plain and simple ignorancance. The DNR can do as many studies as they want but they will never get public support unless they at least try to address the elephant in the room.

Just my 2 cents

Will

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the nets are a rallying point for uneducated armchair biologists, but there is no evidence to support that they are a significant part of the walleye decline on Mille lacs. Wont stop people from screaming it through.

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The DNR claims netting has no significant impact on the overall population. Ok, where is the study? What are the exact numbers? What facts are there to support the claim? Go ahead and ask. Let us know if you get a response. The DNR will not reply because they have not done the study, they don’t know what the numbers are. In other words they have failed miserably at the job they are required to do. If guys like me are completely wrong – prove it. Ten years of unanswered questions and all they got this year is a blue ribbon panel to “Look into” the problem. Complete BS. The topic of tribal netting is off limits and not even on the agenda for consideration.

lancew and anyone else who thinks I’m just blowing hot air. Take 5 minutes and send an email. Pick up the phone and call. Feel free to copy paste anything I write here. Send them a link to this post. Why is tribal netting not on the table for discussion? I would be very interested in any reply you get. I get none.

-J.

I’m with you Jon .Netting HAS to be part of it .

I think I may have just stumbled upon the answer…. according to the DNR and some others, if we all just net during the spawn, the problem will be solved…. the netting does not affect the lake or it’s numbers … = MAJOR blow by

I went back and listened to the entire interview in this podcast. Also watched the video Don Pereira has on the DNR website.

First, they only had time for one caller with a softball smallie question. Really? There were no serious questions. Don went with his pre-fabed presentation. One point I am going to hammer him with is his comments on tribal netting. The part about killing a fish in the fall is no different than killing that same fish in the spring theory. It’s just an “Emotional” issue that we need to get over. Ok, if that line of thinking is true, why does Minnesota have a closed season? After all, if hook and line anglers were allowed to fish year round, there would be no negative effects – right? If there are no negative effects, and its just an emotional thing then we should be allowed to fish hook and line during the same time the tribes are netting, right? Hummmm.

Don can be contacted at:

[email protected]

-J.

All Im saying is that Im not sure that the nets are the “silver bullet” to kill whats ailing ML. For 3 years the fish(everything except 17ish to 22ish) have been malnourished. At a time when numbers are supposedly at historic lows. I don’t have the anwers(expcept to kill all small pike:), but I think its counterproductive to focus on netting and slot as a be all, end all solutions when many other questions exist relating to the health of the lake….I’ll take my chances with fisheries biologists. As eskeleto said in nacho libre “I believe in science”.

The nets are a part, BIG or small, the DNR & tribes refuse to acknowledge it. When I started fishing Mille Lacs, I believe the restrictions were, 1 fish over 20″ in your limit. Then the netting started and the “slot science” started

1 fish over 20 is “slot science”. Before that, for many years, the limit never included specific sizes.

That’s what I am saying… it was managed for BIG fish & egg production, so the bigger females went back in. Back then nobody netted or fished (we still do not fish during spawn, for good reason) during the time the females laid their eggs and the males came into the shallows to fertilize them….UNDISTURBED. Then in the early 2000’s, the nets went in and anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 lbs went out every year, for the last 13 years… between lost nets and abandoned nets that may still be catching fish today… along with the hook and line DNR slot restrictions, all were targeting walleye from 15-20″, with the slot acting like a slide rule through the years, bouncing between the numbers.

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All Im saying is that Im not sure that the nets are the “silver bullet” to kill whats ailing ML. For 3 years the fish(everything except 17ish to 22ish) have been malnourished. At a time when numbers are supposedly at historic lows.

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This is an excellent point and something that I haven’t seen discussed much. Mille Lacs might have changed forever, and if that means its a smallmouth factory, well, then it’s a change for the good.

what I don’t like is why are there more Wisconsin tribes netting mille lacs than Minnesota tribes? How long have tribes really been netting mille lacs? did they do it way back when? if so you can’t tell me that they crossed the st.croix to come net mille lacs.

The treaty boundaries allow for it. There were no state lines back then. They do it because they can. That and they have already netted out most of the Wisconsin lakes they have been allowed to net.

-J.

What do they do with the walleyes they net?

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What do they do with the walleyes they net?

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I know for a fact that some get sold.