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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tikkalover" data-source="post: 160099" data-attributes="member: 600">Why are North Dakota waters open for fishing year round?ND Outdoors) --- Up until 1975 North Dakota anglers were forced to hang up the rods and reels for six or seven weeks in the spring.The reason for closing the season at the time was to protect vulnerable populations of spawning fish…"It was in place at one time with the thinking, the thought process, of protecting fish during the spawn, especially the walleye and pike populations that you could fish.  You could potentially have people targeting spawning populations and overharvesting," says Greg Power, the NDGF Fisheries Division Chief.The Missouri River system opened to year round fishing in 1975 then lakes statewide opened in 1993.Power says biologists have not seen any evidence of overharvest or depletion of these spawning fish in all these years…in fact, with a few exceptions, natural reproduction is not a major factor in walleye populations anyway…"In North Dakota, we're a little bit different in that our walleye populations, most of our lakes are stocked so we don't have naturally reproduction populations," says Power.Power says another factor in establishing year round fishing in North Dakota was to take advantage of an underused resource…"Pike in the spring of the year are in the shallows and there's a lot of shore fishing opportunities that historically we did not provide to the public but now they can get out there and we have seen people utilizing the pike in the spring," says Power.Many spring anglers do not target the spawning fish..in fact, in many cases it is just the opposite…if a big pre-spawn female is caught, she is returned to the water after a quick photo. Along with your new fishing license, remember your boat also needs new registration and stickers too</blockquote>

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