Same 2020 harvest quota on Mille Lacs as 2019

Same Mille Lacs 87,500 lbs quota in 2020 as it was in 2019 (87,500 is our half).

Make it a c&r lake for the next 5 years FFS. Sick and tired of mid season closures.

This lake could be staring at a walleye crash within the next decade, followed by a biological shift away from walleyes in general. If a crash happens, there won’t be crappies filling the biological void, but instead smallmouth by the millions. The carrying capacity of the lake’s ecosystem will be dominated by smallmouth with minimal harvest. Red Lake had a “crash” and subsequent crappie boom…but crappies were a huge target for harvest whereas smallmouth are not. The sheer number of large walleyes coupled with the rapid boom of smallmouth makes for a starved fishery. Even the IDO anglers and those doing shows who talk about these “chunk” walleyes as they hold them up are a bit biased. If you think Mille Lacs eyes are “chunks”, try fishing the Rainy or Mississippi River. Those fish on the Pool 2 thread are what well-fed walleyes look like at this time of the year. Their girth and overall health makes the Mille Lacs “big fish” look starved. On top of the forage issues, sprinkle in some warmer water temperatures and the rapidly increased clarity due to the zebra mussels and it’s a recipe that doesn’t look favorable for walleye populations long-term.

I think the “leverage” that the MNDNR has in the situation in miniscule. They can use phrases and acronyms like “Co-Manage” and MLFAC all day long but it ultimately boils down to the Bands having the final say and control. Between the Bands and the voices in St. Paul, the MNDNR is nothing more than a middle man in most of this. While I don’t think the MNDNR is perfect, they’re going to continue getting blame for something they have far less control over than most realize.

biggill wrote:

Make it a c&r lake for the next 5 years FFS. Sick and tired of mid season closures.

Wouldn’t solve anything. It’s basically C & R as is.

biggill wrote:

Make it a c&r lake for the next 5 years FFS. Sick and tired of mid season closures.

I couldn’t agree more.
I don’t care about keeping fish, I just want to be able to fish there when I want to.

Mille Lacs where the DNR pisses on all MN Anglers, and then tells them it’s raining. What a joke. Has anyone seen an explanation from Walz or his DNR why the Head of Fisheries said the lake wouldn’t close last year on August 14, yet it closed on Sept 1? Who has more authority for such a move? And what SCIENCE was it based off of? These last 2 are rhetorical questions, no need to answer. This is now year 7 of basically no actual harvest of walleye by non-tribal members. It’s only a matter of time until this BS hooking mortality and mismanagement starts spreading to other lakes. It’s long past time we start getting organized.

buckybadger wrote:

Even the IDO anglers and those doing shows who talk about these “chunk” <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleyes as they hold them up are a bit biased. If you think Mille Lacs eyes are “chunks”, try fishing the Rainy or Mississippi River. Those fish on the Pool 2 thread are what well-fed walleyes look like at this time of the year. Their girth and overall health makes the Mille Lacs “big fish” look starved.

Disagree with most of this. Most of the walleyes I have caught on Mille Lacs look exactly the same as the ones I catch elsewhere.

lindyrig79 wrote:

Wouldn’t solve anything. It’s basically C & R as is.

Allowing any harvest doesn’t solve anything. By going C&R, at least you have the possibility of bing open for an entire season.

Buzz wrote:

(87,500 is our half).

Half would be 50/50, non band members as far as I remember always got considerably more. Just throwing that out for clarity, correct me if I’m wrong.

“Once again this year, the safe harvest limit has been set at 150,000 pounds. Licensed anglers will be able to take 87,800 pounds while tribal fishing will be allowed 62,200 pounds of walleye.”

biggill wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>lindyrig79 wrote:</div>
Wouldn’t solve anything. It’s basically C & R as is.

Allowing any harvest doesn’t solve anything. By going C&R, at least you have the possibility of bing open for an entire season.

I agree with you in principle Biggill (would take C&R in exchange for not closing the season), but their BS hooking mortality destroy even a C&R season staying open all year with such a low quota. I think it’s important to remember as we have another year of 87,500 lbs quota, this lake produced an actual TAKE of 200,000 pounds at a MINIMUM for decades prior to co-mismanagement.

biggill wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>lindyrig79 wrote:</div>
Wouldn’t solve anything. It’s basically C & R as is.

Allowing any harvest doesn’t solve anything. By going C&R, at least you have the possibility of bing open for an entire season.

I get your viewpoint, but still maintain it would do nothing to solve the problem.

If anything, it would only enhance the problem that some feel the walleyes are starving and there isn’t enough forage to support the population.

And, FWIW you don’t need to stop fishing during any of the closures. May have to change tactics slightly, but other than fishing the mud you can still pretty much troll cranks, jig plastics, jig livebait, or slip bobber all you want.

lindyrig79 wrote:

And, FWIW you don’t need to stop fishing during any of the closures. May have to change tactics slightly, but other than fishing the mud you can still pretty much troll cranks, jig plastics, jig livebait, or slip bobber all you want.

I’m not driving an hour and a half to illegally target walleyes during a closure.

What’s there to argue about? You can go to mills lacs and pound very nice walleye all day and slaughter huge SMB. Wait, you can catch monster Muskie as well? Seriously, it’s a fishermen’s dream right now. And it has been for a few years now. Okay-it had a bad drought for a few years but what lake haven’t? Go enjoy it! I think the pendulum has swung. more people would rather have a great day fishing keeping nothing. Can you imagine a lake within an hour or so of most the populate area in a state and having that great of fishing? Most states would die for what we have.

They are protecting a Great Lake that has so many variables it makes your head spin…form modern day equipment, AIS, weather, proximity to heavy populations of people, Tribal issues and so on. GO FISH!

HOW WILL I FEED MY FAMILY

Can we just drop some gobies in there already and the walleye and smallmouth could all get huge???

Phil’s plan is working to perfection

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biggill wrote:

Make it a c&r lake for the next 5 years FFS. Sick and tired of mid season closures.

That won’t really help unless we all agree to stop fishing deep water.
The dnr’s hooking mortality is based off of knowing fish brought up from deep water in the summer will die.
Catching 50 walleye from deep water is like keeping 20 fish.

Tom schmitt wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>biggill wrote:</div>
Make it a c&r lake for the next 5 years FFS. Sick and tired of mid season closures.

That won’t really help unless we all agree to stop fishing deep water.
The dnr’s hooking mortality is based off of knowing fish brought up from deep water in the summer will die.
Catching 50 walleye from deep water is like keeping 20 fish.

That must be why their mortality studies continually fail when being reviewed and they redo it. We are currently on the 3rd iteration.

philtickelson wrote:

HOW WILL I FEED MY FAMILY

That’s a legitimate question for Mille Lacs area businesses Phil, maybe you can teach them to code…

lindyrig79 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>buckybadger wrote:</div>
Even the IDO anglers and those doing shows who talk about these “chunk” <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleyes as they hold them up are a bit biased. If you think Mille Lacs eyes are “chunks”, try fishing the Rainy or Mississippi River. Those fish on the Pool 2 thread are what well-fed walleyes look like at this time of the year. Their girth and overall health makes the Mille Lacs “big fish” look starved.

Disagree with most of this. Most of the walleyes I have caught on Mille Lacs look exactly the same as the ones I catch elsewhere.

I’m probably comparing apples to oranges with Mille Lacs walleyes and river fish. However, if people think the fish on the pond look like those from the Mississippi or Rainy, they need their eyes checked.

I understand their forage systems are completely different…but the visual differences sure support the idea of a forage shortage on Mille Lacs, as do the extremely high catch rates at times in the summer.

I’d suggest watching Steve Johnson,s Portside report on his Facebook page. He explains the situation well and is very knowledgable.

What I don’t get is that delayed hook mortality is calculated with the same formula whether your using artificial or live bait? If we had two formulas maybe there would be some wiggle room on catches and closures? Maybe no leeches, night crawlers or minnows in the summer months?

biggill wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>lindyrig79 wrote:</div>
And, FWIW you don’t need to stop fishing during any of the closures. May have to change tactics slightly, but other than fishing the mud you can still pretty much troll cranks, jig plastics, jig livebait, or slip bobber all you want.

I’m not driving an hour and a half to illegally target walleyes during a closure.

Who suggested that? I was talking about pike and smallies.

lindyrig79 wrote:

Disagree with most of this. Most of the walleyes I have caught on Mille Lacs look exactly the same as the ones I catch elsewhere.

x2 you been watching 39 hours? Walleyes look exactly like mille lacs walleyes are you going to suggest fish in SK and MB are starving? Girth depends more on time of year caught.

lindyrig79 wrote:

Who suggested that? I was talking about pike and smallies.

I know exacly what you were saying mr. president. Most people actually say what they mean.

Lot of good points on this already. This is my 2 cents.

The walleyes in this lake are starving. If you can’t see that they are skinnier from this lake virtually all the time compared to other bodies of water, your’re BLIND or just unwilling to admit it. I don’t know if the smallmouth will ever completely “take over.” There is a lot of habitat in this lake where they simply can’t reside. Whoever suggested banning live bait: they were going to try that one year but all the launches and bait shops cried wolf so they reversed course. God forbid some people should use artificial lures. Lastly, the muskies and pike in this system get HUGE. I too would prefer to see it just stay C & R all season including the winter rather than having to abruptly close it. What they did last year was a total back stab. Don’t say it’s good in August and then close it on Labor Day.

There’s no doubt that the water is warmer and clearer than it once was. That is not going to be reversed unless someone has a way to reverse climate change and rid it from zebra mussels.

Feathers wrote:

The tribe essentially controls the quota. They have no interest in a higher quota because they don’t need it. My as well set it low and screw the hook and line fisherman. The dnr knows the lake can handle more harvest and probably needs it. They can’t come out and say these things because that would destroy any relations with the tribe.

Being that the “officials” DNR, GLFWIC, Governor has not explained their reasons for a yet again minimal harvest quota, we all look to the “elephant in the room”…The tribe?

Which tribe? And what would compel them to do this? Serious question about all that.

What good reason or benefit would they have to strangle the Mille Lacs walleye fishing and dependent businesses and economy?

I “think” the Mille Lacs band would not cut off their arm to think they can save their finger. The casino is their cash cow, policies that discourage visitors to the area would only squeeze out their “oxygen”, yes…no?

I just don’t get what could be behind all this, as many other’s wonder as well.

I stay diplomatic about it all, the member GLFWIC bands are allowed their quota, but who/what/why is playing the politics on the questionable low allowed harvest quota?

gimruis wrote:

The walleyes in this lake are starving. If you can’t see that they are skinnier from this lake virtually all the time compared to other bodies of water, your’re BLIND or just unwilling to admit it.

I must be blind. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I just started fishing ML within the last year, so I’ve done my best to stay out of all the political drama with the lake and arguing what the cause of the issue is. The great fishing out there recently pulled me in and now I’m trying to catch up.

What made that 2013 year class so great? I read that there was a late ice out that year with generally stable weather that helped the spawn substantially. That cant be the only reason, so what else was different about that year and the few years following? All classes have been down since then too, correct? The main issue seems to continue to be the death of walleyes before they reach 11-13 inches. Arent all these adult walleyes from the 2013 year class going to do nothing but feed on the young walleyes? Shouldn’t we be protecting the young by keeping this 21-23 inch slot year round? And encouraging people to keep at least a partial limit of pike and smb? (doesn’t seem particularly realistic though)

I will say, I’ve seen a lot of walleyes get pulled out of there in the last year or so and while they may not be the thickest fish around, only a very select few looked the least bit unhealthy. Both in June and December/January. Comparing river fish to lake fish are not a fair comparison either.

Just getting into this looking to learn more from people that have followed it for years. Not trying to start an argument!

The majority that I caught the last two summers were quite skinny, in all length ranges. This winter though, most have been pretty fat for what I have caught.