Last night we had our annual meeting of the Mille Fishery Input Group to discuss the status of the fishery as well as vote on a future slot limit for the lake. A little background on the situation first. Last fall the inshore test nets on the North and North East side of the lake showed the lowest catch rates in 20 years. This raised some concern with the fisheries biologists. There was much discussion as to what caused the low net numbers on the North end of the lake but it was pretty much agreed upon by the group that the fish are still there, in abundance.
Using the DNR models and accounting for those horrible test net numbers the safe harvest level set would have been extrememly low. So, taking into account that there could have been something going that caused extrememly low numbers the DNR slightly discounted those net numbers and came up with a figure of 430,000 pounds total harvest. State allocation is 307,500 and Tribal allocation 122,500.
This year the DNR and Fishery Input group agreed that it would be nice to manage the lake longterm versus year by year. After much discussion, the group agreed to go with a more conservative slot in hopes that it will be the slot that remains unchanged for many years. In addition, the DNR has agreed to go back to the negotiating table with the tribes and try to come up with a long range plan that allows for overage’s and underage’s each year and looks at long term harvest.
Personally I voted for a 18-28 Protected slot with one fish over 28 hoping that this will work for many years. In talking with a few others in the group, their vote was the same. Nothing is finalized yet but I have a good feeling that 18-28 with one over 28 can and will work long term for the lake.
In all it was a great meeting. The fisheries biologists work very hard and were faced with a tough situation this year. You can’t just discount the test numbers they had this fall. The decided to error on the side of caution and will be doing a tagging/net study this spring to get a better feel for the status of the walleye in the lake.