Upper red lake DNR

[Toby]

I just talked to two guys who just came off upper red and the DNR was checking for radio active implants in walleyes.This guy says they implanted a large number of fingerlings over the last few years to catch the poachers.I thought I had heard it all!!!!

[kelly-p]

I've heard nothing about this but who knows? I never go to a meeting. There will be people out there "bending" or breaking the rules. If I was the DNR I would be doing everything posible to make sure we do not destroy the walleyes again. I hope the DNR does has something up it's sleeve. I'm sure we will all get surprised in the years to come.

[Random guy]

With the amount of money , hard work and time invested in restocking efforts I wouldn't be surprised to see a little closer eye on thing by the state boys and a few new tricks to boot.

[dan]

so then the radio active fish dies and rots on the bottom, then the water is contaminated. ???????

and then for the opener of '06, how can you tell a radio active fish and one that isn't?

it sounds pretty fishy to me. it's a scare tactic.

dnr won't set themselves up for a lawsuit like that.

[Fish-on]

I think you are mistaken. Maybe radio tracking devices but even that is totally far-fetched. Sounds like an urban legend to me.

[Revermann]

They have been using radio tracking devices in the Walleyes and Sauger on the Mississippi river in pool 4 to track and see the fishes patterns, so it wouldn't surprise me if they would use them to catch poachers on Upper Red.

I think it's a great idea.

Jamie

[Slabby]

Fer dumb

[icehousebob]

I think you might be mistaken on the purpose of the tagging. The DNR used a tracible chemical in trout a few years ago to be able to identify which ones were planted and which ones were natural reproduction. I,m guessing they did the same with the Walleye fry they released, to track the success of the planting, and also how well the lake's natural reproduction is recovering. Its a totally harmless chemical.

[Insp Gadget]

There is a device that has been developed to allow for easier tracking and inventory of virtually anything. Can't remember the exact name, but it's a mini radio transmitter that transmits a code #. According to things I've read, some day not to far away, we'll go shopping and when we leave we'll push our cart through a scanner and all the radio tags will be read automatically and our bill will pop up on the screen for us to pay. No checkout needed! It will eliminate shoplifting until theives find a way around it.

These tags are already in use in shipping containers and many types of freight. Have you seen the commercial lately where the help desk appears in the middle of the highway to stop a freight truck? The help desk tells the driver they are going the wrong way. The driver asks how they know and the response is "the boxes told us". Same radio tags.

I agree with Kelly, and from what I gather of the technology, (chips implanted in pets for ID for example) fish tracking would be an excellent use for it.

Gadget

at the help desk

Ps. I don't go to meetings either. Heck, I haven't even gotten to go fishing this winter.

[fish1111]

This sounds more like a scare tactic to me also. I would sure hope our tax money is being spent alot better than that. The cost of doing something like that would be huge. There are millions of eyes in the lake for now, I am sure they tagged some eyes for monitoring movements and the like but getting enough tagged to catch a poacher wouldn't be very cost effective.

[12lb8oz]

I could understand tagging some to try and catch people until this spring (anyone keeping one now would be in trouble). But with all of the walleye in the lake how many do you think they'll be able to tag???? 5% at the most probably less. So if a person catches 1 they are lucky. If the person happened to catch 3 of them it would be of comparable odds to winning the powerball. So if the DNR see's that 3 are leaving the lake and going down the highway how do they know 2 or more people didn't catch those fish. NO WAY THIS WOULD WORK. Think about it a little.

[tightlines]

Gadget. Great post. I hadn't heard about the grocery thing. Sounds convienient. I see why you are called the inspector gadget

[winks]

I believe the technology the Inspector is referring to is called Radio Frequency ID, RFID

[Sutty]

I suppose next year we will buy upgrades for our sonar units so we can really chase the schools around...

[LABS4ME]

I talked to Andy Thompson of the DNR fisheries up on Red this weekend, he got a chuckle out of the "radioactive" fish post. I think through the "grapevine" it got changed to radioactive from a tetracycline mark that the stocked fish have.

For the guys thinking of catching more Red Lake walleye than allowed and saying they were caught somewhere else... know this... The DNR has just successfully prosecuted their first case involving a poacher who had kept some walleye from Red that carried this OTC mark. His quote was "how you gonna prove if I caught those fish on Red or not..." Well little did he know...

Good Luck!

Ken