wow, finally today is the first day at 6:30pm that no one is ice fishing out in front of hunter winfields web cam. I hope the mystery guy is okay, and not fall thru. It looks as though the ice is finally deteriorated to the point that even walking in the bay is not safe. I am just curious as to how many crappies and blue gills he and his friends have caught and kept. They say fishing has been slow, but a few here and there. Nothing like a tasty fresh crappie or blue gill fillet.
Most if not all of the netting anyone is seeing is Mn. DNR tagging walleyes via the use of hoop type nets. (not gill-nets)
The sad part is that the tagged walleyes, marked for doing a population study by tracking the tagged fish as they are caught ( or not caught) and reported by sport anglers, will be lost to Tribal gill-nets if the Tribal netting is done after the sport anglers season starts. Study models of the percentage of tagged walleyes caught by hook line have been in place to determine fish numbers in lakes for years. But if the nets take a bunch, the model/study is off I would guess. But then "who" cares? Aitkin fisheries says " the gill-nets make no difference".
I could not resist registering for this forum. I was one of the 3 people in Isle Bay on 05/05. Why is that so shocking to most here, I just do not know? There was still a fairly solid 20 inches of ice, and an easy walk back to shore with a single plank. What did we catch? Well, if you do not go, you will never know! However, I do appreciate having 120 plus holes, most that I drilled all to ourselves.
I agree Doug. I took Friday off with the intention of saying I fished on the Ice in May. As it turns out, I fished Friday thru Sunday which was amazing. I know quite a few people that fished near Sauk Center, Alexandria and many that fished in the Park Rapids area. I heard from some friends that they fished just west of Park Rapids yesterday, and that Dave Genz was still out with a snowmobile. The Ice Season was stretched a full 60 days from last year. Quite shocking. On a related note, I observed the Native Americans setting nets in that channel by Father Hennippin State Park Sunday, wow they work fast.
Thanks for the clarification Steve. It appeared to me that the DNR was out on Saturday doing there thing, and that on Sunday a boat was out setting some sort of Nets. I watched both as I ice fished.