Four Wisconsin anglers cited for keeping 40 illegal walleyes

[Lee Borgersen]

Four Wisconsin anglers cited for keeping 40 illegal walleyes
By Chris Niskanen
cniskanen@pioneerpress.com
Updated: 12/29/2009 11:14:55 PM CST


After a long drive to northwestern Minnesota's Upper Red Lake, four Wisconsin anglers :fishing2: decided they needed an illegal cache of walleyes to take home, a conservation officer said. 

Now they could face a total of $3,600 in fines after being cited for keeping 40 walleyes over their limit just before Christmas.

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources conservation officer Brice Vollbrecht was checking ice anglers Dec. 23 on the sprawling Beltrami County lake when he came across a group of four anglers in two rented fish houses.

Two anglers were in each fish house, and after they invited Vollbrecht inside, he said, he became suspicious after questioning them about the number of walleyes in their possession.

"I got a different story from each group," Vollbrecht said Tuesday.

The possession limit for Upper Red Lake walleyes is four. Anglers are required to throw back walleyes between 17 and 26 inches, with one trophy more than 26 inches allowed.

Back at the anglers' rented cabin, according to Vollbrecht, he found 44 filleted and wrapped walleyes in a freezer, in addition to the 12 walleyes the anglers had in their fish houses. The 56 fish, Vollbrecht said, meant the four men were 40 walleyes over their limit. Some fish were outside the legal length limit, he said.

Each angler was cited for a misdemeanor of having 10 walleyes over the limit, according to Vollbrecht. Each faces a fine of $800 to $900, including the restitution value of the fish.

"They admitted later they knew all the laws. They said they drove a long distance and they didn't feel like 16 fish (for the group) was enough," Vollbrecht said. "They admitted they had been doing this for a couple of years."

Vollbrecht hadn't filed the tickets yet with Beltrami County authorities, so the anglers' names were not available Tuesday. Vollbrecht said two were in their 20s, one was in his 50s and the other in his 60s. They were not related to one another, he said.

The anglers had been fishing for three days and allegedly hid their activities by filleting the fish in their rented cabin and not a fish-cleaning shed. They disposed of the carcasses at a gas station Dumpster a mile away, Vollbrecht said.

"The resort people had no idea what they were up to," Vollbrecht said. "The owner wasn't happy with them."

In the 18 months he has been checking Upper Red Lake anglers, Vollbrecht said, it was his biggest fishing bust.

Upper Red Lake walleye fishing was closed in the late 1990s, but the DNR reopened the walleye season in 2006 after a successful stocking program.

Of its 120,000 acres, about 72,000 acres of Upper Red Lake are under the jurisdiction of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians and closed to non-band members. The Wisconsin ang-lers were fishing on the 48,000 acres under state jurisdiction.

[letgofishing]

good job DNR!!!

[snow]

Knuckle heads~ Folks just cannot police themselves,I would'nt be surprised if we'll see toll boths with check points and search teams one day just like the airports. 

[proangler16]

Their still getting through the airports??? but good job there DNR, I'm sure this is just one in a hundred or so that get caught, I wonder how many fish dinners were ate too?