Sauger size/bag changes

Do you favor sauger size and bag limit changes?

No. I like to eat minnows and lots of them

13″ size limit with no bag reduction

13″ size limit with 6 daily bag

15″ size limit with no bag reduction

15″ size limit with 6 daily bag

Come on guys…75 views and only 30 votes. This is your chance to voice your opinion.

Hey Beav, I had to laugh when I read the first choice of the poll. Almost choked when I read 3 voted for it.

I think that if you fish that deep water you should have to keep the fish you pull up…… and don’t tell me that fizzing [censored] works…. so I would say a big “No” to any size limit on sauger….. (It may keep them from floating upside down in your livewell until you get them wieghed in but that’s about it…….

Ive caught and released scads of small saugers none of which came from the big scour hole at the dam site.

Steve Hougom – FTR Webstaff

That seems like a better solution. Make the scour hole “off limits”. We all know how small fish congregate in there during the fall and winter. If that`s the only way and the only area that you can catch fish, you ought to broaden your scope and try some different spots. Don`t make the whole system suffer because some people can`t catch fish any other way. If you fish water that deep, in my humble opinion, you have no respect for the resource.

Great Idea Beaver…… In light of these terrorists, we should ban all boat traffic within a half mile of the dam. Kill two birds with one stone.

J.

from what I can see, those that fish the deep water (dam scour hole) are NOT concerned with the resource… Ive heard comments like….

“my license money goes for restocking, so whats the big deal?” or “the eagles gotta eat too ya know”…..

its saddening/maddening to hear that sh*t……

if only we could get the DNR to agree to move the no fishing area downriver from the dam far enough to cover the scour holes in the winter, its the only legal solution that would protect the resource… the fish are very vulnerable during that time, and its a crime when you see fish after fish going down river belly up….

OK, I haven’t fished up by the dam much, but where is the scour hole on 4?? The times I’ve fished that area, I guess I didn’t notice any major depth differences. When you say scour hole, I’m assuming your talking the 30-50 foot holes created by the current right below the dam?? Was I not close enough to the dam or just not paying close enough attention to my graph when I fished up there??

In any case though, I completely agree with you guys. Some people just never know when enough is a enough. So that is why we have laws. Well, maybe if we can squeak loud enough, we’ll get some grease and get this law corrected to benefit the fishery???

on pool 4 you have merely to push close enough to the dam… you can find the scour hole before you get to the no fishing beyond this point signs…. and yes…. it ranges from 30-70+ on my locator… on the wisconsin side it extends a bit further down river than on the Mn side… and typically the Wi side is where they fish in the winter

I never fish for those tiny things that deep. I never even fish deeper than twenty feet since I don’t fish to keep. I release everything and don’t want to hurt the fish. But I do fish close to the dam along some of the rocks and wings. Most of the time in <15 ft. I would be disapointed if these areas were put off limit. I do have to agree that anyone that targets those fish are not concerned with the resource. Those fish get pounded in the winter. It might be needed to put that area off limits if people are to inconciderate to leave those fish alone.

Too vague. What body of water? Would the 6 sauger be in addition to a walleye limit? If not, on MN/WI waters, 6 fish is not a change. How about another option: On MN/WI and WI/IA waters, a 6 fish combined limit with a 15″ minimum? Then you got my vote.

I agree with all of you! Make the scour hole off limits, but since that isn’t going to happen, keep what you catch. No release. Alot of people can’t catch fish in other parts of the river, but they should’t be allowed to kill more than their limit on any given day! Not that I have much of an opinion. Keep it vertical.

I agree there needs to be a length limit and I also agree with lowering the total limit of walleye/sauger. When all that happens, then it has to be enforced. We also need to support the DNR if these changes can be made.

I would not mind the limit bieng 3 fish walleye or sauger per day, but then agian I leave next to the river…. guys that travel from a great distance like to take home a nice batch…. all I am usually interested is in a meal once a every week or two….

That deep water fishing really is a bummer…. but as many times I have been up by the dam recently it looks like they are playing bumper boats on that ledge near the wisconsin side that isn’t too deep….

If you don’t know where the scour hole is it isn’t hard to find I don’t have electronics but I can tell the depth pretty acurate by dropping a line……

Just my two cents

I personally do not target small sauger. However I feel at times they have saved the day on a guide trip..The sauger are the bread and butter of this great fishing system..

If I keep fish for my self I prefer a 12 to 15 in sauger..that’s what I like a young fish that fry’s quick..out of our polluted waters not much fat on the fish and they haven’t been in the system for 5 to 7 years and they are not at the peek of their reproduction years..If I keep walleye’s which is very seldom I prefer 15 and 16 inch fish.. This is just my presonal preference..

I don’t think we need to add more length restictions on another species of fish..

As far as the deep scour hole..in 15 years on the river I think I have fished it two or three times…Like I said I usually don’t target small sauger..and there are alot better places to fish.

As far as making it off limit’s..I think not.

I personally would rather have those that fish it take home the small fish then taking limits of 18 to 21 inch sauger that are usually found down river they are the river’s breeder’s..

Just had to put my two cent’s in ..

Thanks for tolerating the length…

All points well taken. I keep fish from 15″-18″ and love eating them as much as the next guy. I think most of us practice selective harvest in one way or another, and it`s always fish on the low end of the size limit that we choose to eat. But I think that the mindset of small saugers being the bread and butter of the river is the reason that there aren`t more fish larger than 15″. You may keep fish from 12 on up, but I`ve seen buckets of 10 and 11″ fish at the landing. That`s not bread and butter, that french fries. It`s also always been my contention that the people who keep limits of small fish are basicly incapable of going out and taking a limit of prime spawners anyway. So I don`t think if you put a size limit on fish that the masses are automaticly going to go out and keep limits of larger fish, because I don`t think that they`d be able to catch a limit.

That`s why I think size and numbers have to change. There`s no size limit, so people keep fish of any size no matter how small it is. The Iowa DNR thinks it`s OK to keep 10 saugers, so people will stay out til they catch and keep 10 even though 5 is more than enough to feed them. People are basicly greedy as proven by the statements like…”I bought my license, now I`m gonna get mine.” No thought to the fishery….I`m gonna get mine!

If people were more ethical and responsible, we wouldn`t need limits of any sort at all. But I`ve seen the abuse and misuse and I`m sure that you have too. It`s those people that need to have limits set upon them, not the fishermen that practice selective harvest to begin with. I just don`t see size and bag limits changing as being harmful to the river. I do think that if things go unchecked, that harm is being done.

Beav

Here I go sticking my nose in where it’s not welcome again:

I couldn’t count on two hands the number of people I’ve heard suggest that they close the pheasant season for a couple of years to let the numbers get back up. Most of these people are intelligent, thoughtful people who are only trying to “do good.”

Unfortunately, the DNR has carried out intensive studies and shown conclusively that you can eliminate well over 90% of the cocks without affecting the next year’s population 1 iota.

So what does that have to do with this debate?? It seems we’re all doing a little bit of armchair quarterbacking when it comes to length and number limits. I don’t know what the experts have to say about this, but it seems to me they must have their reasons for leaving it the way it is (assuming they are going to). Maybe their data shows that tighter sauger limits impact the walleye population. Maybe it affects the panfish population. Maybe their just guessing.

The point is that even their guesswork would be more exact than mine, because they have training and insight that I do not. I would be pretty tourqued off if I showed up to work on a Monday morning to see that a DNR biologist was sitting at my desk trying to do my job. I’m sure they feel the same way.

Reef Runner,

The big problem with the scour hole is not the folks keeping a legal limit, (no matter the size) it’s the fact that they pull these fish out of deep – 30 plus feet of water. They sit on those fish all day for the numbers. They will brag “We put 100 in the boat”. Well I say ya, you did. You also killed most of them too. Basically, you have just gone over your limit by 94 fish!! If these people kept the first 6 and left, great. They would show up and leave in 10 minutes. Too bad that’s not the case.

J.

Gianni, you are correct. But why is it that we can`t get a response or any input from any of them. Lord knows if it was a whitetail issue in Wisconsin, it would be on a freakin’ referendum by now. I have always thought that the ammount of effort put in by the tri-state DNR`s on the river fishery is lacking. When was the last time that you were checked on the river or at a landing. The only place that I`ve had it happen is at Red Wing. You would think that between the DNR`s of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin and the US Dept. of the Interior or Fish and Wildlife Agency, somebody could address some of our concerns or at least shed some light on the issue. This is The Upper Mississippi River Fish and Wildlife Refuge we`re talking about. It was created for fishing, now it seems that all they care about is barge traffic. I`ve made some calls……I would have gotten straighter answers from Bill Clinton about Monica Blewinski.

Anybody out there that can shed some light? Please, step up to the plate.

Beav youre right. I emailed this thread to the Wisconsin DNR and have not heard back yet. And its someone Ive had communications with before. We cant rely on poor fishsqzr to answer all the the fisheries management related questions, although I can guarantee you know one will give us a better answer than he.

Steve Hougom – FTR Webstaff

OK,

Throw this one around for a while. Since it seems quite a few people like to fish the deep holes below the dams, and brag about their (100) fish days, why not draw a line from point A to point B, and make it a NO CULL rule. You get your limit and you’re done. Yes, some big fish will be taken, but the averages are against that I think. This would serve two purposes. With proper enforcement, the DNR could add to their coffers, and after a while those that fish that area would get tired of just catching 6 or 10 cigars and having to quit fishing. Granted, it would be another pain in the butt regulation to deal with, but since the dnr would benefit as might the fish populations, why not try it??

Whatta ya think?

I agree with you and Beav. The management activities for the tri-state area on the Miss seem to be carried out in secret. I’m not sure that’s the DNR’s fault, though, since primary responsibility for the river in general belongs to the COE & USFWS. I wonder if the state-level managers got tired of doing things to improve the fishing only to be overruled in the end. I can’t complain about the barges too much, since for the most part they are the lifeline for a great many jobs here in the Northern states. I do, however, wish they could do more to balance river management activities between commercial and recreational.

I’ll email the thread to someone I know at the Iowa DNR and see what they have to say. I would have to agree with Beav on the point that if this were a deer hunting issue, it would be getting a lot more attention. I hate to be so cynical as to say that deer hunting gets the nod because of the money it brings to the state, but it seems like the obvious conclusion. Let’s see what they have to say before getting too rough on them, though.

I heard a DNR game biologist call the whitetailed deer…”Wisconsins most valuable cash crop.”

Draw your own conclussions from that statement.

Ive been hoping to draw in some fisheries experts to comment on this thread, but so far no luck….. Im not a fisheries person, however…. I have friends and contacts who are, plus I have a degree in Fisheries and Wildlife with a specialty in fisheries and I worked with the Iowa DNR for a while in fisheries management at Clear Lake, Manchester, and Muscatine, giving me experience with cold water, cool water and warm water management…… ok.. so chest tapping aside….. I do have a little background to draw upon…… so I will do the best I can and I will hope that the true experts that you guys and I have asked to join will jump in…..

I have a lot of points to address and will try and do them one at a time…….

time for fish management 101

1. Fisheries management is not as easy as wildlife management. Im not trying to start a fight here, but assessing a wildlife population is quite a bit easier than assessing a fish population. Wildlife live with us and we can SEE them without having to do anything fancy and generally they dont move around much…..

As most of you know… fish live under water, and lets use Mississippi river system sauger as an example… assessing their population is not that easy, they live in a complex and diverse environment, and they can and do move relatively long distances, in my experience about the only way to evaluate a population is via marking and sampling…… to really make this work the effort would need to be done over possibly the entire range of the watershed, because potentially they can travel that far…..(though in general they dont)…. then you have to use statistics to extrapolate the population based on the number of marked fish recaptured vs the number of unmarked fish…. Im not aware of any such effort being made on the mississippi watershed… it would be EXPENSIVE, and most likely still unreliable…..

from what I know, most population assessment is conducted via creel census (a survery that determines how many fish we anglers are catching and tests the wind for our overall satisfaction, are we happy? super…. are we angry and getting the tar and feathers ready? oh oh.. guess we better think of something fast!! this is by and large a political response!)…. next we have the yearly sample checking for YOY (young of year) fish….. this shows the bioligist are we cool or is there trouble ahead…… a few years of poor recruitment (reduced numbers of YOY) would most likely lead to unhappy fisherman……

OK.. to sum #1 up….. creel census to determine angler success and overall happiness, which also allows the biolgist to examine size structure of fish being caught and via scale samples they can also determine growth rates….

YOY sampling to determine if recruitment (is the population healthy and reproducing?) is in line with averages, they can fuzzily predict good years and bad years ahead with this, using growth rates to predict when “catchable” fish will enter the population……

#2 how do bag limits and size limits fit in?

sadly this issue is at least as much political as it is bioligical….. not that it should be, but its you and me who are responsible for that!! its been hinted above that we should not do the job of the bioligist.. and yet we DO, we cant help it…. we are unhappy and we are complaining.. something MUST be done…. this can happen if

the bioligist decides that bag limits must be REDUCED and size limits must be IMPOSED or increased…… he then proposes this and the fishing public reacts…… take MilleLacs as an example… do you really think there would be as many restrictive regulations on that lake if it was not federally mandated that we abide by the Treaty? NO WAY….. here is one case where politics were thrown out the window, what WE think dont matter, there is a federal treaty that dictates what can and must be done……

Summary…. WE can be a positive influence for change, but we need to work with the bioligists….. for example its possible that our FTR members could actually help managers by keeping accurate logs of catch rates and sizes, even taking occasional scale samples and sending them in…. or failing that we could develop our own independant data base so that if WE as a group were to say… “fishing sucks, we need help” we would have a body of evidence to PROVE our contention…… remember that fisheries is as much political as it is bioligical….. this is because there is money on the line, and public opninion……. WE can be a political force, if we care enough to become one…..

#3. are current laws adequate?

Well your most likely going to encounter an attitude of if it isnt broke dont fix it when you broach this subject with fisheries….. PLUS, its hard for us to go to fisheries in our THREE states and whine that fishing sucks…. oh does it really? Creel census shows its better than x% of all fisheries in our entire zones of management (I dont have the X number, our bioligists can help us with that)…. the simple truth? the river is an awesome fishery… better than almost ANY other…. could it be better? well WE think so… but could it? hard to say….. but does it HURT to restrict bag limits and size limits? How CAN IT??

but to get laws changed usually there needs to be bioligical evidence that a change is needed…. and then there must be political support for it as well…… this usually does not happen until things are truly bad…….

wouldnt it be great if we could manage the river to achieve the best fishing possible? well yeah….. BUT, now YOU tell me what makes the fishery great?? Lots of small ones so you can catch 100/day? Lots of eaters so you can fill your freezer? Lots of trophys so that you can have pictures galore?? There are a lot of people out there and they would answer this question differently, (heres OUR poll)

No. I like to eat minnows and lots of them 17

13″ size limit with no bag reduction 7

13″ size limit with 6 daily bag 38

15″ size limit with no bag reduction 14

15″ size limit with 6 daily bag 99

Now it seems in general we prefer to PROTECT the fishery and favor the most restrictive bag limits……… but if we put this to the general public would the results be the same? I doubt it… for instance as those who are out there harvesting MEAT what they want…. hmmmm they would like to take just as MUCH MEAT as they can…… ask the guys sitting in the scour hole what they want?… they want just as many tugs on the end of their lines as possible… who cares if they are mostly 8-10 inches?

#4…. Soooo what can WE do?

We can help educate others to voluntarily do what is right, this IS possible… look at Musky fisheries and Bass… these are mostly catch and release…. sadly however walleye and sauger ARE excellent food fish….. heck.. I LIKE to eat them YOU like to… who doesnt?? we will ALWAYS harvest SOME…..

We can also work as a political body to get laws changed!! this is NOT easy….. but it can be done… we CAN do it……

We can help our outnumbered law enforcement people to enforce the laws we have!!….. afterall… make all the laws you want.. if compliance is low then whats the difference?? We ALL need to STOP offenders……. we all need to call the various TIP lines and even directly notify wardens…. we at FTR could forge a closer link with law enforcement to enhance protection of our resource………

*whew*….. I bet your all asleep by now…. and I dont know if my points are well taken or not… but I just HAD to say what I thought…..

thanks for reading…..

all i can say to that post is wow….i believe you summed it all up……the point i thought was the best was when you said that they probably wont do anything until it was too late and EVERYONE started complaining….i dont see how they could change anything now…..the fishing is truely awesome, and thats what the opposition would point out if this ever came up in the legislation….

hey rivereyes where did you go to college….i too am working toward that degree at Iowa State University

I graduated from ISU in fisheries and wildlife biology…..

so we are alums!

Wow, very well written and many points made. The one fact that I like to enter into the equation is that we are not saying that the fishing sucks, we just see the massive potential that the river offers. Fishing is good, but could it be better? I think so. The potential is there for making this fishery better. Can we make the entire river system produce saugers like we catch at Red Wing? I think not. But I do think that the overall fishery could benefit all of us if certain changes were made.

We took polls about walleye slot limits, we were in favor, and I beleive a slot would help the trophy potential and protect the prime spawners.

Now we see support for a size limit on saugers that would let these young fish have a chance to grow.

So the guys in the scour holes would have to put back fish for a couple of years, but guess what, in a couple of years they`d be taking home bigger fish to eat. Fish that actually had a chance to grow up and maybe even spawn.

Sadly the one point that you made that is the strongest is the almighty dollar. Studies cost, implementing rule changes costs, enforcement costs……and so on. So we`re back to square one…….lead by example, educate, and practice selective harvest so that hopefully things won`t get so bad as to warrant drastic measures before it`s too late.

It`s just that I remember the days when it wasn`t a rare accurance to catch nice saugers in pools 8,9,and10. Now it`s a rarity. I hope my daughter will have the same angling opportunities that I had. I fear that with habitat destruction, pollution, siltation…etc, things don`t look as rosy as we think that they are. The river fishery is going to need help from all of us and more if we expect to have the same optomistic views 10 years from now. And our governments usually aren`t moved to action until things do get bad. This seems like an area where we could get a jump on the problem before it becomes one.

So I`ll keep doing my part wherever and whenever I can and do what I think is best for the river and the fish in it. It`s all we can do to make sure that we enjoy what we have today and help save it for tomorrow.

Just a couple thoughts:

Slot limits-not needed. Correct my if I am wrong, but arent slots effective on infertile water where fish have slow growth rates and it takes 5-6 years to get a 20″ fish, not 3-4 years like in the river?

Minimum size restrictions/Mille Lacs type fishery-before deciding if this is the goal for the Miss, it needs to be determined if the fishery can sustain a popluation like Mille Lacs. Mille Lacs has a ton of water and a ton of food. The river, again correct me if I am wrong, has a ton of food for certain times of the year and less food at other times. So could the river sustain all of the 13-16 fish being 20-24″ and the addional food that would be need to support essentially doubling the weight of walleyes and sauger availible.

I am not an expert, but I think that the DNR does a pretty good job sustaining fisheries in the area. Areas could be better and input is needed on our end, but we have great fishing in the 5 state area.

I agree that people keep too many small fish (under 14″) and too many big fish (over 20-22″). Education is the best solution.

DaveB…

as I said… Im not a fisheries expert either…..

but I checked just a limited list of lengths/weights/ages of the saugers that were studied in the pool 2 telemetry study.. after doing a metric conversion, I found that at 3 years a sauger was around 15 inches… not until 5-8 years were they in the 20 inch range…..

1. My opinion is that a 15 inch slot would pay quick dividends in the number of decent sized sauger available.

2. The river has not shown signs of exceeding its capacity to support predators such as walleyes and sauger.

3. Education is good, but laws and enforcement of them are even more effective.

4. The DNR monitors the river, their management efforts over the past have boiled down to imposing a 15 inch slot on walleye… I think this has been effective, and since walleye and sauger growth rates are similar I cant see why it would not be equally effective for sauger.

I honestly cant remember back when the 15 inch limit was imposed… does anyone recall was that triggered by angler complaints of catching too many small fish? I seem to remember DNR studies that correctly supported the slot limit…… I wish I knew if studies have also been done on sauger… I would THINK/hope so………

Beaver…. I applaud your ready efforts to contribute to improving the river fishery…. I too think it can be improved… I think we ALL need to get together and support positive changes…. I think to accomplish this a closer link needs to be forged between the various Fisheries management agencies that border the river AND with the fisherman who utilize the river…… this would take some work to organize and most likely would call for us River fisherman to organize first… and push for linking to all DNR agencies……

one thing I can tell you is I pretty much feel horribly ignorant of what fisheries management projects are going on or even being planned……