Sounds like MN. DNR finially has wised up to the fact that the commorants on Leech may be why that Walleye fishing stinks there for several years.They might get permision to shoot and destroy thousands of these dirty birds,by rubbing vegetable oil on their eggs they will not hatch. 
Good, i fish Winnie a couple times a year and i heard if nothing is done its only a matter of time before they get established up that way too.
I’m old enough to rememember when these birds and many others were in danger of extinction.So now we need to shoot them because there eating to many fish? Whats next,shooting Eagles too,they eat fish and there numbers have also skyrocketed in the last decade.I truely beleive the real problem is irreponsible fisherman.You see these guy’s up there keeping limits of 9-14″ walleyes because : I paid alot of money to go up north fishing and I’m taking home a limit: I’m not discounting that the comorants are eating there share, but take some responsbilty fisherman.Those of you out there who fish for limits of baby fish need to become sportsman and think about the effects of taking home Bacon strip walleyes.I have fished Leech every year for the last 25yrs and still catch alot of good walleyes there and I only get up there 1 week a year.Hone your skills, there are alot of good fish there.
You need too see the figures on what a single cormorant eats for pounds of fish in 1 day. Now take a couple thousand nesting pairs of them. Thats doing much more damage too a fishery than some irresponsible fisherman. Now dont get me wrong, it torks me also when i see limits of 10-12″ walleyes being taken from a lake, but the numbers on what these cormorants eat for fish is off the charts.
Good discussion guys. I fish Leech hard once a year, for the Walleye Classic, and have had great success there. I do know you have to work very hard to find pods of fish though. With that said, I am very skeptical of the Cormorrants significantly effecting the Walleye population. It seems to me that the Largemouth bass, Muskies, & Perch are thriving. Why would the Cormorants disproportiontely eat walleyes? Bass spawn very shallow and so do Perch and Muskies. These fish fry all spend several years shallow and in theory would be at least as suseptable to Cormorant predation, (and I would argue more suseptable to Cormorants). So why are those fish doing great and walleye populations low? I don’t have a great answer, except I suspect angler harvest, illegal netting in spring, and other unknown factors are effecting it. I don’t think it is the Cormorants, but they are an easy target. My belief is serious scientific study has to go on, not just: Cormarants eat x pounds of food (fish) per day, and there are 100 cormorants, so….they must be eating the walleyes. I just does not make sense to me, unless someone can point me to Cormorant behavior and a preference for feeding on walleye fry. I hope the DNR spends some time looking at other alternatives for the decrease in walleyes. I love Leech as a fishery and want to see more walleyes, but I think we are jumping the gun focusing on Cormorants. Just my two cents….
Kelly…
you may be on to something there… the DNR has been known to belly up to public pressure before… the public is a great one for pointing fingers at predators.. why not blame the muskies and bass for eating the walleyes? maybe we should kill them too? Ive seen political pressure like that put on before… the problem with the cormarants is that they have no interest group protecting them….. Id say they are goners….. yep they eat fish all right.. lets kill em…. but why would they just eat walleyes? its human fisherman that are selective about their harvest… most natural predators are much less selective.. and one thing for sure.. cormarants are NOT selective…. and they DO eat a lot of fish…. I imagine the DNR figures it wont HURT the lake to be rid of a bunch of them.. and they can study the impact it has and see what it does…. lots easier to do that way than try and predict it….. ahhhh well… eagles and loons next? dont forget king fishers, grebes and mergansers…. oh.. and turtles… particularly snappers… ooops.. almost forgot.. gulls and pelicans gotta go too….. ohh… and ospreys..cant forget them…. anything else? well.. you see where Im going… there is no end to it once you starting chopping away at the foodchain…. its never so easy that you can point to just one thing… except when its angler overharvest…. we as anglers CAN actually hurt a body of water if they let us….. now… Im not saying anything here… I have no facts in front of me at all…. just a suspicion it could be a knee jerk reaction and a political appeasment…. I sure hope thats not true…. cormarants are not my favorite birds…. they are efficient and voracious predators…. and have been documented harming fish poplulations before… if fish are sitting shallow where the cormarants can reach them… then who knows….
Whats wrong with keeping 14 inch walleyes?
I know what you’re saying skindog,.. What size fish you take depends on what body of water you’re on.
Quote:
I know what you’re saying skindog,.. What size fish you take depends on what body of water you’re on.
Not to cormorants. Humans can set limits on what fish and size to take. If the numbers of birds in one place and the tonage of fish they eat is true, it sounds like some trimming needs to be done. What if it were rats or snakes? We would do the same thing. Would we hear whining?
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
