Lake Mille Lacs walleye: Why there are no easy answersBy Dave Orrick
dorrick@pioneerpress.comPosted: 07/24/2015 06:55:39 PM CDT | Updated: a day ago
Also see: What's best for Mille Lacs? Wildlife biologist weighs in.
Lake Mille Lacs: There's gotta be a better way.
But what?
The problem with Mille Lacs is clear: There aren't enough walleye to go around. Hasn't been for some time, but it's gotten worse each year for several years now.
The result: The Department of Natural Resources will likely close walleye fishing this summer, perhaps as soon as Aug. 3. Then the lake, which has been relatively bereft of fishing pressure for at least two years, will be more empty. And then the assemblage of resorts, guides and businesses around Garrison and Isle -- a wonderful assemblage with a rich history -- will be further stressed.
Fishing for walleye -- our state fish -- shut down on Mille Lacs -- our most popular fishing lake.
This stinks.
We're frustrated, angry. So we vent. The more constructive among us try to come up with solutions. Count antsy lawmakers among this group seeking a remedy within their powers. And the DNR. To those who believe the agency to be rife with incompetents or liars, I fail to see how they've got anything to gain by the current situation.
Every time I write about Mille Lacs, my phone line and inbox light up. Some rant, some have ideas. Many of the ideas sound good, but each has flaws. Here are a few:
STOP THE NETS
Members of eight bands of Chippewa Indians have the right, under an 1837 treaty that has survived a challenge to the U. S. Supreme Court, to set their own rules for taking walleye. So for years, they've set gill nets in the shallows shortly after ice-out, when spawning walleyes swim there.
Netting the spawners of a struggling population can't possibly be helpful. If there were no nets come spring, I wouldn't complain.
But I wouldn't rejoice. Because it won't solve much.
Because the nets aren't the problem. Years of data show this: Spawning remains great on Mille Lacs. It's producing more new walleyes, acre for acre, nearly every year, than anywhere else in the state, including Red Lake. These fish hatch healthy. They just don't survive to adulthood. Nets don't catch yearlings.
Consider also that a key walleye demographic, spawning-age males, are killed far more frequently -- year after year -- by the hook-and-line than the gillnet. This year, the bulk of walleye killed by Indians were via spear not net. Of course, spearing during the spawn can't possibly be helpful either.
Regardless, Minnesota would have a hard time persuading a court to halt the spring tribal take, which for years has been less than a third of the state's.
Perhaps Gov. Mark Dayton can persuade the bands directly. But he would need to give something in return.
What else you got?
LET THE LAKE REST
Ban the gill nets -- and the live wells. Catch-and-release only for walleye until the lake recovers. Might only have to be a year or two.
It's fair: equal pain for Indians and non.
This might be what happens. There might be no other choice.
Speaking strictly from a biological perspective, the best course would be to ban all fishing, period. But that'll never happen.
I'd be OK with catch-and-release only on walleyes. I love to eat fish, but I choose my take carefully. I'm pretty sure I've never kept a Mille Lacs walleye. It's still a great lake to fish -- and will continue to be.
But there's the economic cost, because the evidence seems clear: Far fewer people go to Mille Lacs if they don't think they keep walleyes.
If we're so worried about the effects of closing walleye fishing for half a summer, shouldn't we be even more worried about closing it for the winter, and the summer after that, and the winter after that, and the summer after that?
And what about when the water temps climb into the mid-70s, and the walleyes are 30 feet down, and we haul them to the surface so fast they get the bends, and we toss them back and they float belly up, dead? How exactly will that help anything?
Catch-and-release might be the best course, but it won't be pretty.
STOCK WALLEYES
If we go this route -- and this route will only be taken if legislators demand it -- get out the checkbook. And don't assume success.
The state's current walleye hatchery system costs $3.8 million a year. It produces about the same number of walleyes as Mille Lacs does each spring, right now, for $0. There is no stocking today.
Let's assume we don't want to just ignore all those other lakes that rely entirely on stocking for walleye; there are about 1,050 such lakes. Expanding a stocking program costs even more. New hatcheries, more manpower. Wisconsin is spending more than $13 million on a major expansion of that state's walleye-industrial complex.
There are other flaws: Stocking walleyes in a lake with good natural reproduction (Mille Lacs) tends to help little -- probably because nature has already found its survival sweet spot based on available habitat and food. Additionally, stocking walleyes in a lake with abundant northern pike (possibly Mille Lacs in the future) seems to help the pike more than anything else. It would an expensive way to grow pike food.
Next.
SIMPLIFY THE RULES
Just allow two walleyes of any size. Or one. Whatever. It's the slot limits that are screwing up the lake, several readers told me.
We all like simpler rules. This year only one walleye between 19 and 21 inches, or longer than 28 inches, can be kept. Such fish are incredibly hard to come by.
But relaxing the slot won't work.
Right now on the lake, anglers are seeing steady action from 13- to 16-inch fish. Those are the fish hatched in 2013 -- the only recent year that strong numbers of fish survived to adulthood. They're the future. We need as many of them to live as possible, at least for two years until the males are old enough to spawn and, hopefully, can create another bumper crop.
Besides, if we could keep those fish -- and there's no biological reason for that -- we'd bust the quota for sure. So practically speaking, ain't gonna happen.
CULL THE BIG FISH
Too many big fish with big appetites, some say. And it's true that the regs have coddled lunkers for years.
But it's doubtful that declaring open season on big fish will help the walleyes' future.
Let's take them one by one:
Smallmouth bass: They don't eat many walleye. They eat crayfish. The DNR has been slicing open the stomachs of predators for two years, and, much to my surprise, smallies really don't eat much except crayfish.
Muskies: They're huge (and not native), but there are hardly any of them. About one adult muskie per 50 acres on Mille Lacs. No wonder they're so hard to catch there.
Pike: Monster pike are rare as well -- a bit rarer since ice spearing returned in the winter. As for small pike, hang on a sec.
Walleyes: We need the big walleyes. They're the egg-producing females that can carry on the future. Their numbers are declining rapidly as they age and lost generations fail to replace them. Yes, they cannibalize the young walleye, but for the moment, we need them.
Also, you need to understand a key feature of nearly every animal that walks, crawls, flies or swims: Small growing animals, pound for pound, eat a lot more than big mature ones. Any parent who's ever had to put food on the table for a growing son knows this.
For fish, it comes down to this: Ten 1-pound walleyes eat more than one 10-pound walleye.
Same for pike. So yes, we probably should be killing more small pike. They're a growing population, and they're starting to have an effect on the walleye.
The DNR, tourism officials and a number of resorts are trying to get people to focus on pike (and smallmouths, since Mille Lacs is one of the best smallmouth lakes in the Lower 48 right now).
But it's not working. Maybe they're not marketing it right, but I haven't heard any good suggestions. (You really think bounties on 21-inch pike will work?) The walleye is king around Mille Lacs. End of story.
The walleye is also king in Mille Lacs. In fact, if you want one species to "blame" for eating all the young walleyes, blame the other walleyes, which are, bar none, the most prolific predators in the lake.
Right now, the most ravenous killer of baby walleyes, as a group, is probably the 2013 generation. Which is the hope for the future.
You see the dilemma.
Any other ideas?
.
God, help me be the man that my dog thinks that I am.