The MN and WI DNR are getting together…

I’m looking for some Cat Fisherman/woman help.

The MN and WI DNR are getting together to talk about Border Water Rules. There are a bunch of them but the one that’s nearest and dearest to me is the EXCESSIVE WI 25 catfish limit on the Mississippi River.

Now there’s going to be some that say the fishery can handle it. Others will ask who can catch 25 cats in on day?

None of the above really matters. It’s an excessive amount whether we’re talking Flatheads, Channels or both.

One person’s daily limit of flatheads even at 10 pounds per fish would feed him for over 21 YEARS using the WI EPA guidelines. Or a family of 5 for over 4 years.

All I’m asking is for you, the friends of the catfish is to send an email to
[email protected]
and copy
[email protected]
asking them work together to lower the catfish limits to a reasonable amount.

What’s reasonable? Personally I would like to see it set at the MN Inland limit but I’ll leave that up to you.

Channel Catfish Continuous 5 in combination with Flathead Catfish, only 1 fish over 24″

Flathead Catfish 4/1/17 – 11/30/17 2, only 1 fish over 24″ in combination with Channel Catfish

While your at it you might want to mention that allowing castnets on the WI side and closing the flathead season on the WI side would be helpful as well.

This is our time to speak out!

Done

I’m not a catfish guy, but I also sent a message to both. 25 is a ridiculous number and quantity given the potential size of some of those fish.

Not that it matters in changing the regulations, but do you know of people who keep a large quantity of cats? I’ve seen guys keep 1 or 2 of the smaller 2lb channels mainly to try from P4, but that’s about it.

Done

buckybadger wrote:

but do you know of people who keep a large quantity of cats?

I don’t know them personally but have heard my uncle tell me about people who do. They come for a week and bring back enough for the year. If I recall correctly, he said last year the group took almost 400 lbs of catfish.

Bucky, I hear what you’re saying.

I just want to point out that if no one does take home 25 fish per day, this should be a non issue.

Can the river support a 25 fish limit? It has so far without much data to go on…but if a person wants to bring data into it, then we should up the limit of walleyes to 25. We have data that would support that.

Bottom line: 25 of any fish of the size we are talking about is excessive.

Thank you guys!

Ryan Speers wrote:

Done

X2

Also done.

BK, have you thought of one of those online petition?

I’m hesitant to send info to other anglers I know to send emails out bc they just don’t understand us whisker folk, but if there was an easy online thing, couple clicks here, click there and boom done they really might do it if I asked em.

Wow, the Jordan fellow emailed back expressing appreciation on thoughts before I got to send this off. Nice.

Jordan replied to me within ten minutes. Was pleasantly surprised. Looking forward to attending future meetings on the topic.

Done