Mille Lacs Hard Water Walleye

[BringAnExtension]

Governor Dayton is not going to wait for the fall surveys before declaring that the walleye ice fishing season will go on.

http://www.startribune.com/dayton-says-they-ll-be-a-walleye-season-this-winter-on-mille-lacs/326440461/

 

[Sifty]

It will be interesting to see what the DNR and the Band will have to say about this.

No doubt it will help the resorts on the lake with at least a little income for the year.

 

[delcecchi]

It will be interesting to see what the DNR and the Band will have to say about this.

No doubt it will help the resorts on the lake with at least a little income for the year.

 

I don't know about the bands.  the DNR will say what Dayton tells them to say, since he can hire and fire the head of the DNR>

[ANYFISH2]

Del is unfortunately right I am afraid.

However, Dayton does not have the legal right to set a season open or set limits.  This is his twisted hard stance.

Why does he want it a liberal limit?  We haven't added any walleye since Aug.3rd.  How did the population increase to allow a liberal harvest? 

Apparently, the resorts and Dayton want the open water season to close even earlier next summer. 

[gregg52]

Thing is how much is it to help

not sure what the liberal limit will ,first thing is you need good early ice to have good year

then how will the bite be experience says after the first of the year it slows dramatically at back in the

day when the lake was normal(before nets and unbalance)

'm sure the resorts will disagree and say they need to get what they can when they can

kinda of shame Dayton is trying to make calls like that I would question his knowledge of the eco system

on the other hand the lake is a lost cause any way

 

 

 

 

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[ANYFISH2]

Don't believe the lake is a lost cause at all.

Unfortunately,  there are many, many variables in this puzzle.  A quick fix probably is possible.

Being conservative, with limits is unfortunately is the only step we have right know.  Hopefully all the bands follow suit with conservative harvests as well.  Until we/the lake garner a better forage base, the recovery may be slow.  Let's hope we get a few strong year classes of perch, shiners, and Cisco to feed the hungry mouths of the lake.

The resorts should be in favor of being conservative at this time not against it.  It is in their long term best interest.  They are fortunate that the lake has a diversity of species to target in the interim.  Is it painful now? I am sure!  But limiting short term loss at the expense of long term gain is silly at best.

[delcecchi]

 

 

The resorts should be in favor of being conservative at this time not against it.  It is in their long term best interest.  They are fortunate that the lake has a diversity of species to target in the interim.  Is it painful now? I am sure!  But limiting short term loss at the expense of long term gain is silly at best.w

As a famous sage once said... " in the long term we are all dead".   I bet many of the resorts don't have the money to wait several years for the walleye to recover.   If they are really lucky there will be a boom in some other species, like crappies on red lake, that will attract paying customers until the walleye come back. 

[ANYFISH2]

They already have smallmouth bass, northern pike, muskie, sunfish, crappie and largemouth to pull in cliential.  

The resorts have been ultra critical,  but complain about anything that might hurt their bottomline.  Regardless to the fact that continuing on the same path has greater consiquences.  They seem more concerned with getting nets out of the lake than the health of the lake.  I trust resort owners opinion less than Daytons.

[delcecchi]

Easy to scapegoat nets.  Hard to confront the actual causes.  Remember when you point a finger at someone there are three fingers pointing back at you, to resurrect an old cliche. 

In 2013 the quota was 178,000 pounds.  The bands took 15,501 pounds due to very late ice out.  Yet the next year the quota was cut by 2/3 to 60,000 pounds.  In 2006, the quota was 600,000 pounds of which the bands got 100,000 pounds.  For that year I found a very interesting report on the native harvest which has far more information than we know about the NBM harvest.  

https://data.glifwc.org/archive.bio/Administrative Report 07-15.pdf

(might be for spring 2005, I am not sure what they mean by the 2005-2006 quota year)

 

So, the NBM take a harvest which is several times the native harvest and is only a guess at that, and folks blame the band netting. 

It now appears to have been mostly the fault of the MN DNR for regulations which created an unbalanced size distribution which coupled with excessive allowed total harvest and a failure of the yellow perch hatch for one or more years. 

But go on blaming the Indians, since it seems to make everyone feel better.