Show Support - Mille Lacs Lake - Mille Lacs Lake

Show support for ending the Mille Lacs mess! Are you a friend of Mille Lacs? Do you agree Minnesota government must end treaty management and its intolerable impacts on our Mille Lacs sport-fishing heritage—the fish, the economy, and Mille Lacs-connected people near and far? You can demonstrate support for Mille Lacs in St. Paul on Thursday Nov. 20 — 9:30 a.m., in Courtroom 100 at the Minnesota Judicial Center, 25 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. A three- judge panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in a Mille Lacs-related lawsuit wherein two citizen groups, a resort, and two individuals take on the Minnesota DNR for failing to protect our Mille Lacs fishing heritage. Whatever the legal merits of this particular case, and wherever it goes, all friends of Mille Lacs can agree that the severe destruction and damage to our fishing heritage must end now! State officials must scrap their callous indifference and end the misguided policies that have ruined the Mille Lacs heritage—for anglers, for businesses, and for thousands of longtime Mille Lacs lovers. CITIZEN DISCONTENT IS AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH—AND JUSTIFIABLY SO! Intolerable costs: • LAKEʼS IMAGE WRECKED! Thank DNRʼs Mille Lacs-related press releases, publications, road shows, and headline stories about fish-population surveys, fish harvests, the latest allowable harvests and angling regs, etc. Fisheries science is fine, but DNRʼs one-of-a-kind Mille Lacs treaty management pushes a public-relations nightmare. • ANGLERS AVOIDING MILLE LACS! Boat counts and angler-hours on the lake have plummeted! Accesses and once-popular fishing grounds are often empty—even at prime times and under ideal conditions. Why? Misperceptions about no walleyes; extremist management; and lots of folks just plain fed up with it all. • OPTIMISM DESTROYED! The black cloud never lifts. Stressed-out Mille Lacs folks face endless hassle and uncertainty. Who can be happy and optimistic? DNRʼs treaty management brings ever-changing allowable harvests, hooking-mortality penalties, and tight angling restrictions. Mille Lacs canʼt win. If fish numbers are high or low, if fishing is fast or slow, itʼs scary news. • GILLNETTING GAME FISH? Gillnetting walleyes, northern pike, and muskies—especially on spawning grounds—is culturally offensive to most Minnesotans. In many minds, the mere presence of gill nets (a handful, or miles of ʻem) makes Mille Lacs a “netted lake,” a “crashed” fishery, and “another Red Lake.” What a p.r disaster! • ANTI-DNR FEELINGS RUN DEEP! DNR Fisheries managers are sharp biologists and good people. But their political loyalty to the flawed treaty-management system has been bad for all involved, including Mille Lacs walleyes and DNR! Fisheries personnel admit to “backward” management and unwise regulation, so why donʼt state leaders fight the system? Remember, no treaty and no court ordered tribal managers to permit eight Chippewa bands (six from Wisconsin) to gillnet Mille Lacs walleye spawners. And Minnesota governmentʼs hands are not tied. They can, and must, work to end the mess! Call it a grassroots movement, a revolution, or wronged citizens rightfully challenging their government. The Mille Lacs sport-fishing community near and far demands action.