Good Read – Steve Johnson

Opinion article from the Mille Lacs messenger. Could not agree more!

http://www.messagemedia.co/millelacs/opinion/other_opinions/when-will-we-be-able-to-keep-a-walleye/article_74e874ae-2dd3-11eb-88f2-8bb9f80335a8.html?fbclid=IwAR0Zd0M47wMWqdfdpTrdfKyWBDCIWnLjrjQe_jQgfEnpymICrGiB6-RUVm4

When will we be able to keep a walleye?
by Steve Johnson Nov 27, 2020
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The simple answer is starting December 1, you can harvest one walleye from 21 inches to 23 inches until February 28, 2021.

The long answer is as follows:

Unless the current management agreement changes, the MnDNR will be hard pressed to allow a one fish all season harvest. The reason behind this is the rule of supply and demand. We have more demand than the current co-management agreement can supply.

Is this because Mille Lacs is in poor shape? No, because it’s not. According to my sources and the data, Mille Lacs is right now in very good shape (almost too good).

Is this because the Mille Lacs ecosystem is broken? No, because it’s not. There was a small stretch from 2008-2012 where we did not have a good year class of walleyes. Since 2013, we have had normal to above normal year class production.

So why the supply problem?

Mille Lacs historically used harvest as a tool for management, meaning that we would harvest walleye annually (250k – 400k pounds now at 150k) to thin the population and that in turn would help to balance out the ratio of predators to prey. When the lake had fewer predators, it would produce and maintain a good forage supply. It was an ebb and flow that worked for decades.

That entire amount of harvest was determined after the season was over, and the data was collected and processed. There was no quota hard line number to stay under and certainly no penalty for going over.

That has all changed after the 1999 Supreme Court decision that recognizes the eight Bands’ right to harvest. Now that harvest of walleyes is split between two entities: the native and the non-native. It is almost a 50/50 split, and with that ratio in place coupled with the ultra-conservative management, we will never see a season-long harvest again. Can this change? I’m glad you asked.

Yes, change the system so it can benefit both sides to their actual needs.

Clearly the non-Native Anerican side does not need it for subsistence, but it can claim that it is an economic driver for the area that benefits both sides tremendously in jobs, et cetera. Some of the non-Native Anericans have adapted to catch and release and thoroughly enjoy their time on the water doing just that. But there are many non-natives that would appreciate a fish dinner occasionally, and that is just not allowed.

On the Native Anerican side, subsistence and culture are the claimed reason for the harvest.

The subsistence part of the equation can easily be replaced by another source from another area with a year-round delivery system directly benefiting whomever they choose. The logistics and cost can be negotiated and agreed upon.

The culture argument in my opinion is actually a neutral point as culture exists on both sides. That’s right. The 75-year-old non-Native Anerican that is waiting excitingly to take his great grandkids out on the water to show them what his grandfather showed him is just as culturally important as the Ojibwe claim on their side.

How to change it?

Step one is to determine what each side truly needs and see if the supply can be delivered without the removal of any rights or actions, meaning that the Bands can do what they’ve been doing but on a smaller scale and replace the pounds from another source.

Try something new that makes sense. Take a new observation approach to the management of the lake, and stop doing reactionary management when you hit a number.

If the MnDNR and GLIFWC can’t come up with a harvest number above 300,000 with the current system in place you will never see a year round one fish limit again.

Cooperative Management would be a nice change.

Guest columnist Steve Johnson is a local business owner, member of the Mille Lacs Fishery Advisory Committee, Eastside Township Board Chair, Mille Lacs County Planning Commission, and Mille Lacs Tourism Treasurer.

To think the lake is Co-managed would mean someone other then GLIFWC has any input.

Would you Mille Lacs guys be in favor of shortening the season? What if the ice season didn’t start until Dec 31?

This is from an outsider but why is there a stink about keeping fish? Wouldn’t you rather catch 20+ fish all day rather than a bunch of 15-20 and keeping 6? There’s so many other lakes/river systems around to catch and keep those size fish.

Great post and I will be copying and sharing on my other social media. And for any of the geniuses that comment about the Ojibwe’s history on the lake, please let them know the Ojibwe tradition doesn’t go back much further than the 75 year olds Grandpa. They pushed the Sioux off the land and first inhabited it in the early 1800’s.

http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/6/v06i01p041-045.pdf

Jon Jordan wrote:

How to change it?

Step one is to determine what each side truly needs and see if the supply can be delivered without the removal of any rights or actions, meaning that the Bands can do what they’ve been doing but on a smaller scale and replace the pounds from another source.

Yeah, About step one…

I’ve already stated my beef on this issue more than once. If it has to be catch and release all season long I am fine with it. What I am not on board with is the unfair treatment catering to ice anglers versus open water anglers. There should not be harvest of fish in the winter that is cutting into the quota with the potential complete closure against open water anglers in July. I’m perfectly fine releasing every walleye from my boat and so should every guy in his ice shack.

Yes, actually I read Steve’s opinion piece in the Messenger last Wednesday when the printed version arrived in my mailbox.

Steve makes some valid points/suggestions and I appreciate his ideas for some change and new/different direction.

However, I’m also getting the sentiment he’s replacing some other’s as far as figuratively standing on the street corner shouting in a cone.

Perhaps because most of them have given up the fight? Or conceded/ accepted what is worth fighting for?

Who knows what motivates tribal harvest? Is it truly a sustenance practice for them? Or perhaps just for the sake of exercising their rights?

One valid argument could be agreement to bump up allowable harvest, closer to what was possible years ago with a stabilized population.

But so much has changed since then, technology, an explosion in wheelhouse usage.

An interesting tidbit I read today, last ice season had 3 million angler hours on Mille Lacs. LOTW had 2.7 million. Granted it was an odd year with ice conditions, but regardless…hard to imagine that comparing the 2 destinations.

LOTW can sustain far more pressure/harvest than Mille Lacs.

Think about that when considering future Mille Lacs walleye harvest.

Tom Albrecht wrote:

This is from an outsider but why is there a stink about keeping fish? Wouldn’t you rather catch 20+ fish all day rather than a bunch of 15-20 and keeping 6? There’s so many other lakes/river systems around to catch and keep those size fish.

If you don’t take fish out there isn’t room for new fish to succeed. Recruitment problems in years past were very likely caused by cannibalism. The lake is better now but still has a lot of old males that were always protected. The lake could handle 300,000 plus pounds every year until we stopped removing that many fish. When the dnr claimed the population was down the fishing was the best it ever had been.

MnPat1 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Tom Albrecht wrote:</div>
This is from an outsider but why is there a stink about keeping fish? Wouldn’t you rather catch 20+ fish all day rather than a bunch of 15-20 and keeping 6? There’s so many other lakes/river systems around to catch and keep those size fish.

If you don’t take fish out there isn’t room for new fish to succeed. Recruitment problems in years past were very likely caused by cannibalism. The lake is better now but still has a lot of old males that were always protected. The lake could handle 300,000 plus pounds every year until we stopped removing that many fish. When the dnr claimed the population was down the fishing was the best it ever had been.

This guy gets it.

I urge anyone interested in ML to subscribe. “The Mess” gets pretty thin, page wise, at times but it is still a snap shot of the area.
Sheriff’s report is just so sad.

The_Bladepuller wrote:

I urge anyone interested in ML to subscribe. “The Mess” gets pretty thin, page wise, at times but it is still a snap shot of the area.
Sheriff’s report is just so sad.

Drugs are a monster that breed more crime. They’ve got quite the hold on some of those places. It is sad to see what some areas have become.

If you don’t take fish out there isn’t room for new fish to succeed. Recruitment problems in years past were very likely caused by cannibalism. The lake is better now but still has a lot of old males that were always protected. The lake could handle 300,000 plus pounds every year until we stopped removing that many fish. When the dnr claimed the population was down the fishing was the best it ever had been.
[/quote]

If you believe that lakes need to have fish harvested to make room for new fish, how do you explain how good the fishing is on remote Canadian lakes where there is zero or close to zero fishing pressure. Or even how much better is on remote lakes with lower fishing pressure than it is on metro lakes with massive fishing pressure?

ptc wrote:

If you believe that lakes need to have fish harvested to make room for new fish, how do you explain how good the fishing is on remote Canadian lakes where there is zero or close to zero fishing pressure. Or even how much better is on remote lakes with lower fishing pressure than it is on metro lakes with massive fishing pressure?

I believe the terminology he may be referring to indirectly is carrying capacity. The environment (the lake) can only support so many individual species of one fish. The bigger the fish, the more energy they require, and the more resources they need. Mille Lacs has incredible carrying capacity but some of that energy is now gone because the environment has changed. Clearly that is in the form of perch. Additionally, there are more smallmouth bass and northern pike in the lake than there used to be and they also require adequate energy in the form of forage. So the carrying capacity’s ceiling is lower than it used to be. What that amount is, I am not sure.

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

However, I’m also getting the sentiment he’s replacing some other’s as far as figuratively standing on the street corner shouting in a cone.

Yep, and no one in the DNR is listening… or should say, no one in the DNR cares