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Proposed 2008 Walleye Harvest


hugonian1

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

If the 2008 harvest was set at 430,000 lbs for 2008 and the Band is alloted 50% of the harvest, shouldn't those numbers be 215,000 each for Band and non band members?

As said earlier, the DNR survey could be inaccurate but for now thats all they have. Isn't it better to error on the safe side. This is how you avoid a collapse.

Lastly, you have to accept that treaties are like our constitution. Like it or not thats the way it is, you can't change it. If you can't accept that then you'll have a hard time with harvest quotas.

So you change the things you can and not dwell on the things you can't.

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Good advice ST, and you're right about the numbers. It looks like I misquoted some stats I had been reading. I've spent the last 5 days reading reams of legal briefs, opinions, court rulings, and informational bulletins from the DNR, PERM, GLIFWC, etc and my head is spinning. Having reviewed some material, I think the 50% figure I quoted (or misquoted in this case) is what the Mille Lacs band specifically is entitled to of the total Ojibwe tribal harvest. There are 8 Ojibwe bands that make up the GLIFWC, and they all have rights to harvest walleyes on Mille Lacs. It makes sense that the local Mille Lacs band would get the largest share of the total Ojibwe trival harvest. I apologize for any misunderstanding.

Part of the frustration for me is the fact that it is not very clear how the numbers are derived and who is ultimately making the decisions. I think I'm pretty clear on Safe Harvest Level (i.e. 24% of the total population of catchable walleyes), but the question I would like to know is how the allocations are set to begin with? Is there a set percentage or maximum cap of the total safe harvest that the Ojibwe can claim?

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Excuse me. Could you clarify something?

Did the bands exceed their last years allotment?

Did the hook & liners exceed their last years allotment?

Are current allotments set on some 5 year test plan?

??

Faner

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I don't think the band or state anglers exceeded their allotment in 2007. The new safe harvest level for 2008 was based in large part on the netting surveys from fall 2007. Because the test net numbers were so low, the total safe harvest for 2008 was reduced to 430,000. By comparison, the 2007 safe harvest level was 549,000 pounds (a total reduction of 119,000 pounds).

At the same time, the Ojibwe declared their quota would be increased to 122,000 pounds for 2008. By comparison, the 2007 tribal harvest was 100,000 pounds. So that means state angler harvest is reduced by 140,000 to account for the lower safe harvest level (119,000 pounds), coupled with the increase in tribal harvest (22,000 pounds).

As far as the 5 year agreements go, that is where the confusion comes for me. I don't know what the specific agreements are, how they are derived, what the percentages are for each group, and who makes the decisions. I think if we all had a better understanding of how those agreements worked, we'd be able to make better sense of the numbers and the rationale behind them.

Anyone who is in the know regarding the 5 year agreements, I'd love to hear from you.

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computerboy's insight is spot on:

 Quote:
The problem for the DNR and tribal leaders is they have to walk a very fine line with their constituents (i.e. state anglers and band members respectively). By law, the band is entitled to 50% of the safe harvest. They have yet to exert that right, and due to the overwhelming backlash from non-band members that would result, I don't think they ever would. But they are entitled to that, and I'm sure band members have been asking tribal leaders why they aren't pushing for their full harvest quota.

Band members probably feel like it's a slap in the face that their leaders have been giving the DNR and state anglers the lion's share of the band's harvest quota year after year. At the same time, we feel like it's a slap in the face when our harvest quotas are being reduced while the band's are being increased for the 2008 season. The tribal leaders obviously yielded to the pressure of their constituents, and they did it at the worst possible time. In any other year, the increase would have probably gone unnoticed. But there is legal precedent for raising the band's quota so there's very little the DNR can do about it. It's just unfortunate that the band chose to raise their quota during the famine instead of the feast. It is obviously a very unpopular decision with state anglers, and has re-opened the wounds of the 1999 Supreme Court ruling for many.

So this is what its like in one of those town hall meetings where everyone wants to lynch the DNR crazy.gif The DNR is a player at the table (1837 Treaty Fisheries Technical Committee), not solely responsible for setting the total allowable catch each year. Even the slot sizes come down to the Lake Mille Lacs Fishery Input Group, comprised of Mille Lacs Lake area resort owners, conservation groups, outdoors clubs, local businesses and public officials.

I don't get the netting argument (that is, that the nets don't do a good job of estimating population health). A map of the gillnet sets on Mille Lacs would blanket the thing! Net sets aren't going to work like a seine through a river, but they do provide statistical evidence to draw a conclusion from. If the DNR says numbers are down, chances are pretty strong those conclusions are accurate. Let's face it, there are a lot of fish in the protected slot from 4 straight years of the same slot size. Check a few walleye stomachs and I'm sure you'd find a big chunk of the 2006 year class.

The stuff about the 1999 court case and the politics of the justices?

Let's see who sat on the panel in 1999 and who they were appointed by, and let us, as a general rule, figure that presidents nominate individuals who broadly share their ideological views

O'Connor-Reagen ®

Stevens-Ford ®

Souter-G.H.W. Bush ®

Ginsburg-Clinton (D)

Breyer-Clinton (D)

Rehnquist-Reagen ®

Scalia-Reagen ®

Kennedy-Reagen ®

Thomas-G.H.W. Bush ®

For those scoring, that's 7-2, not 5-4. I don't buy the conservative vs. liberal, democrat vs. republican view on that case. Moot point anyway since it can't be retried. You can however, draw your own conclusion by looking up the court records and opinions and dissenting opinions of the court. It won’t change anything but you can look.

As for advocating for PERM, well, check out their website and draw your own conclusion. Seems to me that proper economic resource management is a gentle and convenient euphemistic way of blasting tribal interests. Advocating for marking the state/tribal line on Red Lake? Preposterous. Spreading fear that natives want to take our fishing, hunting, and even water rights from U.S. citizens? Laughable. In my opinion some of the polarizing content on their website will drive people away, thinking the organization fanatical, rather than get them to join the cause.

The bottom line is there is a shared resource between two major and independent users that will be monitored closely. Total allowable catch isn't going away any time soon. Don't blame others and scream bloody murder. There will be rich years (last 2) and there might be lean years (dead sea/home of the quarter pounder years) if safe harvest isn't closely monitored. The cutoff isn't very big for state anglers this year. To be totally blunt, so what? Go C&R some hawgs and stop at the fish section of your grocer's freezer on the way home. Or fish elsewhere. Or eat something else.

Suggested Reading: All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum (There is a great chapter on SHARING!)

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Wow. After reading all 60some posts, I have finally arrived at the end. I don't fish Mille Lacs more than 1 time a year, and drive to Red 4-5 times a year. Why? The fishing is better up there!! So riddle me this. Why can't the fishing get better? Because like the one time I was out there this summer, there are simply too many people fishing it.

Why? Its closer to the majority of people in Minnesota. So if you want the fishery to rebound from the beat down all yous have put on it the last 2-3 years, stop fishing it as much and find somewhere else. The tribe will take what they take, but you can't do a durn thing about it. Yeah, the local businesses will suffer (boo hoo) but per person, fishing will be better.

It is up to ourselves to save us from ourselves.....

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 Quote:
If you frequent casinos you are just supporting this. It is time find a different lake until this one comes around again. All the native lakes are this way. Red is another prime example. I also feel that catching all those hogs in the heat of the summer kills a lot of fish, but since some are allowed to net them it does not bother me to fish it and take photos. What a Joke!

YUP!! I agree totally German, I'd rather fish another lake, where natives don't have a say to limits, and I don't have to fight the crowds either. This is why Mille Lacs just gets me a sour taste in my mouth when people talk about it, with all the political sagas with the tribe and state, the slots, and the crowds...What once was a perfect fishery is now a big disappointment IMO. Yeah its awesome catching loads of 23-27 inch walleyes but when they end up floaters or when others can net them and keep em when their spawning doesn't seem right to me.

I should say this on the Red Lake forum, but what frustrates me is people put the blame on the state politians and the DNR for all this political stuff with Red and Mille Lacs, when it all boils down to looking at yourself and not supporting the tribes by going to their casinos. Mille Lacs and Hinckley can support themselves for being so close to the twin cities and the amount of people that go there, but the Red Lake casinos are in the sticks, and do not get the people that Mille Lacs or Hinckley does...that being said the ONLY reason why the Red Lake nation could support the restarting of the fish factory was a luxerious $1 million donation from the Mystic Lake tribe. Now the factory is running and the tribe can only take by hook and line but who says they arent running nets already or will be in the next year or 2. The factory wouldn't be running if it wasn't for the donation by the richest tribe in the state. Its a real sticky situation but someone needs to step up to it politican or regular joe guy and not be labeled as a racist. If no one does then I think my late grandpa was right that the indians will take over what was theirs before white man came here.

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This was posted on another site.

It is an email response from Rick Bruesewitz of the Minnesota DNR n response to an email sent to him asking for some info in preparation of the ïnput group" meeting.

It is interesting to hear the DNR's perspective on the subject. I am just the messenger here.

Maybe this helps advance the discussion?

Here is what he had to say......

Quote:

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Jack, This is probably more than what you asked for, but I know how active you are on the internet boards and it sure seems to be running amok with mis-information or poor speculation. Hope this helps to clear things up for you.

1) Increase in tribal quota while State's goes down. In December 2006, the bands presented their next 5 year plan to the state (2008-2013). Included was the declaration of 122,500 lbs as their first year take for walleye. With it, there are provisions for it to increase within that 5 years to a max of 140,000 lbs. We commented that this would put an increased burden on the state to manage its anglers within the remaining portion of the annual safe harvest level. Remember, that since the taking of 140,000 lbs is not a conservation, public health, or public safety issue, we have little recourse but to accept it at this time. Also, if the bands do not take their full allocation, whatever amount they are under their allocation can be used at the end of the year to offset any overage that the state may have in that year. In any event, the information about the increased allocation was shared with the public last summer (including the input group), and we do understand everyone's concerns about making it more difficult to stay in allocation.

2) In regards to our allocation going down, yes, it is. This has been unfairly blamed on everything from muskies and northern pike, to fishing tournaments, to too much hooking mortality. The fact of the matter is that we expected the decline simply due to the lower abundance of the 2004 year class.

Here's the basic scenario: Last year we started with about 2.3 million lbs of catchable walleye. Safe harvest was estimated to be about 550,000 lbs. We took that amount last year. That leaves about 1.75 million lbs of catchables remaining, but from that we need to deduct for natural mortality too (roughly about 0.45 million lbs - that's right, no matter what, we lose a lot of fish for reasons other than angling, netting, or hooking mortality!). That leaves about 1.3 million pounds for the coming season - of fish that were available in 2007. Now we add in a little for growth for these fish, about 400,000 pounds this year (pretty good because the 02 and 03 year classes are still growing reasonably fast). OK, that then leaves us with 1.7 million pounds. Now we get to add in for the new year class, which in this case is the 2004 year class. This year class only adds in about 90,000 lbs. (in comparison the 2002 year class added almost 1 million pounds of catchables to the population when they recruited to the fishery in 2006). So that results in a net population of about 1.79 million pounds. Multiply that by 24% and we get 429,600 pounds, which is essentially our safe harvest level for 2008 - 430,000 pounds.

As I mentioned earlier the "new" year class this year is not very strong - it never was. That year class was weak from the start and its current low abundance has nothing to do with cannibalism. Also, the next year class, 2005, is looking pretty darned good, and I would expect it to add substantially to the catchable population in 2009. Although the 2006 year class is much reduced from what it looked like last year, they are still there in decent numbers and should add to the catchable population when they recruit to the fishery in 2010. Also, the 2007 year class does not look too bad either at this point, although its way too early to tell its outcome.

3) Test netting issues. Yes, we observed a much reduced gill net catch rate last fall. It certainly is a mystery as to why they were so low in just one part of the lake. The strange fall weather may have been a factor(note that water temperatures were within the range we have observed in the past during the sampling); however we just cannot say for sure why they were low. At the same time, with regards to setting the safe harvest level, we have not put as much weight in them this year either. We recognize that they may be anomalous, but at the same time we don't want to be gambling with the Mille Lacs walleye population. That is why we need to stay within our allocation, and that is why we are going to conduct another tagging study this spring. This study will either confirm that the netting was indeed lower than it should have been, or will inform us that the population is indeed lower than we think.

4) Tribal fishery is composed mostly of males. Last year 84% of the 52,000 fish they harvested were male. That means that they killed only about 4,000 females. Also, in the spring gill net fishery, 85% of the fish they harvested were between 15 and 19 inches. The reason their catch is so skewed to smaller fish and to males is due to the mesh size of net they fish with (they are limited to between 1.25 and 1.75 inch mesh), and to the behavior of the fish. Males come into spawn, and hang out in the area for the entire spawning season; whereas, females come in to spawn, do their business, and then head back out into outer lake areas where they are not vulnerable to the nets. The ratio of females is a little higher now than when they first started fishing, because we have such a good female spawning stock now.

5) Mille Lacs has been compared to Red Lake. Not even close! You all have seen it. If we have concerns about the fishery - We do take action! On top of that, the Red Lake fishery collapsed after decades of overfishing. It resulted in a severely depressed spawning stock such that there was no hope for new year classes. Mille Lacs on the other hand has a robust spawning stock, with several new year classes waiting in the wings. To compare Mille Lacs to Red just isn't realistic.

6) Speculating about the status of the stock based on your fishing observations is tenuous at best. Here's why. If the stock is up, you should expect a better bite, right? Well, maybe, but if forage is up even more, then the bite will likely be worse. If the stock is down, then you'd expect a poorer bite, right? Same problem. If forage is also down, then the bite might be pretty great. What might be reasonable to speculate on is whether the bite might continue to be good or poor. In general, if the winter bite is pretty good you can expect a pretty good open water bite too. If winter is not so hot, then you can expect a not so hot open water season. The time that things change is in July. That's when new forage from perch and tullibee enter the picture and generally things slow down a bit. The amount they slow down is then dependant on how much new forage there is. Last year it slowed pretty fast because there appeared to be a pretty good hatch of perch (maybe tullibee too). That forage may very well be why the bite this winter is less than great.

I hope I've been able to clear up some of the questions you had. Feel free to contact me if you need more info, or have more questions. We are working on setting up an input group meeting, and I look forward to seeing you there.

Take care, Rick

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 Originally Posted By: hugonian1
...it sure seems to be running amok with mis-information or poor speculation.

Say it isn't so. crazy.gif

hugonian1,

Thanks for posting this info straight from the horse's mouth.

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Thanks for the great post hugo, this does indeed clear up a lot of confusion. It sounds like the band's decision to take 122,500 pounds for the 2008 season was part of the new 5 year plan and was made quite some time ago (December 2006). Rick confirmed that the DNR's hands are basically tied regarding that decision, so we'll just have to work with it. It also sounds like the DNR is going to do a spring survey to validate/invalidate the fall netting numbers. That's good news, and I look forward to hearing about the results. There's been a lot of speculation as to whether those numbers were valid or not, and hopefully we'll have some definitive answers.

Thanks again for the post, I think I can finally put this issue to bed.

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Excellent information. Its pretty obvious a lot more goes into the equation than just rolling the dice. One question that I still have is what contributed to the lower year class of 2004, spawning conditions, water temps, weather all of the above. I guess a combination of all would have an impact. Nice to see several year classes looking strong for the future. Bill

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Being informed and educated on a topic = informed and educated questions, answers and debate.

Great info - thanks

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 Originally Posted By: late night
Nobody was alive at the time all these treaties were signed and the world is definately not the same as it was in 1837. Part of the beauty of our Constitution is that it can be changed to fit the times we live in. I think its time to stop hiding under a treaty that is outdated and serves no purpose.

late nite, Thomas Jefferson agrees with this view regarding citizens expectations of living indefinitely under unchanging laws, and so do I. Its ripe time for multiple treaties to be re-evaluated so we don't get stuck in the past in MN. Many other states angling communites and angler governance rules are proving this decade to be much more progressive than MN, and the treaties are one of the major reasons MN is being held back.

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