Saturday at noon 43.4

I attended the meeting last Monday and prior to getting into his findings, Dr. Vandergoot said he had met with the dnr commissioner who advised him to only reply to four questions, which the commissioner gave him, and to limit his response to only the scientific aspect. He was not to add his opinion on how the data should be dealt with my the state because that would fall under policy. He was not to comment on state policy. Dr. Vandergoot would comment on what they did on Lake Erie but would not say what he thought should be done on Mille Lacs. Dr.Vandergoot said that Minnesota collects data by creel surveys, gill netting, and takes hooking mortality into consideration when deciding harvest limits, which is also done on several large lakes. It was not that Dr. Vandergoot didn’t have ideas on what should be done, but he was told not to discuss them with us. What I believe happened was another dog and pony show so that the dnr could say that they aren doing similar things to what other states are doing with their fisheries. What the dnr does with the data falls under policy and they don’t care what others think about the policy because they know what’s best. It’s really to bad that the dnr wasted the time and effort of Dr. Vandergoot and the people on his committee. He obviously could have offered us some valuable insist on how to address Mille Lacs problems.

I took my 9 year old grandson and his friend out on Saturday. Got started about 8 and quit at 2. 26 smallies and 1 northern. 14 of the smallies were 20″ or over. Biggest 3 were 21″ +. Smallest 17″. First cast for friend he got a 19 1/2″. His previous biggest fish ever was 12″ large mouth. Those 2 boys will remember this trip for a long time. Very few other boats out and most of them were trying to tuck in behind points to get out of wind. Boys pulled in all the fish. My job was to net, replace bait s, adjust baits, tie jigs, measure fish, photo, and most important avoid being hooked. I enjoyed myself as much as the boys. All fish were measured and boys would guess lengths. Grandson made a comment on one fish that “it was just another 19 incher”. Think they might have been spoiled?