DNR's move to stop trout stocking is fishy at best.

[Lee Borgersen]

 

DNR's move to stop trout stocking is fishy at best 


Trout fishermen will not be happy campers when they find out the Minnesota DNR has decided it needs to reduce or eliminate stocking in 60 lakes and streams. The bottom line: the DNR will save $200,000 a year. The impact on local economies: not a factor in the DNR's decision.

The list of lakes is stunning. Hit hard will be the Ely, Isabella and Grand Marais areas. The company line is that these lakes have "not met expectations or where self-sustaining trout populations have been established."

There is no public comment on this, no chance to ask questions, just a DNR edict from St. Paul that smells more than fishy.

Lakes that will be deleted from the stocking program in the Ely and Isabella area include: Ahsub, Burntside, Conchu, Dan, Ojibway, Regenbogen and in Sabin Lake in Embarrass.

Lakes that will see reductions in trout stocking include Crosscut, Divide, High, Hogback and Section Eight. Oh, and some body of water called Lake Superior.

Here's the DNR's reasoning, "The new approach follows an in-depth assessment by DNR staff and implements various aspects of the DNR's Lake Superior and southeast Minnesota trout plans. Last year, the DNR stocked 2.2 million trout at a cost of $2.4 million. The planned changes will result in an immediate savings of about $70,000 in electrical and feed expenses and up to $200,000 annually when changes are fully implemented.

This is one of those DNR decisions that makes outdoors people wonder just what goes on in that state agency.

Some of the lakes being removed from the stocking program were functioning just fine as non-trout lakes. But the DNR decided they should be poisoned to kill the fish living there so trout could be introduced. Now, trout are no longer going to be stocked. Will we see poisoning return a few years down the road?

We weren't able to talk to the folks in the Tower DNR office about this, but we certainly have some questions to ask. There's likely a few trout fishermen, bait store owners, resort owners and others who will have questions as well.

The real question here is why was this bombshell dropped without any warning? The DNR fish and wildlife department budget for 2010-2011 is $193,200,000. Will cutting one-tenth of one percent of the budget really make that much of a difference? Is this a sign of things to come in the trout stocking program? Are further cuts on the line?

The only good news we could come up with before deadline was that the reason Burntside was being removed was "increase in lake trout natural reproduction, don't want to stock a genetically different strain at this time." If that's the case and stocking doesn't make biological sense at this time, we're willing to live with that.

But if the overall reason is the bottom line, were any options even discussed? Wouldn't a $2 increase in the $10 trout stamp generate $200,000?

Plenty of questions for the DNR on this poorly presented decision to cut trout stocking.

[Mayfly]

Good read. If more develops please share.

[Lee Borgersen]

Good read. If more develops please share.

Here is the last update I've found on this topic  
    
 
 
 
Jan 25, 2010

DNR defends decision to end trout stocking on some Ely area lakes



The Minnesota DNR's abrupt decision to stop stocking trout in some area lakes has been met with surprise by anglers but was defended by the agency in an interview last week.

Tower area fisheries supervisor Joe Geis said while the decision was based on saving money, the lakes that were cut were marginal in trout production.

"All of the area offices that stock trout were asked to evaluate trout stocking lakes and identify where stocking could be reduced or discontinued to have the least effect on anglers and where there was poor survival and low fishing pressure," said Geis.

"When we do stream trout lakes we look at the biomass pounds of trout per gill net. The ones we proposed to discontinue stocking on were well below the median for stream trout lakes," said Geis.

Going through the list of lakes where changes will be made, Geis said:

Ahsub - "What we're seeing there is we've got competing species, smallmouth bass and white sucker seeing poor survival of stocked trout in recent years."

Conchu - "Conchu has got largemouth bass, white sucker and a few northern pike in it. There we again have poor survival of stocked trout along with competing species and trout numbers well below the median pounds per gill net."

Dan - "This a small lake that had low pounds of brook trout per gill net, below the median. We're seeing poor survival and that one has pretty low angling pressure."

High - "That one we were stocking three species, splake, rainbow and brook. We're seeing the splake are doing the best in terms of pounds per gill net. The brook trout were next and we haven't caught any rainbows in recent assessments. We're proposing to eliminate rainbow stocking and stock one year of brook trout, the next year splake."

Ojibway - "We were stocking lake trout in there. That lake's always had low numbers of lake trout. We fin-clipped the lake trout we stock in there, we started doing that in the early '90s. We had a couple of years where we had high numbers of lake trout in the mid-'90s but a high percentage were recently stocked fish. In general the numbers of other than recently stocked trout were pretty low and there's also a slower than average growth rate. There's some natural reproduction of lake trout in Ojibway and we didn't feel we could increase the lake trout population in Ojibway."

Burntside - "The lake trout stocked in there are clipped too. For the lake trout program for inland lakes we're changing from the Gillis Lake strain which has done well in Burntside to the Mountain Lake strain. In recent years we've seen an increase in the percentage of unclipped fish from natural reproduction. It went from 11% in 2001 to 23% in 2003 to 33% in 2005 and 54% in 2007 so we're getting an increase in reproduction. It did drop in the number of unclipped fish in our 2009 assessment We're seeing an increase in natural reproduction and we didn't want to stock a genetically different strain, that would affect reproduction."

The DNR's fisheries and wildlife budget is $192 million. The agency will save $200,000 with the reductions in the trout stocking program.

"With the economy we have everybody needs to be looking at what they're doing," said Geis. "We're getting pinched in our budget and we need to be spending our angler dollars wisely."

Geis said the fisheries division of the DNR currently has 28 positions vacant statewide due to a lack of funding.

Putting in a trout stamp increase is not on the DNR's agenda, either.

"That has to go through a whole process of approval before you can take it to the legislature and in the current budget climate, the current administration didn't feel that was going to happen," said Geis.

He also said that right now the fisheries division is spending more money than it is taking in from fishing licenses and the federal excise tax on tackle, boats and motors.

The stocking reductions will take affect in 2011.

Even if more monies become available in the future, Geis doesn't see the DNR reversing course.

"Just from what we're seeing, these lakes are just not performing well. Some of them did some years ago after reclamation. They were good trout lakes but we're just not seeing the survival or growth we think we should be getting. I'm not sure even if we had more money in the future , I'm not sure we would want to keep stocking these lakes."


 

 


  
  
      
    
 
 
  


 
 
  

 
























  

[greatoutdoors]

Lee,
The % in 2009 dropped to 14% for Burntside.  
I find it very hard to believe that any natural lake trout reproduction is occuring with all the smelt present, but they are reporting the results of their test netting so that's the best we have to go on

[Lee Borgersen]

Lee,
The % in 2009 dropped to 14% for Burntside.  
I find it very hard to believe that any natural lake trout reproduction is occuring with all the smelt present, but they are reporting the results of their test netting so that's the best we have to go on

Jim,

Thanks for your valuable input regarding Burntside. If anyone knows that lake it's you. What's going on up north? Sounds like the lake travel conditions are better than last year. I've got 5 long months to wait before I can hit Ely again.