Development, habitat loss take heavy toll on walleye

[h2ofwlr]

By John Weiss, Rochester Post Bulletin
Posted: Thursday, May 15, 2014 9:31 am | Updated: 9:31 am, Thu May 15, 2014

Too many homes on the shore of Gull Lake north of Brainerd has hurt fishing because runoff from lawns is destroying walleye spawning beds.

NISSWA — Keeping walleye numbers strong in the 1,200 lakes that the Department of Natural Resources manages will require a change of habit among shoreline owners and anglers, as well as a change of habitat.

Don Pereira, DNR fisheries chief, said the DNR is seeing problems in even the premier walleye lakes. In an interview in Nisswa on Friday, the day before the Governor's Fishing Opener that was on nearby Gull Lake, he said Gull once had enough natural reproduction to sustain its walleye population. Now, the DNR must stock 2.8 million fry in the lake each year.

The problem is people.

Gull is very popular and is lined with homes ranging from cabins to mansions. With more people come more nutrients to fertilize their lakeshore lawns, he said. Enough runoff reached the lake to fertilize plants that grew on shallow gravel beds where walleye once spawned, Pereira said.

Walleye "are a large-lake animal, they don't do well in small lakes" because they need spawning beds that have to be swept clean by winds, he said. And winds need enough room to be strong enough to do that work, he said. Lakes smaller than 1,000 acres usually aren't big enough; Gull is about 10 times that size.

"We need to educate the shoreline property owners better," he said.

Education also needs to reach anglers and others involved in fishing, he said. The DNR holds its stakeholders roundtable in January, bringing together DNR officials, researchers, anglers, media, shoreline groups and others, he said. Discussions are often passionate, and lively.

However, "when we try to talk about habitat, it's like all the air went out of the room," he said. "It's just not sexy … we just need our stakeholders to get more keen about it."

Anglers are thinking more about more stocking to make up for any loss of habitat, he said, but stocking is "very very controversial." he said. When the DNR decided 80,000 pound of fingerlings was enough in the fall, "We caught holy hell."

The DNR said it would double that, but when it found that 140,000 pounds was enough to meet all the goals of the management plans for the lakes, the department was still criticized, he said.

To try to improve the situation, the DNR has hired an aquatic habitat specialist. Using technology such as Geographic Information System, the DNR hopes to find key places where it can improve the habitat to bring back spawning, he said. It is also looking at buying some key pieces of land along lakes to protect them from development and even do some habitat work.

Another attitude that needs changing is that of anglers toward small northern pike, Pereira said. Many refuse to fish for them or keep them if they catch them, he said. Instead, they will target big northern.

Small northerns can be a big problem, he said. With too many, "You can run into ecological problems, they might become an eating machine," he said. Big northern, however, will eat the little ones, he said.

A concerted PR campaign, and liberal bag limits, are aimed at changing anglers' attitudes, he said.