law suit filed with Mn DNR

There wasn’t a meeting, a lawsuit was filed.

(Pug, many have fought for the rights we have and for that, we owe them gratitude)

What does that have to do with this? Is that the card he played in the video?

Does the DNR’s mismanagement include letting anglers keep too many walleyes? Or just allowing too many fish to be taken in the nets?

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Does the DNR’s mismanagement include letting anglers keep too many walleyes? Or just allowing too many fish to be taken in the nets?

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Have you been around this issue at all? The issue is not about the number of fish being kept. In fact, there is a great article that Will R posted in the Mille Lacs forum. If you take the time to read it, you will notice that the total pounds of fish taken post netting has actually been significantly less than prior to.

Instead, the issue is the year over year targeting of the same year classes via the harvest slot and the predator prey imbalance that was created as a result. Managing the fishery in this way was the DNR’s way of managing the lake for both sport fishing and netting. This management strategy has directly affected the fishery negatively.

The goal of this lawsuit is to force the DNR to take into account the sport anglers heritage along with the tribal heritage. If the DNR cannot come up with a plan to manage it for both, then something has to give.

-Drew

Personally I would like to see a Federal discrimination law suit filed. How can you allow one race of people the right to fish a lake with nets during the spawn, and tell every other race in the Country that they cannot because they are not Native American. How fast would this be turned over if we said only White Anglo Americans can net? Chew on that for a bit.

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Does the DNR’s mismanagement include letting anglers keep too many walleyes? Or just allowing too many fish to be taken in the nets?

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Have you been around this issue at all? The issue is not about the number of fish being kept. In fact, there is a great article that Will R posted in the Mille Lacs forum. If you take the time to read it, you will notice that the total pounds of fish taken post netting has actually been significantly less than prior to.

Instead, the issue is the year over year targeting of the same year classes via the harvest slot and the predator prey imbalance that was created as a result. Managing the fishery in this way was the DNR’s way of managing the lake for both sport fishing and netting. This management strategy has directly affected the fishery negatively.

The goal of this lawsuit is to force the DNR to take into account the sport anglers heritage along with the tribal heritage. If the DNR cannot come up with a plan to manage it for both, then something has to give.

-Drew

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Personally I would like to see a Federal discrimination law suit filed. How can you allow one race of people the right to fish a lake with nets during the spawn, and tell every other race in the Country that they cannot because they are not Native American. How fast would this be turned over if we said only White Anglo Americans can net? Chew on that for a bit.

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Great here comes Al and Jesse .
Shawn

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What does that have to do with this? Is that the card he played in the video?

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It has nothing to do with the video, but everything to do with smug mocking, while others are trying to right a wrong…

I only caught half the story so sorry if I got it wrong but according to recent news the Michigan State Senate agreed with a position of not allowing race to dictate whether or not a person get scholorships, tuition, benefits, stamps etc. Does this not appeal to this situation? We all live under the same flag imo so lets abide by the same laws. On a side note lets look at history and head over towards Europe? Years of turmoil between parties left and right, to the extent that America wasnt even founded then. I dont see to many lawsuits happening over there but heck maybe they always have been more open to reform

I’m not sure I fully understand the nature of the complaint here. Is the argument that the DNR allowed netting to take place? Or that the DNR allowed too much harvest from the lake? If the latter is the case, then aren’t we ALL to blame for actually harvesting the fish? It’s not like the DNR is physically removing fish from the lake; you and I are. Yes, they allow it, but if they’re legally responsible for allowing the harvest, why aren’t we also partially responsible for actually taking the fish from the lake?

The whole argument seems tautological. The DNR allowed too much harvest. Fishermen took too many fish. Therefore, the DNR is responsible for people taking too many fish. But taking fish is our heritage, right? So we just practiced it a little too much, and that’s the DNR’s fault?

Of course, if the *real* purpose of the lawsuit is to challenge the DNR’s allowing springtime netting, then that’s a whole different ball o’ wax. But the video was noticeably lacking in ANY mention of springtime netting. Seems like that’d be too big of a bite to chew at this point. Or, the folks who know the law are clever and see a future challenge in the works. I hope that’s the case.

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It has nothing to do with the video, but everything to do with smug mocking, while others are trying to right a wrong…

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Suing the DNR for mismanaging a lake is like suing the weatherman for a poor 10 day forecast where the 9th and 10th days were way off.

Or…… It’s like hiring a employee to do a specific task according to written company policy. The employee then attempts to do the task his own way with input from a competing company. Which leads to the downfall of the company.

Two things can’t be argued.

1 the DNR was tasked with managing MIlle Lacs for all people.

2. According to their own admission they are failing.

The lawsuit will find out why and get things corrected.

I don’t pay the weather man. And in case you didn’t know, one predicts and cannot manipulate, while the other is mandated by a court ruling to “manage” a resource, through manipulation. I will let you figure out who is who.

I’ll just say this. Good luck with the lawsuit. If I was a betting man I’d bet it get thrown out in the court of appeals based on the video. Unless he is keeping his cards close to the vest, he didn’t offer anything and he is arguing an abstract case. He’s going to have to prove that the DNR’s actions were counter to preserving the Fishing Heritage. Tell me how you do that. Is his whole argument that they didn’t mention anything about fishing heritage when they created the rules for 2014? Was the DNRs decisions counter to preserving walleye fishing heritage? Was that their goal or did they ignore it? How the f do you prove that?

For the record my original comment was not smug. I do find all of this exhausting, all the battles over Mille Lacs. I can understand why people are passionate about it, so I hope ultimately you get what you are seeking. –

Let me put a simple question out there…. if you have nets that target walleyes from 14-18″ and you have a sliding “slot” which all others fish have to fall into to harvest and this slot is manipulated year after year by the DNR, sliding between 12-20″. Throughout the slot game, the most emphasis was on 16-18″ walleyes….year after year and the lake is now “lacking” these smaller 14-18″ fish, would you change something ? Anything ? Also, the net mesh size mandate was never changed…. Take it a step further, after the 18″ and smaller ones were gone, they moved the harvest slot to 18-20″ & limit of 2 ???? Those 16-18″ that were not there 2 years ago, the few that survived are now what ??? 18-20″ ???? Go figure that out. BIG MESS and somebody had to call attention to it, the last 20 years of people “voicing” concerns has fallen on deaf ears. And the biggest farce is the DNR not even acknowledging the netting is affecting the overall health of the lake…. this has been documented numerous times, in print and reports put out by the DNR, as well as video taped interviews with DNR heads.

Now that is a lot more information than I got from the video. I guess I wouldn’t expect the lawyer to layout his game plan.

I hope in 4-5 years that the lake recovers and that my IDO brethren can enjoy the fishery as much as they have in the past when it was stronger.

Sorry if I came off as a jerk earlier.

You didn’t really come off as a jerk just as somebody who doesn’t think the lake is worth the fight. For those who never fish the lake I can understand that this seems tedious and a waste of money by both sides. However, what is to stop the DNR from doing as they want and mismanaging Sturgeon on the Rainy or St. Croix, Catfish on the Red or Mississippi, Moose in the Arrowhead, Elk in Northern Minnesota, Deer herds in the Southeastern portion of Minnesota? This isn’t about nets, it isn’t about resort owners making a living, it isn’t about property values. It’s about managing the resource to the best of their ability as mandated by law. If the lake is healthy everything listed above including the tribal rights takes care of it’s self.

Many times in many places accountability and transparency have been discuss in relationship to the DNR. This is another avenue to try and get that.

As far as the quality of the video posted, ya it was vague and rough, but I’m sure that was on purpose. Tipping your legal hand to the opposition might not be a good thing.

if my grape vine is accurate, the word I am hearing is, the dnr is now putting the blame on the mille lacs’s input group for deciding which slot was implemented each year. I thought that the dnr put 3 or 4 plans out for the input group to CHOOSE from. there is a lot more going on up here than most of you people living in the cities know about. when you live, pay a mortgage, run a business, pay taxes on property/lake shore that you can’t use for 8 hours out of every day for 7 and a half months of this year, something is wrong and needs to be fixed. politics is a big part of it and hopefully this lawsuit will bring that and the whole fiasco to the forefront and start to get the lake back on the road to recovery.

Just goes to show he big lakes are not immune to getting fished down like the other 99% of the lakes that have to endure the lengthy cycles because of harvesting pressure.

Makes a guy wonder if there are any persons in the DNR foodchain that is happy as ell about this lawsuit. Nobody likes to get blamed or take fault nowadays, this lawsuit will try to make transparent where the orders are coming from, or why they aren’t. Why show your hand when you can put the other guy in the position to show his? Unless of course his hands are tied, and that will come to light hopefully as well.

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Just goes to show he big lakes are not immune to getting fished down like the other 99% of the lakes that have to endure the lengthy cycles because of harvesting pressure.

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Don’t tell that to the pool 4 people.

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You didn’t really come off as a jerk just as somebody who doesn’t think the lake is worth the fight. For those who never fish the lake I can understand that this seems tedious and a waste of money by both sides.

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To me, not respecting other IDO members passion and concern for the lake does make me come off as a jerk.

I’ll bow out, I’ve already wasted enough white spoace in this thread.

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You didn’t really come off as a jerk just as somebody who doesn’t think the lake is worth the fight. For those who never fish the lake I can understand that this seems tedious and a waste of money by both sides.

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To me, not respecting other IDO members passion and concern for the lake does make me come off as a jerk.

I’ll bow out, I’ve already wasted enough white spoace in this thread.

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Nobody called you a jerk. As far as I can tell we were just having a discussion. Don’t bow out, the lake is to big & important not to have everybody see whats going on up there.

So I was reading a article on the MN DNR website… it goes like this… copy and pasted below….

DNR announces temporary closures in the Tower area to protect spawning areas

(Released April 23, 2014)

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has announced temporary fishing and spearing closures on a number of designated spawning beds and fish preserves in northern St. Louis and western Lake Counties. The temporary closures are in accordance with Minnesota Statute 6264:0125 to protect fish when they are more susceptible to catch and overharvest as well as limit disruption in spawning areas.

I do hope the lawyer plays that hand if any. Just how good of a job they can do and have done in regards to many aspects of game and fish come backs in certain parts of the state. Why not Mille Lacs?

I do believe that is the whole basis of the lawsuit… playing politics instead of science and sound management practices on Mille Lacs, which was charged to the MNDNR in cooperation with the GLIFWC and was specifically ordered by the US Supreme Court in the last treaty case.

Correction, what the courts decided:

http://www.leg.state.mn.us/lrl/issues/issues.aspx?issue=indian

Funny and ironic.
Pretty sure the DNR appeased the local businesses by keeping some sort of an open slot and a bag limt.
Now they sue…good grief man.

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Correction, what the courts decided:

http://www.leg.state.mn.us/lrl/issues/issues.aspx?issue=indian

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According to Fellegy that agreement attempt which sounded good with the tribe getting just a small portion to net would have only applied to the Mille lacs band thus leaving the other bands to sue and net the rest of the lake.

They decided to go for the hole kittin kapuddle and lost on a walkoff US Supreme court home run 5-4.

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Does the DNR’s mismanagement include letting anglers keep too many walleyes? Or just allowing too many fish to be taken in the nets?

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Have you been around this issue at all? The issue is not about the number of fish being kept. In fact, there is a great article that Will R posted in the Mille Lacs forum. If you take the time to read it, you will notice that the total pounds of fish taken post netting has actually been significantly less than prior to.

Instead, the issue is the year over year targeting of the same year classes via the harvest slot and the predator prey imbalance that was created as a result. Managing the fishery in this way was the DNR’s way of managing the lake for both sport fishing and netting. This management strategy has directly affected the fishery negatively.

The goal of this lawsuit is to force the DNR to take into account the sport anglers heritage along with the tribal heritage. If the DNR cannot come up with a plan to manage it for both, then something has to give.

-Drew

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So the lawsuit is being filed because the DNR screwed up the angler slot limit? Because they tried to manage the lake effectively but failed?