News - DNR redoubles Mille Lacs Lake walleye management efforts

[Rick]

The DNR announced today that it has begun implementing several concrete steps aimed at improving the Mille Lacs Lake walleye population, while building a closer working relationship with the Mille Lacs community. “Mille Lacs is an incredibly important fishery for … Full Story

Discuss below - to view set the hook here.

[Tom7227]

I wonder how they are going to stock the lake in 2016 without having a fishery facility.  I thought the Mille Lacs walleye were genetically unique.  Mixing things up could really cause long term problems it would seem.

 

[Rick]

I wonder how they are going to stock the lake in 2016 without having a fishery facility.  I thought the Mille Lacs walleye were genetically unique.  Mixing things up could really cause long term problems it would seem.

 

Pilot stocking effort: The DNR will stock walleye fry in Mille Lacs in 2016 in a pilot effort to develop and refine techniques. While stocking is not necessary today with the abundant natural spawning, the DNR wants to be ready to go if and when such stocking becomes necessary. The pilot will help develop techniques to maintain the unique genetics of the lake, ensure that aquatic invasive species in Mille Lacs are not spread to other waterbodies, and identify appropriate stocking levels. The DNR staff will chemically mark walleye fry to study their survival throughout their lifecycle. Egg-take, hatching, and stocking will occur in spring of 2016.

[leech~~]

Cormorants are a problem to the fishery? 

"Posted 14 July (edited) · Report post

I hope these lakes are not the next Leech Lake or years past. This video was from last weekend out on Edward. Gooseberry Island on Pelican is loaded with Cormorant nests. Walleye fishing on Edwards and Pelican is down in the last few years. Hope the DNR can take a few out!  "  

 

[delcecchi]

They have been telling us for years that stocking would be a waste of time.  Now they want $$$$$ to build a hatchery.  Are  they blowing smoke up our ******* or is there something that we don't know?  

[leech~~]

They have been telling us for years that stocking would be a waste of time.  Now they want $$$$$ to build a hatchery.  Are  they blowing smoke up our ******* or is there something that we don't know? 

del of course it was a waste of time, without a hatchery.  DA!

[delcecchi]

I know you just poking me, but don't all those big wallys produce like a gazillion fry?  I thought the problem was that the fry didn't grow up but disappeared in the first couple years, now believed to be due to cannibalism with bass and pike exonerated.  Now it's all "we need millions for a hatchery and employees" to put more fry into the lake.  

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_28714354/mille-lacs-walleye-stocking-set-spring

The other aspects of the plan announced Thursday include DNR ideas already stated publicly this summer:

-- The DNR will ask the Legislature for some $3.5 million to build a hatchery, research facility and interpretive center near the central Minnesota lake.

-- The agency will rework its organizational chart to create a fisheries office exclusively dedicated to Mille Lacs. The change will create one new staff position and reassign staffers from elsewhere in the agency to create the office.

-- Biologists will begin the lengthy process of seeking permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to shoot double cormorants, fish-eating waterfowl that might be having an impact on fish populations. However, DNR officials have conceded they aren't optimistic they'll get that permission, since cormorant numbers probably aren't currently high enough and scientific data are not persuasive enough to make a solid case.

.....

The only new development announced Thursday was the stocking, an action some observers on the lake have increasingly been calling for -- and one whose most influential proponent is Dayton.

For years, the DNR has maintained that stocking the lake with walleye is not necessary or necessarily prudent. Landwehr on Thursday said that's still the agency's position. However, he said, the state needs to be ready if it is needed, so it needs a "fire drill."

"We don't want to be in a situation where we're forced to stock because the numbers are so low," he said. "But we want to do a stocking effort in the spring that would replicate what we could be forced to do in the future if we have to recover the lake. So it'll be enough to bring back an entire lake."

The agency will model its numbers on a massive stocking effort undertaken in the 1990s on the Upper and Lower Red lakes after the walleye population collapsed due to overfishing, netting and poaching. In 2006, the lakes were reopened, and the walleye population is healthy.

The stocking will follow time-tested tactics and use only Mille Lacs walleye, which are genetically distinct. DNR crews will catch spawning fish right after ice out, fertilize the eggs and allow them to hatch in a laboratory setting, where a higher percentage of eggs will hatch than in the wild. When the eggs hatch, the tiny walleyes, known as fry, will be released into the lake.

Landwehr emphasized that the point of the stocking is to make sure it can be done, not to save the fish population.

"Some people might believe this is going to do something great for the lake," he said. "I don't want anybody to labor under the belief that this will turn things around. Certainly if we have a bad spawn year, this will moderate it. But the problem on Mille Lacs isn't that we're not producing fry."

The problem, he and scientists from throughout the continent have concluded, is that too many young walleyes are being cannibalized by larger walleyes. No one is sure why, but some suspect a combination of cleaner water, warmer temperatures and invasive species are at the core.

  I guess when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  And as a good bureaucrat who wants to keep his job he will spend money and resources on a solution he already knows won't work. 

Thanks, Mark Dayton.  #greatjobLandwehr

[Tom7227]

It's the politics.  No stocking, no hatchery, do nothing and you get blasted for doing nothing.  And you also then don't get the votes.  The DNR says over and over that stocking isn't the answer.  Gov. Dayton, the well known biologist, says we're going to stock and wham, they get ready to stock the lake.  Foolishness.

[ANYFISH2]

What is a bit confusing to me is why are they going to stock fry instead of fingerlings?

I would trust fingerlings survival more so that fry. Just my opinion.

[delcecchi]

Fingerlings cost way more, and if the problem is cannibalism won't do any better.  Fry is just net some fish, hatch the eggs, pour the results back into the lake.  "we are stocking the lake, everything will be ok" /sarcasm

Meanwhile they are in the back room lighting candles, sacrificing sheep, whatever it takes to get a good perch hatch that will take the cannibal pressure off the young walleye. 

[Tom7227]

But the Lake Doctor suggested that part of the problem is that due to the clearer water the walleye are out deep and the perch are willing to stay shallow.  That was what he wrote in Outdoor News a couple weeks ago anyway.  It makes sense to me.

[delcecchi]

But the Lake Doctor suggested that part of the problem is that due to the clearer water the walleye are out deep and the perch are willing to stay shallow.  That was what he wrote in Outdoor News a couple weeks ago anyway.  It makes sense to me.

I don't believe a word of it.  Does he have any actual data or is this anal extraction on his part?

[leech~~]

It's the politics.  No stocking, no hatchery, do nothing and you get blasted for doing nothing.  And you also then don't get the votes.  The DNR says over and over that stocking isn't the answer.  Gov. Dayton, the well known biologist, says we're going to stock and wham, they get ready to stock the lake.  Foolishness.

Well if we had a State Fishing team and they played in a stadium, maybe they could get a new one too!   

[Wanderer]

Fingerlings cost way more, and if the problem is cannibalism won't do any better.  Fry is just net some fish, hatch the eggs, pour the results back into the lake.  "we are stocking the lake, everything will be ok" /sarcasm

Meanwhile they are in the back room lighting candles, sacrificing sheep, whatever it takes to get a good perch hatch that will take the cannibal pressure off the young walleye. 

So why not stock perch instead of walleye?

[Tom7227]

Now the paper reported that Gov. Dayton has ordered the DNR to allow ice fishing and that it be as liberal as possible.  More great biology in action.

I honestly don't know - has there been many people going out the past few winters?  A friend has told me he hasn't put his house out for a couple of years because the fishing has been so bad.