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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lunkerslayer" data-source="post: 81345" data-attributes="member: 217">Ron Schara wonders if we’ve learned anything, given walleye management on Mille Lacs: –Walleye at a 40-year low “thanks to the DNR's miscalculated ‘safe harvest’ figures;” –Nobody at the DNR fired or transferred; and –Nothing from the Legislature to help hard-hit businesses around Mille Lacs.He notes that “DNR Fisheries officials finally admitted their excessive harvest quotas aimed at 15- to 18-inch walleyes was a huge error” that gave us the current situation.But “making Mille Lacs healthy again will be painful for all concerned.” Shara writes that "It wasn’t just tribal netting, by itself that decimated the walleyes in Lake Mille Lacs." Tribes with treaty rights have nothing to gain hurting the lake or its anglers.Recently the Fond du Lac Band–at the request of the Bois Forte Band–agreed not to net and spear walleyes in Lake Vermilion this spring, even though they had the right. The Bois Forte wanted to keep Vermilion known for its tourism opportunities, not for its tribal netting. The request bolstered the Bois Forte's reputation as “good neighbors.”Which Schara considered to be good news—and another lesson: “The goodwill of the Lake Vermilion community–its tourism business and all–is considered too important to risk for a few walleye dinners.”For Schara, treaty rights “are not the issue. The issue is gill nets. It doesn't matter who sets them.”He points out that lessons were learned from netting on Red Lake and commercial netting on Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake. Now those lakes have “returned to walleye glory, aided by state and tribal leadership.”Schara’s key point: “the comeback of world-class walleye fishing did not occur until the walleye nets were eliminated or severely controlled.”- - - Updated - - -DNR is mandated by the protocols to manage the lake in order to meet the quotas. That means their well paid/educated experts don't get a chance to biologically manage the lake.The DNR doesn't have the tools to deal with protocols overriding biology. So they are left with using fishing pressure and mortality rate to meet specific quotas based on estimates that have a 20 to 30 percent margin of error.Solutions?Steve believes the only change that will have an impact is to change the protocols. That means going back to analyze, and possibly re-negotiate, the protocols. It's not about re-negotiating the treaty, it's about reexamining the protocols. But "That is where it has to start."Looks to me the DNR is to blame for mismanagement of resources, doesn't this sound familiar with are own problems with the NDGF deer harvest.</blockquote>

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