What are your feelings about reporting tagged walleyes in Mille Lacs? We caught 2 consecutive fish last night with tags in them, a 20 and a 21 incher. The tags looked like they were just put in and probably were from the tagging they did a few weeks ago.
I have mixed thoughts with this. First of all, I don’t like the unnecessary handling needed to do this. Ok, I got a tagged fish, I need to find something to write with and write on, where do I put the fish in the meantime, it’s over the size so it’s not going in the livewell. I basically said that was nice and let the fish go as quickly as possible. I struggle with doing the right thing. The cynic in me says to ignore the tags. They are a management tool for the DNR and based on these last seasons, I disagree with their management. I would simply prefer that they do not know what I am catching and reporting tags simply does that. The proponents of tag reporting state that this helps to better understand what is going on with the fish population. It makes sense however I’m not very confident that with all this information, it does more harm than good.
Any thoughts?