My opinion is that now the people that truly want to go bear hunting will have a better chance of getting a tag. In the past 30% of the people that applied for a tag and got one did not buy it and that tag went unused. Now if someone gets a tag and does not buy it another person that really wants to go bear hunting will have a chance to buy that tag that would have gone unused before and go hunting.
Before the anti-hunting people could apply for a tag for free and if they got one they would not have to buy it and keep another hunter from hunting. The number of actual hunters in the woods in the permit areas stays about the same, 7,086/7,050.

Gary, Thank you for a chance to explain my feelings.
I hated just as deep a any of you, and deeper. While you heard of it I lived it, every second of it. I watched my home town and my family move away, and I hated. Waskish and Ponemah have always played hardnosed softball against each other. Many of them were commercial fishermen, many of them were the first ones to raise the alarm about the walleyes. Some of them died,,, ruled suicide.
After the walleyes collapsed and everything including the softball games ended we still bumped into each other. Both sides hating each other, both sides broke because the “Lake” was our income and both sides drifting around lost without the “Lake”. It turned out we shared more pain then hatred. We worked together, we both quit fishing, we donated all the time or effort needed, we brought the Lake back. I’m proud of what we did.

“What are they trying to gain? What is in it for them?”
Pride, a sense of redemption, fixing a wrong.

A poll was taken last year among Red Lake Band Members whether or not to bring back gill nets.
51% opposed
49% for
If feel that if we yell at them or throw rocks all we are doing is swinging it to gill nests again.

” He made the statement that the netters “knew” that they were cleaning out the lake and it was a “last minute dash” to get it “now or never” at the end of it all, because again, they knew they were cleaning out the lake.”
At the same time the netters were racing to get the last walleyes the whites were racing to beat the netters to the last walleyes. I don’t know who won, it was a dead heat to the last walleye. Maybe we both won,,, a lake with 1, yes one, spawning walleye per 40 acres.
In any case I feel that the Red Lake Band is at a cross roads. It needs time to change. Many of you dislike/hate me for the stand I am taking but,,,, my nose had been smeared all over my face, most of my teeth have been chipped, my hands look like a railroad car has run over them and I have never backed down from a fight,, even the ones I knew I would lose.
Every minute you are busy hating me is one more minute people have to change the future direction of the Red Lake Band.

There are Red Lake Band members that are putting everything they have on the line in an attempt to change things, to make things better. They deserve better then what was being posted on this Forum.

I wish those that think it should have been kept a crappie lake would just tell us how to do it????? It’s easy to SAY it should be a crappie lake. Making it happen is a whole nother world.
Look at what it would take for the crappies to come back great again.
#1 The lake has to get warm enough soon enough for the crappies to spawn with the fry having enough time to grow and get big enough to survive the winter. Most years the lake never gets warm enough for them to spawn so they reabsorb their eggs. Also now when the lake gets warm enough for the crappies to spawn there are 300 boatloads of fishermen catching them. The same people that are calling for URL to remain a great crappie lake now have a bunch of female crappies full of spawn flopping around the bottom of the boat. Crappie spawn has a very low chance of survival in the bottom of a boat.
#2 In URL the crappies do not have the bays or protected areas to spawn in so they spawn in the lake. Then they need 3 straight weeks of calm weather so the eggs are not covered with silt and smothered in the nest. When is URL calm for 3 days let alone 3 weeks?
#3 Now that the eggs have hatched into fry they need food so they grow big enough to survive the winter. 12 years ago crappies were the only fry in the lake all the food was theirs. Now they have to compete for it.
#4 Predators. 12 years age there were very few other fish in the lake. There was nothing to eat the crappie fry.
#5 Now we have the crappie fry through the summer and it is big enough to survive the winter. Now we need 5 or 6 years of no or very little fishing pressure so they can grow. It wasn’t hard 12 years ago because fishermen avoided URL and us like we had the plauge. Now who would like to tell MN anglers that they can not fish URL for 5 years to give the crappies time to grow????
To have the crappies come back stong would be great but it would take many things to fall in place just exactly right for it to happen again.

Jon,
It is not right in YOUR mind. Don’t lump the rest of us in with you. The Red Lake Band has the legal right to fish 82% of Upper and Lower Red Lake as they wish. That is the hand we are dealt, live with it. For the Band to try hook and line fishing is the best thing we could have hoped for. The Band should be applauded for trying this not have rocks thrown at it like was happening on this Forum. I cannot believe that the moderators, (if there are any) of this forum allow so many half truths, slanders and lies to be posted. All in all Jon we will never agree but I am happy that you’re in the metro area and I’m here. If you were here it would be fighting and we would have a lake with a dwindling crappie population and no walleyes. I’m proud of the fact that we worked with the Red Lake Band and brought the Lake back. 90 years ago my Grandfather was a commercial fisherman on URL using gillnets. Does that mean he was a bad person?
Bigfife, I’ld like to know who you talked to but do not put words in all of our mouths.
colklink83, Do you realize that the take used to be 3.5 to 4 million pounds. Isn’t 1 million a lot better?
Before the walleye crash we had white “sportsmen” putting gillnets in the rivers during spawning run. Why isn’t anyone here talking about that? I believe that the Band could do well hook and line commercial fish because before the crash we had white “sportsmen” hook and lining boxes and boxes of walleyes and taking them to the Cities and selling them.
I hate to burst your bubbles here but we as white sportsmen are not on the high road wearing our white robes bathed in glory. The stench of what happened to the walleyes in the Red Lakes during the 70’s and 80’s clings to all of us! The time for throwing rocks, finger pointing yelling and fighting are in the PAST!

So you would rather see URL with no walleyes?
Speaking of feeling screwed,,,,,how many feet or inches of interstate in St. Paul does $84,000 of taxpayers money build? $84,000 comes out to be about 1/80 of a PENNY per MN taxpayer. We can hold some raffles or something around URL to repay you if you want. The tough part is going to be how we can cut 1/80th of a penny off the penny.
I get the feeling that if the stocking of the Red Lakes was done for free you would still be unhappy.
What does the slots on Mille Lacs have to do with URL?

3 stockings of Vermillion fry at a cost of $68,000 each time. Red Lake Band paid $40,000 and the DNR paid $28,000 each time. The 2004 and 2005 smaller stockings with fry from the Red Lakes was paid for completely by the Red Lake Band.
I told Jon $56,000. Gettting old and the minds slipping, I forgot one stocking.
Check with the DNR if you think we’re wrong.
I guess I read the same book as sippi. I thought the main reaon for “slots” was to protect the breeding population.

Well colklink83 you can call me a sally or PETA or what ever you wish BUT as a lifelong resident of the shores of URL I feel that I have a say about this.
I feel sadness. The URLAA (Upper Red Lake Area Association) has a very good Catch and Release Program for Northern Pike. Take a picture, release the fish and fill out a short form that is available at all the area business’s and you can get a replica at a VERY reduced rate.
If we keep killing off these big spawners soon we will all be catching 1 1/2 pound hammer handles, and very few of them.