For Once Anderson Hits the Nail on the Head

[Big Doe Hunter]

http://www.startribune.com/mille-lacs-f ... 374989411/

Funny how the tables have turned. First the Teal Season, then the DNR mismanaging the Deer herd, now this. Oh and the wolves too.

[h2ofwlr]

In all fairness, the DNR did not flip flop on the Wolves - the Fed activist judge ended the season.

But still way too many missteps, from the teal season (they said they'd allow it if the other states non target threshold was low enough - but reneged on it), to the deer herd, to the mismanagement of Red, then Leech and then ML. Based on Red and Leech, they should know how to restore it. But the public won't let them based on science.

We have seen the enemy - all the whiners need to do is look in the mirror as it is the fishermen, the resort owners and related fishing biz owners to blame for the low Walleye population.

BTW, for those wanting lay all the blame the Indian netting. The Indians are allowed to take up to 50% of the total fish in ML - but have not for decades. The average is 28% of the total. So roughly 3 out of 4 Walleye the anglers are doing the harvest - not the Indians.

Simply put ML is over fished. The slot limit is a disaster. It should have been 2 a day with no releases and once you catch 2 - you are done for the day. All those thousands of fish released harmed IMHO has really been underestimated. I have talked to guys that say after 2 days of the wind in the same direction, hundreds of floating walleyes wash up on windy side of the shoreline. And how many sunk? C&R when they are hooked deep or in the gills, or when they are brought up out of deep cold water to the warm surface temps in the summer is simply put an utter total disaster. And the DNR slot limit policy encourages the anglers to do just that.

[lanyard]

I don't know that "blame" is the right term. However, the nets target specific sizes of fish.... the same size as the slot keepers as I recall.

So, you have guys that are tossing back 19"-21" fish that are mortality and then every fish from 14"-19" is bonked on the head or trapped out.

The focus on pounds is where the problem comes in. To increase the number of fish they needed a lower pound threshold. Rather than make the 19"-28" available for harvest, and mess up the pound predictions, they limited the size to maintain a quantity. Easier to count, easier to manage to court order.

I have a hard time blaming the DNR unless they are the DAs that told the judge the "take" limits should be in pounds. I did a presentation on this in college, in '92, and talked to biologists on Lake Erie that said the Mille Lacs effort was doomed. The EXPERIENCE already existed that predicted this outcome.

Easier to kick the can 20 years ago with retirement coming in the next 10-15 years.

[Fish Felon]

Good for Dennis, he finally read my emails.

Well, actually they were emails I wrote to Doug Smith, other outdoor journalists, and the DNR, I forwarded to him after Smith left.

Sound logic is sound logic, no matter how big of an asshole the guy it came from is.

The only time sound logic gets discredited is when the people's ears it falls on are misinformed or they're too blinded by emotion to even contemplate the point the other party is attempting to make.

So basically sound logic is phucked 99.9% of the time.


Something as volatile in reaction as the DNR getting their asses spanked in court over the institution of their next wolf management plan, at the hands of HFW, might wake sportsmen the Eff up for a moment long enough to get some shyte put in place that has enough teeth to it for...

....it doesn't even matter anymore.

BTW, for those wanting lay all the blame the Indian netting. The Indians are allowed to take up to 50% of the total fish in ML - but have not for decades. The average is 28% of the total. So roughly 3 out of 4 Walleye the anglers are doing the harvest - not the Indians.

Indians aren't to blame. DNR isn't to blame.

What Mille Lacs needs more than anything is a lot of people like me.

Go fish it and enjoy the wide open beauty of the lake without a bunch of douche bags in $60K+ boats and gay polyester shirts covered with logos frantically trying to catch a fish as if doing so will add several inches to their dicks.

Go fish it and enjoy them not throttling in after reeling in something called a walleye, to fish close enough to where you could drop them by chucking a full can of beer if the odd chance of it striking them in the dome happens.

I just flat out don't phucking care anymore about any hunting or fishing regulation.

Jeff Foiles had to become one of the biggest "celebrities" in the "waterfowl industry," own and operate a million dollar IL duck club, consistently poach egregious limits of mallards to where it became common knowledge enough to where everyone knew, and he became nonchalant enough in that process, to do it with Feds sitting in one of his pits.

And being the absolute worst of the worst got him a year of relaxation in a white collar prison and a reprieve from paying taxes. Not going to lie, that doesn't sound that bad right now. Sleep in, nap all the time, three hots and a cot, actually have time to enjoy reading some books again, work on getting my tennis serve lethal, catch up on all the movies that have come out in the past few years. I'm not going to try to end up there but can't say I'm any longer that worried about it.

Our society is confused about whether or not we should prosecute and hang some cops out to dry that were forced to respond to a domestic disturbance in North only to be assaulted by the same multi-felon-nigger that just rearranged his whore's face with his fists high as a kite...

...and I'm supposed to give a phuck about keeping a stringer full of 16" walleyes on a lake the DNR declared catch and release only?

I'm going to keep every phucking walleye over 12" I catch on Mille Lacs from here on out to eternity. Anything under will be released on a hook as bait.



The lake would be better off with little to no regilation. Let the lake crash at the hands of white and native fishermen alike filling their freezers in unison until the same thing we're experiencing now happens...the lake isn't worth fishing for a stint while it bounces back.

The difference is the way I'm talking will result in a giant explosion of bait fish and walleyes not predating themselves until entire year classes go missing.

I'm done being a slave to this bullshyte. I'm going back to the original goal of hunting and fishing...procuring food. I hope to piss off as many tournament fisherman, pro-staffers and trophy hunters in the process.

[HnkrCrash]

Mille Lacs is F'd from here on out. People are too stupid to realize what actually needs to be done in order to bring back any sense of ecological balance. As stated, scrap the slots, they are F'n retarded in a Mille Lacs scenario. Catch 100 fish, and kill half via hook mortality to keep 2 fish...instead of catching and keeping the first 2 fish that get reeled up...saving 48 in the process. Obviously anyone in charge of the management plan is neither a math major nor has any damn clue as to how things actually work from an angling perspective. The other thing that completely dumbfounds me is the planned lake dedicated walleye hatchery. Based on nearly everything I've read there are plenty of walleyes hatched, the vast majority just get canabalized before they reach maturity. A walleye hatchery only serves to continue the use of walleyes as baitfish for other walleyes. Wouldn't it be smarter to have a perch hatchery? This the natural forage base afterall. With the zebes and the rising water temps, the lake is screwed regardless, so might as well turn it into one giant ass fish farm with 100% human control.

Or, people could simply scrap the losing walleye model entirely and make the lake a premier crappie and sunfish lake. It's a hell of a lot cheaper and panfish aren't as sensitive to rising water temperatures. It worked for Red and tons of lakes here in the hellhole south. Plus, paleface could give a big F U to the native walleye netters...and at the end of the day, spiting people is the greatest reward of all.

[Fish Felon]

Obviously anyone in charge of the management plan is neither a math major nor has any damn clue as to how things actually work from an angling perspective.

I'll disagree with you there, I actually think the management is very good and staffed with very good biologists that are also very good mathematicians.

The problem is all the idiot resort owners creating political pressure that then dictates the management plan.

Any research and scientific data, and subsequent management plan based from it, indicating anything other than netting as the problem is not accepted.

It's impossible to have a civil conversation and discuss Mille Lacs to any person truly invested in the lake. I start every conversation before going into it with, "obviously netting is a huge factor and probably the biggest...BUT besides that what can be done about the other factors like X, Y, Z...A, B, C, D, E, F......."

I always preface the conversation with the rehearshed netting BS dialogue that I truly don't believe and know based off factual scientific data not to be true simply because you have to know your audience if you're trying to connect with them, and it still doesn't matter.

Netting is the problem---that's it.

Unless you have your head up your azz and agree with that sentiment, you're opinion, just like the opinions of the excellent team put in place to manage the lake, doesn't matter.

The other thing that completely dumbfounds me is the planned lake dedicated walleye hatchery. Based on nearly everything I've read there are plenty of walleyes hatched, the vast majority just get canabalized before they reach maturity. A walleye hatchery only serves to continue the use of walleyes as baitfish for other walleyes. Wouldn't it be smarter to have a perch hatchery?

Agreed. I voiced that same sentiment from the get-go.

When you have the governor speaking in front of the lake flanked by the commissioner of the DNR and he's pushing for a holding special session to pass welfare that would have made a nagger from Norf cringe in its level of waste and precedence for subsidizing total losers, that's not a good sign for the future of the lake. Even worse was when they started elaborating on the state of the art fishery with a cost of $8,000,000 to build with no idea of the long term cost of annual funding. I have no idea what it costs to operate a facility like that; power, heating, cooling, procuring stock, growing stock, releasing stock, computers, desks, phones, water system and aeration system, staffing a team of employees...it has to be phucking astronomical. I'm guessing a million annual easy.

All to dump fry into a lake where all the scientific data and research clearly shows the bottleneck in producing a walleye population to support several-hundred-thousand-pounds of them being taken from the lake each year is them cannabilizing their young---predating on and consuming the majority of the fry from each year class until it no longer exists.

The plan to fix the lake is spending untold millions on fish food. There is next to zero percent chance those fry grow big enough to be caught on a hook in significant numbers to impact the problem.

The experts supposedly managing the lake didn't create or decide on that plan. Politicians are responsible for that plan at the behest of a small group of freeloaders that don't want to work for a living. They want a guaranteed way to make money, easily. Being challenged with reinventing a business handed down to them in most cases, target a new demographic of consumers, diversify the reach of their business plan...are what these losers have refused to do. They'd rather spend countless hours bitching each day instead of using that time in a productive manner. They'd rather invest nothing but vitriol and hate for the DNR and Indians. Great business model! I'm shocked it hasn't worked and created a windfall of cold hard cash for them yet.....

The lake is currently being managed backwards, in my opinion. The general concept is to keep as many walleyes in the lake as possible by protecting them. The problem is a diminished forage base that will be forever diminished due to lake changes (mass reduction of phytoplankton by zebes that isn't the beginning of the food chain, but it's foundation, no chain or hierarchy exists without it). Instead of protecting walleyes from harvest we should be ensuring lots of fish are removed freely from the lake. Mille Lacs would be better served by a 6 walleye limit with one over 20" allowed, the state general limit.

It'd allow the lake to bottom out by being over fished instead of bottoming out by stockpiling so many fish the populations of forage species crash subsequently causing the walleye population to crash. There'd be good and bad years, maybe more bad than good, but it'd be better than what we currently have. In good years anglers would flood the lake to rape and pillage, in bad years there'd still be more than now. The timeline for bottoming out and recovering would be quicker because the baitfish population wouldn't always be in a decimated state.

Right now the lake is chalk full of chunky 14"-16" walleyes from the 2013 year class. They exist in numbers so vast they have already started decimating the level of forage abundant up until a year ago, a result from their explosion after the crash of large walleyes. The 2013 fish will start starving soon, along with the currently healthy and fat survivors of previous year classes.

I'm going to catch, keep, clean and eat hundreds of walleyes from Mille Lacs this summer. It's going to be my summer of love on the big pond. I encourage everyone else to do the same. Why not fish one of the premier walleye lakes when it's full of hungry eater sized walleyes and no one else is out there!? If you can't figure out how to get a bunch of walleyes off the lake without getting caught shoot me a pm and I'll give you some tips on methods that have been very effective for me. Nothing is full proof but I haven't been caught yet.

The latest poachers device I just concocted and tested the prototype has me excited. I shouldn't have any issues putting the knife to how ever many walleyes I put on a stringer in a day (hoping for a few 50+ fish cleaning parties).

[Bullet21XD]

I think the fish hatchery is a good idea. In my opinion, the sooner the DNR starts to manage the lake as a "put and take" fishery...the sooner they can make everyone with any interest in the lake, happy. After all, most people fishing the lake are only interested in catching and killing walleyes...the DNR needs to understand this and start addressing that issue.

There's surely several ways thye could recover the annual costs of running a high volume fish hatchery.

[Nershi]

The people who blame the DNR for the Mille Lacs walleye problems are the same people who pressure the representatives and governor to change the DNR's management plans each and every year. This has been going on even before the crash. Next time the DNR is ripped apart at the legislator or in the media for mismanaging and ruining the lake they should show a list of all of their management plans that have been changed over the last ten years due to pressure from the government or by laws that override their plans. It's tough to put the blame on the DNR when they aren't given full management authority.

I am puzzled why the DNR has not focused more on the forage. Here are some facts that would make you think they would be looking in to the forage issue more.

1. They have established that there has been plenty YOY walleyes each year but that most do not make it to adulthood.
2. The perch and tullibee populations used to be much stronger. I have not researched the net data of these species but it is well known that the perch and tullibee fishing used to be much better on the lake. I am sure the netting data shows this.
3. They have done stomach samples and have determined that the walleye are the ones eating most of the baby walleyes.
4. The 2013 year class survived in great numbers the same year the perch had a great hatch. There were baby perch everywhere in the lake that year which resulted in the survival of the YOY walleye because they weren't the only target for the hungry adult walleyes.

Despite these glaring facts the only management tactics have been focused on the predator fish - walleyes, pike and smallmouth. I have seen them mention the declining perch populations in some reports but other than that there has been little talk or focus on it. They did mention the tulibee populations decline and wanted to do some studies (I'm not sure if they are conducting the study or if they still have plans to) but other than that there has been little talk on the tullibee. The tullibees have been declining in several lakes, presumably due to rising temperatures, so it seems the main focus should be on the perch. I, as well as others, have expressed this on forums over they years and usually getting blasted by all the folks who prefer to point the finger at the DNR and nets. I have also emailed some folks at the DNR about this with no response.

Maybe the DNR knows it is a forage issue but has no clue how to fix it and don't want to admit it. Who knows, but it seems really strange they haven't had more focus on the forage.

If they want to plant fish in the lake they should plant perch, fatheads, shiners....whatever forage they think is cheapest and most effective. If they plant walleye they better raise them to be big enough so they aren't just gobbled up by the hungry walleyes. I can't imagine it would be cheap to raise walleyes to this stage prior to planting. Of course this will never happen unless the DNR starts focusing on the forage as the issue.

[get-n-birdy]

She's a top heavy gal, and the dnr keeps think implants will help, it won't. Reduce the stress on her back and be happy with a somewhat smaller sized set of cups and her back will show it.

[maplelakeduckslayer]

They should have known this(Forage issue) was coming 15 years ago when every dumb ass out there was boating 50-100 walleyes bigger than slot size in half day of fishing. Somehow it was just portrayed as a weird phenomenon that led to an incredible bite...we don't have people bright enough to see what was happening?