55 inches and staying alive Bill - General Discussion Forum - General Discussion Forum - Page 2

A catch-and-release season on lake sturgeon in Minnesota is being proposed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources on many waters where no open season currently exists, DNR fisheries chief Don Pereira said Wednesday.

The proposal is among others going through the state’s rule-making procedures now. The earliest that new regulations could be in place probably would be the 2015 season, Pereira said.

The St. Louis River in Duluth-Superior would be among the waters opened to a catch-and-release season for sturgeon, Pereira said.

The proposal would not affect sturgeon fisheries on the Rainy River, Lake of the Woods and parts of the St. Croix River, where lake sturgeon seasons already are in place, and where a limited harvest is permitted, Pereira said. Current regulations would remain in effect on those waters.

Anglers on the St. Louis River in Duluth commonly land sturgeon now as an incidental catch while fishing for walleyes and other species. Under current rules, the fish must be immediately released. Anglers have caught sturgeon more than 50 inches long on the river.

“Certainly, there’s some incidental catch going on and that’s been increasing,” said Deserae Hendrickson, DNR area fisheries supervisor at French River. “There has been a lot of information about other (sturgeon) populations around the state that are in recovery. The data collected on those populations and elsewhere around the country doesn’t indicate there should be any adverse impacts to allowing a catch-and-release fishery.”

Paul Piszczek, fisheries biologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in Superior, said his agency also is seeking a rule change that would mirror Minnesota’s proposed sturgeon regulations for the St. Louis River.

If the river is ultimately opened to catch-and-release sturgeon fishing, anglers would be able to target sturgeon, using heavier tackle specific to taking the fish.

“The proposal would open up most of our sturgeon populations to catch-and-release angling only, based on the fact that the fish appear to be very durable as far as surviving the experience of being caught and released,” Pereira said.

As the sturgeon fishing rule is proposed, Pereira said, it would allow the DNR to close the season during times when sturgeon would be especially vulnerable, such as during spawning.

“They don’t mature until they’re very old, and they don’t spawn every year,” Pereira said. “We don’t want to be interrupting spawning in any way.”

Sturgeon were extirpated from the St. Louis River decades ago as a result of habitat loss during the logging era, as well as from overfishing and fragmentation of habitat by dams. The species was reintroduced through stocking in the 1980s by the Minnesota and Wisconsin DNRs. The population has increased, and the first natural reproduction from stocked fish was documented in 2012 and 2013.

The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa also has stocked sturgeon in the Cloquet and St. Louis rivers above the city of Cloquet.

Interest in opening sturgeon fishing more widely across the state came from stakeholders in the Otter Tail River system in western Minnesota, Pereira said.

The only thing that I can see that would screw this up for us is the way anglers handle the fish. By holding and supporting them horizontally (and not by their gill plates) almost guarantees a healthy released fish.