Iowa regulations

A little while ago I remember hearing something about Iowa considering closing an area below the dams to winter fishing. Is this still being considered or has it been dropped?

I talked with a guy from the Iowa DNR a couple weeks ago regarding this. He said they were having public informational meetings in the areas affected. I may be wrong, but I thought he said they were only looking at dams 11, 12, and 13. There may be more. Anyway, he said that Illinois and Wisconsin were on board with the plan, but it will still require legislative approval in all states. He said that the feedback from the meetings was positive, overall.

Final decision will be made this fall and if it passes it’ll go into effect in January of 04.

It’s about damn time Iowa got on board and implemented some regulations. Nothing that’s proposed goes far enough, but at least it’s a start.

Or on the flip side they go too far!!

It seems to me that sound a little drastic to shut off the whole river below these dams. If the concern is people keeping every sauger they catch no matter what size, thus decreasing the population. Why not set a size limit and quantity limit for 3 or 4 years and let the DNR do its job to control that limit and see what that results in. If there is another reason for these closings, I would like to hear others opinions.

Yeah, I guess you should have read the proposals. They aren’t shutting down the whole river. Just a short stretch of water down from the dams. The main reason wasn’t to keep people from keeping everything they catch, but to stop the slaughter of short fish coming from deep water only to be thrown back because they were too small to keep. There already is a quanity ‘bag limit’. They are proposing to make that smaller in numbers too. I wouldn’t mind seeing a size limit for saugers but right now what is being proposed is good enough for me. I do think enforcement will be a very big issue no matter what is set into law.

We need to do something. Too many shorts beig caught in too deep of water! I’d like to see the plan implemented for a few years and wouldn’t have any problem if they start down here in SE IA. I’ve watched too much abuse!