M Lacs W/E economy hurting

[delcecchi]

The court decision as to the interpretation of the treaty in which the bands who were treated as if and recognized as sovereign nations, ceded, or sold/gave, a big chunk of land to the United States but reserved the right to hunt and fish on those lands "at the pleasure of the president" said the resource gets split down the middle.  Half to the bands and half to the United States.   

They net the fish because that is the best way to harvest them, from an efficiency standpoint and so that is how they have done it for many years. 

For a long time there was no netting because their rights were not respected and the treaty was violated.    And the spring is the best time to net since the fish don't spoil and are in shallow.   

Catch per angler or per person or anything like that is irrelevant. 
If you really want to, I think the DNR puts out a number for pounds of walleye harvested by anglers and how many angler hours of fishing pressure there were.  They might also have a catch rate, or you can figure it out.   

Am I happy about the netting?  No.  And I'm not happy about the prospect of the meat loving anglers moving on to other lakes.   I can hope that since Vermilion is too far for the Mille Lacs crowd to day trip it will be saved.

By the way it looks like fishing pressure on Mille Lacs typically ran in the 300,000 angler hours per month range in the summer.  So over the course of the year maybe 2 million or more angler hours.  If the quota is 100,000 pounds that might be 60,000 fish

Oh and killing a fish stops it from spawning after that time.  So if you kill it in February of 2016, it doesn't spawn in 2016 just the same as if you netted it in April or May. 

I don't thing the average fisherman gives much thought to preserving the resource, when it comes to Walleye.  They are thinking meat in the pan, and it is ok since the DNR is setting limits and so forth.   That might have worked if the DNR strategy for limiting the harvest via slot limits had not had unforseen consequences. 

Some of you guys might be different.  But isn't this whole fight "they are netting walleye that we could be catching" at heart?   

[snow1]

quote:

Oh and killing a fish stops it from spawning after that time.  So if you kill it in February of 2016, it doesn't spawn in 2016 just the same as if you netted it in April or May. 

We've gone around and around on this subject over the years,and that walleye caught in feb spawned out and left a few 100,000egg's on our rocky reefs per fish,times that by 70 tons of walleyes caught during the hay days of pillaging the spawning grounds,so your statement is old and out dated del,and I know for a fact that your statement of angler hours are inaccurate as mille lacs fishing pressure the last couple years have been Nil,more like a ghost town compared to the old days.

I'm not here to argue or go back and forth with someone just tuning in,just hope this debachel doesn't show up on your vermillion,hopefully our elected officals grow a pair and stand up to whats taking place here and elsewhere around the country,they have the authority for the sake of conservation.

The constitution has undergone countless amendments and challenges in the last 240 years,

It's time we make some amendments to the treaty as well.

Don't you think?

[Moon Lake Refuge]

Either way, it seems if anglers aren't keeping fish for a year to help regrow the population the netting should probably stop for a year also after all, good or bad its a 50/50 split right?  I wonder what 1-2 years every 5-10 could do to help regrow the population. 

[Cody Gruchow]

Moon lake lodge I agree with your post. And the Mille lacs band has agreed to no nets the last couple years. It's the Wisconsin tribe that thumbs there noses at everyone and does it anyway, mainly because if the lake drys up then they have lost nothing. Special regulations need to be put in place to stop this from happening again. Circle hooks/barbless hooks would go a long way in my opinion.

[Boar]

Ok so the walleyes are in tough shape there, its hurting the local resorts ect. whay cant anyone come up with a plan to look at other species, small mouth bass is a huge resource and holding smallie tournaments can bring in revenue, biggest fricking muskies on the planet, muskie tourney? to generate revenue, pike tournies to generate revenue? why is this lake void of any interest other than walleye? look at the other species to carry the area thru this deal maybe. get some heavy dutie sponsers to hold some  tournies, many interests groups and manufactures of equipment to donate tax right off donations to support some tourneys. I dont understand that if you cant keep walleyes, no ones gonna fish there. huge smallies, huge pike, mamouth muskies.  geeze cant keep a 1.5lb walleye. screw it im going someplace else. WTF.

[The General]

Boar you are right.  But right or wrong walleyes bring the people which bring the cash.  Cash is king and so is the walleye.  Well in MN anyway.

[Cody Gruchow]

Boar they are working on that very thing for bass tournaments. They couldn't before because you couldn't "cull" your catch. Switching fish out of the live well for a bigger fish. They have changed that to attract the big bass tournaments there

[Moon Lake Refuge]

I have an uncle who is a tourney fisher down in Mississippi and when he comes up here he's never asked for eyes once.  Guy wants to find the pikes every time right when he shows up ha. 

[snow1]

Cody,the mille lacs band didn't net this year only but speared their 10,000lb quota (who know's forsure?),public accesses on the east shore,garrison and the casino have been very busy as of late,business as usual,can't say forsure if our dnr is monitoring this situation as you can't see then from the road.Lots of new trucks from wisc in the lots tho,farily new boats as a whole as well.

Boar,smallies,pike and musky doesn't have the draw in Minnesota like walleye,agreed great fishery for other species but we target walleyes here.

[HD]

Are you sure they didn't net this year? I saw Wisconsin plates and Minnesota plates in the parking lot.... course, they were netting perch....

[Boar]

yeah thats agiven, bbut we shhould just thhrow up our hhands, and give up. instead of using other alternatives that are righht infront of our greedy faces. if thhe tribbes dont want thhe smallies, pike or muskie, i guesse we shhouldnt eithher.5

[snow1]

HD... Yeah,after they speared they're quota,they went after the perch with gill nets.No word yet if they  found their "ghost net" if not I suspect some poor non native sob will with his prop sat/sun

[dew2]

The qouta this year is 40,000 lbs 28,600 non native and the native get 11.400 just a taste more than 28%.The native quota is divided between 8 tribes.If they took their whole allotment it wound be a first! They normally take 50% or less.That's when the greed sets in and hook an liners want to have the left over transferred to them,Some even have asked if it was possible to buy the native quota that was not taken.
 One time since netting started natives took close to 80% of their allotment that was years back!

[snow1]

Sorry dew,but your way off in left field on this issue(again),you haven't clue as whats taking place just pick a few bits here and there off the web,so please hold off on your miss information,seriously.I've been to our round table meetings dew,sitting across from jim Zorn the tribal elder and spokes person and his lawyers,none of what you stated is true except the taking their quota and 8 tribes pillaging the lake...well here's a news flash for ya,years back when the walleye population was still okay the natives stopped netting before our non native season opened as to not create conflict at the landings and on the lake,later on when quota's were reduced and so was the walleye population,so yeah they didn't fill their quota and not because they were worried about our lake or playing nice nice,it was because the walleyes were gone and in 2013/2014 they couldn't get the nets in...and guess what,we have two years of YOY in banner #'s

I though we covered this already on this thread.

[Moon Lake Refuge]

The qouta this year is 40,000 lbs 28,600 non native and the native get 11.400 just a taste more than 28%.The native quota is divided between 8 tribes.If they took their whole allotment it wound be a first! They normally take 50% or less.That's when the greed sets in and hook an liners want to have the left over transferred to them,Some even have asked if it was possible to buy the native quota that was not taken.
 One time since netting started natives took close to 80% of their allotment that was years back!

Just out of curiosity... Why not sell of the remainder?  Find out what it would cost to restock the remaining fish that would be able to be taken and sell some form of advanced license an angler could buy for an extra fish a day or something like that.  Limit how many can be sold, but then you have funding to put back into the lake and the people that paid extra aren't even always guaranteed a catch.  Seems like an easy way to inject some more funding for management and stocking.  I would say having a tiered license plan would be great, some people would definitely pay more for the shot at a couple more fish a year but wouldn't be guaranteed anything.

[dew2]

Moon thats the natives left over quota,A deal would have to be made with them,
 Snow I dont go by what PERM<Save millelacs states their so bias. For instance 4 years ago they used all Mn DNR lake survey charts,samples and tried to prove the netting was ruining the lake from those charts constant layman's interpretation of scientific evidence They pushed and pushed saying see there is the evidence nets are the problen and then pushed more!>>>THen when the blue ribbon panlel used those exact same charts and data, Perm save millelacs and the 4-5 other names they used to create new lawsuits aginst the treaty. They said those charts and data are bunk NO GOOD They sure changed once the Blueribbon pannel said netting has no more effect than hook and liners taking eyes pre spawn while egg development started in Dec,Jan<Feb.
 I'll stick with DNR data not a bias group wanting all the fish for profit!

[snow1]

good to here,we don't waste our time with perm either,pretty much defunked,and the so called 'blue ribbon panel" is a joke hand picked by the aitkin office, any how,yeah,you keep reading and smelling what the aitkin dnr is cooking,after all guess where they get they're from and are told what to say,good plan.

I here things are pretty good around willmar these days,you should post a report with pics and let us what the willmar area has to offer,we'll stick to our backyard and keep our fingers on what the natives are up too and who's not doing their job that we are paying for.

And for your information,the savemillelacs.com folks have compiled great pics and video as to whats taking place and has taken place in regards to commercial netting on mille lacs,they are more hands on than our dnr dew,we are witnesses,1st hand.

[HD]