Minnesota Waterfowl Hunting

The only concern is it may disrupt the spawning activities and effect what is produced for eggs/fry and in the summer when you bring fish out of deep water to the warm top water and the potential for them to die.

Yeah but with that same line of thinking every fish caught and cleaned during the season won't be spawning either.......I think but don't know that C & R year round would be better for fish populations than closing seasons during spawning.

But with that being said I'm an idiot and really have no idea.

If they really wanted to protect the spawning fish they would open the season after the spawn is done depending on the Spring we have. Fish spawn at a certain temperature range so it would be very easy and inexpensive for our DNR to do this. The last two years I have fished spawning walleyes (as well as other species) for the first couple weeks of the season due to the late Springs. In 2012 the spawning was done by May because of the extremely early Spring. The DNR say that they open the bass season later to protect spawning fish yet on normal years the fish are spawning well after the opener. Same can be said for muskies although it takes a late Spring for the spawning to still be happening on opener.

ND and SD have year round seasons and their fish populations seem to be doing just fine. Our season openers are more concentrated on the economy than the fish.

I often wonder about the value of the closed season in mn but then, we have more anglers than either Dakota has people. Wonder how many anglers /angler hours in both Dakotas vs MN.

And our big tourist lakes are managed closely, yet still go through boom & bust.

Then the behemoth that is the stocking program...

I'd say the fish need significantly more protection here than in the Dakotas.

Quack good point. Although I wouldn't be surprised if some of the big lakes (Devils, Waubay, Bitter etc) in the Dakota's get as much pressure as some of the big MN lakes.

My post was more focused on the MN season framework protecting spawning fish, which it doesn't always accomplish.

We could easily go to a catch and release season in place of our current closed seasons, and have little to no negative impact on fish populations.

The closed seasons are pointless...and quite moronic.

Bullet21XD wrote:We could easily go to a catch and release season in place of our current closed seasons, and have little to no negative impact on fish populations.

The closed seasons are pointless...and quite moronic.

I'd agree if people were like most on here when it comes to handling fish but the sad fact is the vast majority of people are complete dipchits when it comes to that.

I'd love a catch and release season instead of closed seasons but I'm a realist.

Team Power Dump

Pike should never be closed. Walleyes should only be closed on lakes with good natural production.

Fish Felon wrote:Pike should never be closed. Walleyes should only be closed on lakes with good natural production.

Walleyes shouldn't be stocked south of the mn river either.

Team Power Dump

Nershi wrote:Quack good point. Although I wouldn't be surprised if some of the big lakes (Devils, Waubay, Bitter etc) in the Dakota's get as much pressure as some of the big MN lakes.

My post was more focused on the MN season framework protecting spawning fish, which it doesn't always accomplish.

Waubay and bitter might as well be annexed into MN for all the pressure those two lakes receive from Minnesotans.