Mille Lacs Live Bait Ban Lifted

Here is the DNR press release to go with the Breaking News that Steve just posted…

Live bait will be allowed on Mille Lacs Lake starting with opener

All Mille Lacs Lake anglers will be able to fish with live bait when the season opens Saturday, May 14.
“This year’s Mille Lacs regulation will not include a live bait restriction due to feedback from anglers and stakeholders,” said Don Pereira, fisheries section chief for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “The DNR is hearing that anglers are accepting of the catch-and-release aspect of the walleye season, but members of the Mille Lacs Fisheries Advisory Committee heard clear concerns about the live bait restriction, as did the DNR.”
The DNR decided to allow live bait after committee members and the DNR met Wednesday, April 6, and had a productive discussion about the pros and cons of the live-bait ban.
“Our discussion showed the DNR and the committee are determined to work together to protect the resource while still providing the best recreational opportunities on Mille Lacs for a wide range of users,” said Dean Hanson, who operates Agate Bay Resort in Isle and co-chairs the advisory committee.
All other Mille Lacs regulations announced March 21 remain in place, including the provision that requires all walleye caught to be immediately released.
The new regulations come as the DNR is working to conserve young walleyes so they can mature and become spawners, thus helping the lake’s walleye population to recover. Hooking mortality – an estimate of the number of fish that die after being caught and returned to the water – is a factor in keeping state anglers under this year’s state walleye allotment.
Hooking mortality increases as water temperatures warm and catch rates increase. Both factors are at play in Mille Lacs this year. Studies show anglers using only artificial bait can reduce hooking mortality substantially because fish are less likely to swallow artificial bait and suffer internal damage from a hook.
Pereira said the initial decision to include a live-bait ban for Mille Lacs regulations reflected the desire of anglers and area businesses to keep walleye fishing open as long as possible.
Removing the live bait restriction does not pose any conservation risk because the state’s walleye allotment of 28,600 pounds established by the DNR and eight Chippewa bands remains in place. A federal court decision requires that walleye fishing on Mille Lacs be suspended if anglers exceed the limit.
Anglers and the Mille Lacs Advisory Committee members said live bait is an important part of the Mille Lacs fishing experience. Concerns about the live-bait ban were expressed locally around the Mille Lacs community as well as from members of the public visiting the Northwest Sports Show, which concluded April 3.
DNR staff learned that it would be difficult for some anglers to adapt to using only artificial bait, and it could particularly discourage young anglers. Bobber fishing with live bait has a long tradition on the lake. Those concerns prompted Wednesday’s meeting between the DNR and the Mille Lacs Lake Advisory Committee.
Hanson said he believes this discussion shows the advisory committee process is working. “We focused on prolonging the walleye season as long as possible by whatever means were available,” said Hanson. But stakeholders told the committee they found the live bait restriction objectionable.
Pereira agreed that the advisory committee process is working well. “The framework was established to communicate information from the public to the DNR, and that’s exactly what happened,” he said. “The committee’s leadership and commitment were crucial to the DNR’s decision-making process.”
Information about Mille Lacs Lake is available on the DNR’s Mille Lacs Lake Web page.

I wonder how many bait shops were already affected by the original announcement?

How could the DNR handle this any worse? Or maybe I should say Don Pereira?

Way to think your decision through!! Allowing 2 weeks of bad publicity for a depressed area.
Protect the resources of the taxpaying citizens!
STOP Throwing Darts!!!

Pauleye wrote:

Way to think your decision through!! Allowing 2 weeks of bad publicity for a depressed area.
Protect the resources of the taxpaying citizens!
STOP Throwing Darts!!!

X 1,000,000 They will eat up that $300k advertising budget just getting the word out about the regs. What a blunder!

-J.

Pauleye wrote:

Way to think your decision through!! Allowing 2 weeks of bad publicity for a depressed area.
Protect the resources of the taxpaying citizens!
STOP Throwing Darts!!!

Perhaps circling back to discuss the regulations with their advisory panel before going live with them would have been a good idea.

Can someone please remind me of the role of the advisor panel?

So with the hooking mortality rate going up with the use of live bait, how much earlier with the closing of all walleye fishing come?

Tom N. said at one of the roundtable meetings when he (and most everyone else) were fighting against using two lines “people from out of state that bobber fish let the walleyes swallow the bait and there will most certainly be more hooking mortality”.

“Hooking mortality – an estimate of the number of fish that die after being caught and returned to the water”

Maybe this outfit needs to study the mortality rates as a result of the netting. Why hasn’t it been suggested that the tribes can net until they reach X number pounds of fish period. Not walleye alone, but all they have in nets and require them to keep and take home everything they’ve netted. Carp, suckers, northern…all of it. I doubt that at the time the treaty was signed they had such classic tastes in fish. If what they do today is done with their history behind it then they ought to keep as they historically did.

Hooking mortality is nothing compared to the wholesale slaughter that nets bring with their use.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

Why hasn’t it been suggested that the tribes can net until they reach X number pounds of fish period. Not walleye alone, but all they have in nets and require them to keep and take home everything they’ve netted. Carp, suckers, northern…all of it.

That is the current rule. But since no one is enforcing the law, the tribes are clearly going well over allocation.

-J.

Jon Jordan wrote:

That is the current rule. But since no one is enforcing the law, the tribes are clearly going well over allocation.

There there’s always the deep woods dumping grounds for everything but walleye.

I think OUR CO’s should be there when those nets are cleared and then escort the tribes back to where they came from with ALL that they have netted. If they want to dump what they’ve caught they can do it in their own garbage cans.

If the netters had enforcement it would be the easiest method to know if an allocation was met. However simple creel surveys are a poor way to estimate numbers. it is much easier to manage the netting operations. however I have never seen anyone enforcing that. Also try launching a boat from a public landing that you and I paid for with TAX dollars when that is happening!

Mike Klein wrote:

Also try launching a boat from a public landing that you and I paid for with TAX dollars when that is happening!

I have done that. The tribal conservation officer stood directly behind my boat and would not allow me to launch. I got out of my truck and asked him to move. He did, but when I got back in the truck, he walked back and blocked the ramp. This time I got out with a camera and started to take a video of him blocking the ramp. This time he moved…

I am 100% sure he wanted to provoke and incident.

So in all the years we’ve corked in shallow water in the spring, I haven’t worried about releasing any fish. Never corked in the spring deeper than 13-14′ and mainly in much shallower than that. We’ve learned to count off the first half a dozen corks down to get 97%+ of our fish hooked in the lip or upper jaw. If a fish has a hook in its gullet, there’s no pulling, just a clip of the line and the fish is released with a fine wire small hook left in it. I’ve caught enough pike over the years with rusted out spinner baits and jigs in their mouths, plus have seen enough rusted hooks to know it doesn’t take much for hooks to not be a huge fish killer, if the fish is netted quickly and released with just a little care. So I’m not totally buying or drinking the coolaid of hooking mortality in the spring or even early summer. Yeah, it happens, but I doubt artificial baits would really reduce it to any grand scale. Now deep water in mid to late summer, that’s a whole different box of hammers and hand grenades.

A little education would go a long, long ways to limit hooking mortality.

I’m not much of lindy rigger on the big pond cause we’ve rarely needed too. Even still, a tad quicker hook sets help a ton. Yeah, you might miss a fish or two, but it’s not worth the anal hook set imo.

My wife’s biggest walleye came off of a shallow rock pile in August fishing smallmouth on a heavy jig head with a tube. That fish absolutely inhaled that jig. So there would still be hooking mortality with artificials as well.

It’s a very, very weak argument thinking artificial baits would have really had a great impact in lowering hooking mortality.

Kinda curious if somebody had stock in gulp who was making such an arduous call like the live bait ban. How unbelievable ignorant to think that was even a palatable solution to anything that ail’s the historic Big Pond.

The really interesting tell will be what happens to that grand 2013 year class. If that fails to live up to its expectation, that could hopefully tell us all a lot about something.

This just proves that politics is forcing decisions not based on biological science. The decision was made with the recommendation of the committee Nd changed because politics dictated differently. Pull up your big boy pants and stick to what was right and agreed to in public meetings. By the way, it was only one small email to send out notice of the Wednesday meeting. Why was it not sent out so others could hear the discussion???? Cowards everyone.

basseyes wrote:

So in all the years we’ve corked in shallow water in the spring, I haven’t worried about releasing any fish. Never corked in the spring deeper than 13-14′ and mainly in much shallower than that. We’ve learned to count off the first half a dozen corks down to get 97%+ of our fish hooked in the lip or upper jaw. If a fish has a hook in its gullet, there’s no pulling, just a clip of the line and the fish is released with a fine wire small hook left in it. I’ve caught enough pike over the years with rusted out spinner baits and jigs in their mouths, plus have seen enough rusted hooks to know it doesn’t take much for hooks to not be a huge fish killer, if the fish is netted quickly and released with just a little care. So I’m not totally buying or drinking the coolaid of hooking mortality in the spring or even early summer. Yeah, it happens, but I doubt artificial baits would really reduce it to any grand scale. Now deep water in mid to late summer, that’s a whole different box of hammers and hand grenades.

A little education would go a long, long ways to limit hooking mortality.

I’m not much of lindy rigger on the big pond cause we’ve rarely needed too. Even still, a tad quicker hook sets help a ton. Yeah, you might miss a fish or two, but it’s not worth the anal hook set imo.

My wife’s biggest walleye came off of a shallow rock pile in August fishing smallmouth on a heavy jig head with a tube. That fish absolutely inhaled that jig. So there would still be hooking mortality with artificials as well.

It’s a very, very weak argument thinking artificial baits would have really had a great impact in lowering hooking mortality.

Kinda curious if somebody had stock in gulp who was making such an arduous call like the live bait ban. How unbelievable ignorant to think that was even a palatable solution to anything that ail’s the historic Big Pond.

The really interesting tell will be what happens to that grand 2013 year class. If that fails to live up to its expectation, that could hopefully tell us all a lot about something.

It wasn’t hooking mortality in May and early June that caused the lake to be closed last year so much as what took place in later June and July.