A mystery on Mille Lacs

[Lee Borgersen]

A mystery on Mille Lacs: Big fish, little fish abound — but few mid-sized walleyes.

AITKIN — Something puzzling is happening on Mille Lacs Lake, the giant walleye lake in east-central Minnesota, and it's got officials with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources wondering what they should do.

Lake Mille Lacs is known as one of the greatest walleye fisheries in the nation, and it is also one of the most aggressively managed. Today, researchers are trying to figure out why the lakes population of "keeper" walleyes is declining.


  what's goin on here...............
http://www.postbulletin.com/news/stories/display.php?id=1496112

[snow]

OUR dnr brain surgeons won't admit the problem lies with gill netting,the lake is in trouble folks,like it or not the facts prove it,walleye spawning bio mass is down 50% of where it was in 1999 when the netting started,this year with most of the netted fish leaving the public launches unaccounted for its a complete nightmare,videos to prove this as well...

[wallyhntr1]

Our DNR, Governor, Attorney General absolutely REFUSE to look at this for what it is, while Lake Mille Lacs is being absolutely slaughtered by Gill Nets during the spawn with no accountability... And if anyone wants to claim there is accountability by having GLIFWC be in charge, you have your head in the sand- GLIFWC is the Fox guarding the hen house, videos of wanton waste all over the place, videos of truck loads of walleye leaving landings unaccounted for, videos of these GLIFWC people lying through their teeth...  Is all a bunch of BS, while our resource is being destroyed & guess what?   Nonnatives, FUND, Gill Netting!!!  We pay to have the resource destroyed & we'll pay to fix it after it's completely destroyed... 

Sorry for the 'touchy feel good' moment there, keepin it real...

[Mayfly]

Sounds like an article from the Onion.

The DNR aren't that stupid are they?????????????????   

[Lee Borgersen]

Sounds like an article from the Onion.

The DNR aren't that stupid are they?????????????????  

  They'll just sweep it under the rug and bury their heads in the sand.

[kenhuntin]

The DNR envoked slots and catch and release freaks are as much to blame as gill netters. Hooking mortality accounts for an astounding amount of fish kill.  You have to fish three times as long as you would to catch a supper because of slots. You have to release those fish with swallowed hooks by cutting the line and leaving the fish to try and eliminate a whistler jig or whatever. What happens to the slot fish you must legally return to water that have bleeding gills from a rapala? Gill nets do hurt the population but imposed size limits and those that just stress out fish by recreational catch and release are also to blame.

[Lee Borgersen]

The DNR envoked slots and catch and release freaks are as much to blame as gill netters. Hooking mortality accounts for an astounding amount of fish kill.  You have to fish three times as long as you would to catch a supper because of slots. You have to release those fish with swallowed hooks by cutting the line and leaving the fish to try and eliminate a whistler jig or whatever. What happens to the slot fish you must legally return to water that have bleeding gills from a rapala? Gill nets do hurt the population but imposed size limits and those that just stress out fish by recreational catch and release are also to blame.

I will agree with you to some extent here but unless I'm wrong you make it sound like released fish are all doomed to death. Sure there are some situations when a fish won't make it but, lighten up a bit here. With that philosophy we may just as well join PETA and quit fishing.

Condemning catch and release fisherman by calling them "catch and release freaks" is overboard in my book. I would venture to say that there are others that may agree with me on that issue.
That's about the same as branding those that enjoy keeping a legal limit as "Meat Hoggs".   Wrong!

[Mayfly]

Catch and release freaks?? What is that? Is it a bad thing?

If it was open season on fish you would have a much significantly higher rate or mortality compared to hook mortality. Yes depending on how you handle the fish, water temps and many other variables it can be high and it can be low but its not worse than it would be if the slot were wide open.

Anyways, I don't let my blood boil anymore when it comes to that lake. Its one lake of many here in Minnesota. If the natives continue to rape and abuse the natural resources so be it. Its a sad day. I was once taught when I was young that natives were stewards of the land. That their respect of the earth and wildlife were above all. They have either lost their ways and forgot who they were or I was mislead. I am guessing its a bit of both...

[snow]

x2 Lee,I don't by the hooking mortality either,speculation at best,we also don't see gill net mortality either.

[kenhuntin]

I must clarify:
Not everyone that releases a fish is a freak.
  The fact is that those fish at the least need to heal a wound which is susceptible to multiple infections and parasites as well. According to the Mn DNR 1 in 6 fish perish from hooking mortality.
 The sportsman that without slots could go out and catch and keep his legal limit of 3 fish for supper does less to harm the population than the sportsman that has to catch 19 fish in order to accomplish the same thing because of size regulations.
  I have no qualms with anyone harvesting a legal limit of fish. But if all you do all day is catch fish for your frivolous enjoyment which stresses and injures fish then I consider catch and release freak a legit term.

[Lee Borgersen]

"But if all you do all day is catch fish for your frivolous enjoyment which stresses and injures fish then I consider catch and release freak a legit term".

Question: So if your fishing eyes for example and catch a limit do you tell your patrners.

To drop you off on shore.

Take a nap.

Stay one short of limit and fish on while taking a chance of being called a "catch and release freak"

[kenhuntin]

To honestly answer you Lee no I do not always quit fishing. I am not afraid of being called a conservation freak either. I unhook all all my fish in the net before it leaves the water. Bass are very hardy fish and have an extremely low hooking mortality. Salmonids have a rate of close to 90%. Fish caught with live baits for some reason have a very much higher rate of hooking mortality than artificials. Warm water in August is also really deadly for fish. For as much angling as you do you cannot tell me that you have not personally reeled in an upper 30's northern from a warm shallow bay that was belly up and could not be revived before you even net the thing. My main point in this Mille lacs mystery is that slot limits are more detrimental to fish populations than conservation minded sportsman left to their own discretion. Their own regulations I believe are the cause of the missing classes of fish. One other thing I have noticed is that fishing tournament promoters must be really great marine biologists because they always schedule a major event just a few days before a massive fish die off.