Is our DNR on drugs? - Mille Lacs Lake Fishing (Fishing Reports, Events, Tournament Information and more)

fishnpole · Veteran Member

Is our DNR on drugs?

rjhumpy · Member

hmm confuse ............

Well duuuhhhhhh

Unbelievable

Glad the money was spent for that conclusion

Now everybody knows where all the good drugs are,they must be in the TP hitting the pease pipe before they get all the nets togeher to go get some fish - YOUNG FISH - Morons

MCallies · Malmo Bay Bomber

OMG, duhhh, yes these experts MUST be on Drugs.

Fishnpole & Rhumpy are so right! The DNR 'experts' found the magic Tee Pee and went to smoke the peace pipe with the gill netters. Then they did their magical study so it is major warped.

I keep doing my Late Ice-Out dances again for Malmo and Agate Bays! That has stopped the heaviest gill netters for the last two spawns. This can save the small male walleyes yet! We gotta keep up the late ice outs!

Late ice means we hang out at Ertls and Malmo brings the Wild Rice dish. Cold ones and camp fires and NO NETTING. Save our Lake! MM says so!

walleyeworshiper · Member

"Only the mediocre are always at their best". Much like our DNR, the Blue Ribbon Panel the DNR hired has to agree with those that sign the check. This is done all the time in government, hire an independent (?) panel to verify the findings of said agency. When Rod Sando signed the band code to allow gill nets during the spawn about 15 years ago he knew what the outcome would be. But Rod was already promised a job near the west coast. Let us hire the blue ribbon panel to say "lets try Mille Lacs without gill nets for 15 years" then compare the outcome to present day. I believe the average I have seen is 7-10% of laid eggs make it a year, 26,000 eggs per 1lb of adult female walleye. 7-10% of a gill netted walleye equals about zero, plus chasing around to pull and reset nets just might disturb those escaping the nets that still want to cuddle. Plus their incidental catch of other species. But maybe THEIR blue ribbon panel didn't take that into consideration. "Only the mediocre are always at their best". Whenever the MN DNR re-acts to questions about any wildlife today, rather then lets get going and do what it takes to fix the problem, they run to their spin doctors to come up with a story on how we will have to live with mediocrity. Can you imagine being the guys and gals with the DNR that know better but in order to keep their jobs they must agree with the upper management??

fishnpole · Veteran Member

I talk to 'em all the time. The ones on the lake, here KNOW what's going on, but the idiots in charge won't (aren't allowed) to listen to them.

WHY?

They confirmed that low survival of young walleye is most likely responsible for the decline in the 132,000-acre lake’s walleye population.

OBVIOUSLY THEY WEREN'T TALKING ABOUT MILLE LACS, 'CUZ THIS LAKE HAS MILLIONS OF YOUNG WALLEYE, NO THANKS TO ANYTHING THE DNR HAS DONE.

MOTHER NATURE DID IT WITH 2 LATE ICE-OUTS.

HERE'AN EXCERPT FROM AN ARTICLE IN THE MILLE LACS BAND NEWSLETTER

http://millelacsband.com/tribal-government-home/natural-resources/bringing-back-the-walleye/

Another issue: the fact that the lake is managed in a way to produce trophy-size fish at 18 to 28 inches in length. Any fish that big needs a lot of smaller fish to survive. Warmer lake temperatures will affect the tullibee population, a slender silvery white fish preyed upon by northern pike and walleye. A couple of weeks of intensely hot summer weather will quickly kill off a tullibee population. The tullibee also eat zooplankton so their numbers would be reduced because of the zebra mussels.

Burbots, the small cod-like fish that prefers cold, deep lakes, have disappeared from Mille Lacs Lake. A soft fish, they were “like a candy bar for a lot of fish,” the Band’s Natural Resources Commissioner Brad Kalk said. Warming temperatures cleared Mille Lacs Lake of burbot.

“Hook mortality” claims its share of walleye, also. It happens when an angler catches a walleye that’s too big to keep and drops it back into the lake. The walleye is tired after the struggle on the fish line, and rests in the top ten feet of water that on hot days can be 80 degrees. The heat and inability to get sufficient oxygen from deeper depths kill walleye.
“I had friends out this summer who said it looked the genocide of walleye,” Brad said. “They saw at least 15 walleye floating in one area.”
The decline in the walleye population gets stickier when you add political pressures to the mix emanating from treaty law that retained the age-old Ojibwe harvest tradition. To put it gently, not every person in the state agrees that the Minnesota Ojibwe treaty provisions that retain traditions are valid. The decline in walleye becomes stickier yet when you consider the economic pressures from entrepreneurs who earn a living from the lake and its tourist population. Fewer anglers mean fewer dollars gained by business owners.
Overall, the majority of the lake is in good health, Brad said. Although the walleye population is strained now, the population could return within five years with care and good management.

Through it all, the lake seems to take care of itself at times. Last year’s net season was bad, Brad said. One day the weather and wind combined to chase netters back into their vehicles and home.
It’s like the lake said to everyone: take off, leave me alone.
Today I need to rest.

-- Edited by fishnpole on Thursday 29th of January 2015 11:55:38 PM

fishnpole · Veteran Member

“It was painfully obvious we didn’t manage collective fishing mortality by the bands and the state in the best way possible,” said Don Pereira, DNR fisheries chief. “We weren’t paying enough attention to size selectivity — what size of fish is vulnerable to a particular fishing method.”

Both state and tribal fishers have inadvertently focused too much fishing mortality on a narrow size range of fish from about 15 to 18 or 19 inches, Pereira said. The panel recommended that the state and the bands revisit the harvest policy.

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/outdoors/fishing/3673987-dnr-considers-strategies-fight-walleye-decline-mille-lacs