I would assume tactics differ somewhat from 500 years ago to present day making netting a lot more effective….
Quote:
I would assume tactics differ somewhat from 500 years ago to present day making netting a lot more effective….
That’s the truth. It would be interesting if they made them net the same way their elders did when the treaties were signed back in the day. 
One should probably re-visit the Red Lake restoration efforts by your tax dollars after it was netted to ‘death’ 
I may be somewhat misinformed, but I don’t recall any tribal casino dollars and such helping to restore the lake and it was totally shut down for years 
Why in the hell should we ever want to see that happen again is beyond me?!!! 
I think the Red Lake Tribe did use some of their money to help restock the fishery, problem is the money they used was our governments money. 
Quote:
I think the Red Lake Tribe did use some of their money to help restock the fishery, problem is the money they used was our governments money.
Exactly!You help make my point!
Quote:
That’s the truth. It would be interesting if they made them net the same way their elders did when the treaties were signed back in the day.
I always wonder this about spearing in northern WI, but then I also remember that we (rod and reel fishermen) have WAY more advantages over the fish than our ancestors did. Not sure what the common ground is but in both MN and WI it sure would be nice if there was a good solution for both parties.
For as long as I can remember the ML tribe has netted, the WI tribes were thrown in 8-10 years back (?) and that’s when the real issues started. I remember fishing off Indian point in a 14 foot alum boat at night listening to the drums. I think they were actually having a ceremony around the harvest (net and spearing) which is they way it should be. Not the WI tribes showing up, filling the truck beds with fillets and dumping the guts and unwanted pike into someones ditch, so they can get home and sell off the walleye.
According to my sister, who is an archeologist and has done extensive work with and research on pre-(European)contact American inhabitants, there probably was very little in the way of “netting” as we now define it.
Most likely the Indians used a combination of methods including basket or scoop nets and that they also “herded” fish into shallow water or enclosures where they could be speared. Because they were using largely plant-based materials for these methods, very little survives by way of artifacts they actually used.
But it is quite clear by seeing where the Indians camped at certain times of year, that fish harvest was an important food source.
The problem with the “they aren’t doing it the way they had to do it when their ancestors signed the treaty” line of thinking is this: The treaty leaves it wide open. All the treaty says is that the band has the right to do things like hunt and fish. It does NOT say when or by what method, when, under what conditions, etc.
Grouse
The fight is useless if you keep fighting the natives. They aren’t responsible for allowing this to happen. If you allowed Americans to net, there’s no doubt they would. Regardless of how much damage it would do or how ethical it is.
If you think the natives are the problem, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
It’s the DNR’s job to manage the resource properly. The currant lawsuit is attempting to hold the DNR responsable by proving mismanagement of the resource. Agree or disagree it will force the DNR to prove their management practices.
this information is directly from the DNR on angler harvest versus netted walleye harvest in pounds. The first number is the year, the second is the band harvest, and the third is the angler harvest. When they are netting just as much if not more than they were before the resource was exploited, there is not going to be a bright future for red lake walleye… 
Here are the pounds harvested by jurisdiction:
Band State
1990 486,000 *
1991 416,000 *
1992 415,000 *
1993 151,000 *
1994 90,000 *
1995 67,000 24,000
1996 14,000 13,000
1997 ** *
1998 *** *
1999 *** ***
2000 *** ***
2001 *** ***
2002 *** ***
2003 *** ***
2004 *** ***
2005 *** ***
2006 14,000 54,000
2007 82,000 100,000
2008 442,000 90,000
2009 625,000 147,000
2010 425,000 100,000
2011 632,000 79,000
2012 249,000 72,000
*
No creel survey
**
Commercial harvest closed
***
Complete walleye closure
Quote:
The fight is useless if you keep fighting the natives. They aren’t responsible for allowing this to happen. If you allowed Americans to net, there’s no doubt they would. Regardless of how much damage it would do or how ethical it is.
If you think the natives are the problem, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
X2! Native netting is only a small part or the problem.
Quote:
It’s the DNR’s job to manage the resource properly. The currant lawsuit is attempting to hold the DNR responsable by proving mismanagement of the resource. Agree or disagree it will force the DNR to prove their management practices.
I’m not clear on what you’re saying here. Is “not managing the resource properly” saying that the DNR should be stopping Indian netting?
The DNR can only manage what is in their jurisdiction. They CANNOT stop or in any way “manage” the netting of fish by Indians under the various treaties. Treaties are agreements between the Indian tribes and the FEDERAL government, not the state. As a state agency, the DNR can not trump Federal jurisdiction when it comes to managing treaty rights.
Any and all Indian cooperation with the DNR in setting limits, seasons, boundaries, or any other aspects of regulating fishing is entirely voluntary on the part of the Indians. They are not obligated under the treaty to in any way “play ball” with the DNR.
People are frustrated and looking for someone to blame, I get that. But the DNR didn’t sign the treaties. They just stuck between the rock (the Tribes) and the hard place (angler and resort-owner demands for a quick fix).
Grouse
I think your numbers are reversed. This is copied directly from the dnr site, the bands allotment has always been the lesser of the two.
The 2014 walleye safe harvest level is 60,000 pounds. Of this amount, 42,900 pounds is allocated to the state and 17,100 pounds is allocated to the eight Chippewa bands with 1837 Treaty harvest rights. These allocation amounts were recently agreed upon at a meeting of DNR and tribal natural resource leaders.
Grouse and others, I think you guys are giving the DNR way too much leeway on this problem. Do they control the netting? NO. Are they completely mismanaging Mille Lacs? YES.
Based on all of the confusion and misinformation being spread over the past few weeks I did my best to lay out exactly what went wrong and why it is due to mismanagement over in the Mille Lacs Forum –> How Treaty Management Ruined Mille Lacs
A and T ‘s numbers were RedLake’s numbers not ML.
Oops.. my bad. Thanks for pointing that out.
Jeff
Quote:
Grouse and others, I think you guys are giving the DNR way too much leeway on this problem. Do they control the netting? NO. Are they completely mismanaging Mille Lacs? YES.
I’m not saying you’re wrong or right. I just don’t like it when people are throwing all the blame on the netting and implying that the DNR could just order the Indians to shut it off if they wanted to. People don’t want to hear it, I know, but it’s more complicated than that.
I just don’t want to see the people who rely on the fishing-related business get hurt. I also think that finger pointing at the Indians only causes hurt and that could come back to haunt everyone when it’s time to get together and figure out what to try next. The Indians are a part of this whole deal and it’s hard for me to see any real change that would not involve them getting on-board with and making changes on their end.
Grouse
Quote:
Quote:
Grouse and others, I think you guys are giving the DNR way too much leeway on this problem. Do they control the netting? NO. Are they completely mismanaging Mille Lacs? YES.
I’m not saying you’re wrong or right. I just don’t like it when people are throwing all the blame on the netting and implying that the DNR could just order the Indians to shut it off if they wanted to. People don’t want to hear it, I know, but it’s more complicated than that.
I just don’t want to see the people who rely on the fishing-related business get hurt. I also think that finger pointing at the Indians only causes hurt and that could come back to haunt everyone when it’s time to get together and figure out what to try next. The Indians are a part of this whole deal and it’s hard for me to see any real change that would not involve them getting on-board with and making changes on their end.
Grouse
Be careful not to put words in my mouth Grouse. No, I don’t agree with netting during spawn but what I’m tring to point out here is there is a much bigger problem and that is the flawed methodology of the treaty management plan that came with the netting. Honestly I’m purposely avoiding the netting itself because it is something that without court order the DNR doesn’t control. But they do control the slot limits and they can negotiate safe harvest limits and that is where I think they’ve gone horribly wrong.
Have you even looked at the charts I posted in the Mille Lacs forum?
In the year 2001 after only a few years of the treaty management plan the percentage of 20″ walleyes in relation to the overall population of walleyes had jumped from 15% to approximately 30%. Since then it has only gotten worse.
Not suprisingly as the percentage of large walleyes increased dramatically the numbers of perch and tullibees decreased also dramatically.
Very narrow harvest bands have proven to be an aweful way to manage a fishery as they do not make biological sense. You will end up with exactly what we have at Mille Lacs a terrible population imbalance. Yet, year after year the DNR buries their head in the sand and continues to roll out a plan that has proven to be harmful to the lake. It makes me sick that they will refuse to admit their own fault in this fiasco and are now trying to deflect blame on unknown environmental factors.
Please take a few minutes to read my post on the Mille Lacs forum. Make note of the example given for how SD handled a similar forage base crisis on Oahe by opening up the harvest versus restricting it… It seems to be doing OK these days.
I think your post and referenced article do a fantastic job of bringing to light how the fishery has failed. Great, we know what happened. Hopefully they wise up and don’t repeat history.
However, the DNR at this point has very few options left. They cant open the slot because the fishery needs every possible year class it has left. You cant remove females because you need every last one for YOY recruitement. You can’t take the small ones, because those are the ones you are trying to recruit. The only disposable eyes left are the 18-20″ males. A slot which was probably lobbied for by resorts to keep the lake fishable, which is also inadvertantly also partly responsible for the high hooking mortality referenced in the study. The changes to pike regulations seem logical to help reduce the forage competition. The DNR has only one option left which no-one apparently has the balls to do. Shut ‘er down and let nature work its magic.
Hopefully the DNR can find more accurate ways of determining the actual biomass of this lake. Please remember, the DNR is not why the walleye population is suffering. It is you and I and everyone else that take from the resource. The shear magnitude of trying to determine a population estimate in an ever changing ecology, is as the article stated, impossible. The only fault I place on the DNR is trying to keep everyone happy. Even that is hard for me to say, as that is pretty much their job description. Other than protecting the resource from the likes of us sportsman.
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Grouse and others, I think you guys are giving the DNR way too much leeway on this problem. Do they control the netting? NO. Are they completely mismanaging Mille Lacs? YES.
I’m not saying you’re wrong or right. I just don’t like it when people are throwing all the blame on the netting and implying that the DNR could just order the Indians to shut it off if they wanted to. People don’t want to hear it, I know, but it’s more complicated than that.
I just don’t want to see the people who rely on the fishing-related business get hurt. I also think that finger pointing at the Indians only causes hurt and that could come back to haunt everyone when it’s time to get together and figure out what to try next. The Indians are a part of this whole deal and it’s hard for me to see any real change that would not involve them getting on-board with and making changes on their end.
Grouse
Be careful not to put words in my mouth Grouse. No, I don’t agree with netting during spawn but what I’m tring to point out here is there is a much bigger problem and that is the flawed methodology of the treaty management plan that came with the netting. Honestly I’m purposely avoiding the netting itself because it is something that without court order the DNR doesn’t control. But they do control the slot limits and they can negotiate safe harvest limits and that is where I think they’ve gone horribly wrong.
Have you even looked at the charts I posted in the Mille Lacs forum?
In the year 2001 after only a few years of the treaty management plan the percentage of 20″ walleyes in relation to the overall population of walleyes had jumped from 15% to approximately 30%. Since then it has only gotten worse.
Not suprisingly as the percentage of large walleyes increased dramatically the numbers of perch and tullibees decreased also dramatically.
Very narrow harvest bands have proven to be an aweful way to manage a fishery as they do not make biological sense. You will end up with exactly what we have at Mille Lacs a terrible population imbalance. Yet, year after year the DNR buries their head in the sand and continues to roll out a plan that has proven to be harmful to the lake. It makes me sick that they will refuse to admit their own fault in this fiasco and are now trying to deflect blame on unknown environmental factors.
Please take a few minutes to read my post on the Mille Lacs forum. Make note of the example given for how SD handled a similar forage base crisis on Oahe by opening up the harvest versus restricting it… It seems to be doing OK these days.
The decrease in tullibee abundance is primarily due to increases in summer water temperatures. Tullibee do not tolerate warm water very well, and whether you believe it or not summertime water temperatures are increasing. Since Mille Lacs does not stratify significantly the tullibee have nowhere to escape the summertime heat and therefore die. The result of fewer tullibee has been increased predation on perch and juvenile walleye.
That will throw a monkey wrench into the equation. Welcome to IDO! 
Would you have any data to back up that claim by chance.
I also remember hearing of a large tulibee dieoff. I believe it was the summer of 2011. Had the same dieoff in a few local lakes around here that same year.
I thought it was 2012 when the Tullibee had the large die-off? 2012 was an extremely early ice off year, summer got started early, and mid summer surface water temps were over 90 degrees, for an extended period of time. Low dissolved oxygen levels too with the warm temps.
There hasn’t been much of a perch population for years. But Tullibee are a primary “forage” food source for game fish.
There was very good numbers of Tullibee (small ones) last fall. It took a year or two, but they are rebounding with good numbers.
Forage, as a whole, has been credited with being the primary factor in having a successful year class of walleye that reach adulthood.
The winter of 2012 had a very good walleye bite on Mille Lacs. The winter of 2013 had a very poor walleye bite. The Walleye population was not significantly different. The Tullibee forage base was at opposite extremes.
Mismanagement…. period. The DNR imposes slots… the DNR mandates limits. The DNR says non-natives who want a limit to feed their family, must leave that floater alongside the boat all afternoon and keep fishing to catch “1 more slotfish” before they can go home. The DNR sets the “safe” harvest level…that one is laughable, but not really. This upcoming lawsuit has lots of merit the way I see it. The netting “is” a part of the problem and can become part of the solution too, just that the tribes and DNR have the blinders on. Mille Lacs may have always been netted, but since the early 90’s, after the last ruling, they really started pounding it, coming from hundreds of miles away… spending their money on boats and gas and missing work to catch walleye to survive…… ???? 
(if you ever seen it, there is nothing ritual or spiritual about it anymore… it is mostly sickening and glutenous)
Quote:
That will throw a monkey wrench into the equation. Welcome to IDO!
Would you have any data to back up that claim by chance.
Scroll down to the Mille Lacs section at the botton of the page. I believe this data backs up exactly what Walleye216 is saying.
Quote:
The decrease in tullibee abundance is primarily due to increases in summer water temperatures. Tullibee do not tolerate warm water very well, and whether you believe it or not summertime water temperatures are increasing. Since Mille Lacs does not stratify significantly the tullibee have nowhere to escape the summertime heat and therefore die. The result of fewer tullibee has been increased predation on perch and juvenile walleye.
Thanks for the reply walleye216. I will absolutely agree with you that warm years will have a negative affect on the tulibee population; however that is part of a naturally occurning fluctuation. The root cause of the current situation is that the natural balance of the lake has been thrown off by mismanagement and the ammount of large predator fish in Mille Lacs has caused un-natural pressure on the forage base (ie tulibee & perch). See the charts below to notice how quickly the walleye size structure changed under the treaty management plan and the direct correlation to the decline of perch and tulibee numbers.
I’m not saying that there won’t be years where naturally occuring tulibee die-offs occur due to warm weather, but IMO the long term trend of lower forage base is a direct result of the narrow “kill” slot that has been imposed on the lake for almost the last 20 years. The natural tulibee die-offs will only exacerbate the situation because with the already unnatural pressure on the forage base it is much much more difficult to recover from naturally occuring bad years.
Quote:
I think your post and referenced article do a fantastic job of bringing to light how the fishery has failed. Great, we know what happened. Hopefully they wise up and don’t repeat history.
However, the DNR at this point has very few options left. They cant open the slot because the fishery needs every possible year class it has left. You cant remove females because you need every last one for YOY recruitement. You can’t take the small ones, because those are the ones you are trying to recruit. The only disposable eyes left are the 18-20″ males. A slot which was probably lobbied for by resorts to keep the lake fishable, which is also inadvertantly also partly responsible for the high hooking mortality referenced in the study. The changes to pike regulations seem logical to help reduce the forage competition. The DNR has only one option left which no-one apparently has the balls to do. Shut ‘er down and let nature work its magic.
Hopefully the DNR can find more accurate ways of determining the actual biomass of this lake. Please remember, the DNR is not why the walleye population is suffering. It is you and I and everyone else that take from the resource. The shear magnitude of trying to determine a population estimate in an ever changing ecology, is as the article stated, impossible. The only fault I place on the DNR is trying to keep everyone happy. Even that is hard for me to say, as that is pretty much their job description. Other than protecting the resource from the likes of us sportsman.
Gixx, I agree that we’re in a very difficult situation now. As you point out it’s kind of a between a rock and a hard place scenerio with don’t remove the big fish (and risk ruining your spawning biomass), don’t remove the small fish (and ruin the future), and finally don’t shut the lake down and completely ruin the local economy. There really isn’t a perfect answer.
What makes me angry about this whole scenerio is that A) DNR management (I think the actual beat officers working around Mille Lacs do an awesome job) continues to deflect blame when their own slot limits and a management plan they helped negotiate are mostly to blame B) That they don’t have the balls to stand up to political pressure and admit that managing a lake based lbs of fish (and the associated increasingly tight harvest/kill slot) is not biologically sound and it absolutely is a conservation issue if they don’t change. I think we’ve seen enough to realize that a healthy lake needs to have a more naturally balanced population of fish I just don’t know how long it will take the DNR to stand up and take notice.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
