I think you, Minners, missed something in his statements that I find to be key; the DNR and tribes were incorrectly setting harvest limits and targeted too narrow of a range in the walleye popluation. The bottom line here is that there was an assumption among the decision makers that the impact of netting would not be as substantial as it actually is. Their plan to "offset" the netting with slot limits, night ban, bag limits, etc for sport anglers has back fired and the lake is in serious trouble. He is essentially giving support to the arguement that has been made repeatedly on this site that the DNR lacks the skill and ability to properly manage the fishery with the netting. Now, they are scrambling to try and come up with a way to reverse the affect of their ignorance. When all they need to do is the right thing for the fishery and that is put an equal level of scrutiny to the netting as the sport harvest. Notice how they don't regulate time of day or year or anything? I agree with the DNR field agaent that it's not the netting alone but the complete mismanagement of it.
EXACTLY Willy!!! Many don't seem to realize, when we say do away the netting, we are intending to do away with all related treaty era management practices that were not in place before the era started. He uses the word "accommodate" when reasoning the slot limits etc. Obviously, history shows sport angling can be managed in a fashion that works but when you add gill-nets ( and worse yet during the spawn) you loose control and as Mr. Jones worries about, loose the whole lake/walleye population.
So--"it' the nets"!!!!!!!!
-- Edited by Steve Fellegy on Friday 17th of May 2013 05:34:12 PM
Nice media report! I wonder if they made a call notifying of their interest in doing the story?
Sure had everything lined up nice! I've heard just this past week of three different occasions where tribal boats left ramps in the early morning hours "without" any counting or measuring of the fish?? guess they may have called in their weights and numbers to the authories......as everyone has cell phones now!
Guess I would call that a good heads up on Kare 11
I think you, Minners, missed something in his statements that I find to be key; the DNR and tribes were incorrectly setting harvest limits and targeted too narrow of a range in the walleye popluation. The bottom line here is that there was an assumption among the decision makers that the impact of netting would not be as substantial as it actually is. Their plan to "offset" the netting with slot limits, night ban, bag limits, etc for sport anglers has back fired and the lake is in serious trouble. He is essentially giving support to the arguement that has been made repeatedly on this site that the DNR lacks the skill and ability to properly manage the fishery with the netting. Now, they are scrambling to try and come up with a way to reverse the affect of their ignorance. When all they need to do is the right thing for the fishery and that is put an equal level of scrutiny to the netting as the sport harvest. Notice how they don't regulate time of day or year or anything? I agree with the DNR field agaent that it's not the netting alone but the complete mismanagement of it.
So what he is saying is what we all have been saying. You cannot manage the fishery by POUNDS, it has to be by numbers in the population. Ten years ago they could have went to a 3 or 4 fish limit with one over twenty inches and I think we would not be where we are at today.
