January 20, 2021 at 4:13 p.m.
Nearly 100 stakeholders participate in virtual meeting on walleye management
Nearly 100 stakeholders participate in virtual meeting on walleye management
The Oneida, Price and Vilas stakeholders offered input as far to what they would like to see with regulations, habitat, and a variety of other issues surrounding walleye populations in the Northwoods.
One of the areas on which this meeting, and all of the meetings around the state, focused on was regulations. While there are many different regulations in the Ceded Territory, some stakeholders wonder if it is enough to use those blanket regulations to achieve goals on every lake in the Northwoods. Still others hope there could be a way to simplify the regulations, making it easier for anglers to know the bag and size limits on the lakes they wish to fish. Simplification of regulations has been an area of interest in the department as well as the Natural Resources Board, but some wonder if too much simplification could be detrimental.
The "tool box" options in the Ceded Territory were presented with regulations such as one over 14 inches, a protected slot of 14-18, a 15 inch minimum, an 18 inch minimum and a 28 inch minimum all being options from which management could be chosen.
"What we need tonight is what you want to see in that management plan," the Department of Natural Resources (DNR)'s Max Wolter told the group in his introduction. He said the goal was to explore the different ways to achieve the same end and to learn more about public perception and ideas from those who are connected to the fisheries. Wolter said the department would be giving multiple opportunities for public input throughout the process.
Stocking was another area on which this series of meetings would focus. Wolter told the group he felt the best use of time for this week's meeting would be to discuss things over which the plan would have control.
In the Ceded Territory, for instance, tribal harvest is not covered by the state's walleye management plan, so while Wolter said the discussion would not shy away from any topic, he felt it would be the best use of time to talk about these sorts of things only briefly and focus on those areas over which the plan had control.
Wolter did speak about tribal harvest, giving information that he felt many may not know or about which they may have misconceptions. For instance, he said, tribal harvest of walleyes accounts for approximately 30,000 fish, while hook and line anglers account for 232,000 throughout the Ceded Territory. He also spoke about the size restrictions, such as only allowing two fish per permit over 20 inches for tribal members. The permit allows for tribal harvest on a specific lake on a specific night. Approximately 500-600 tribal members participate in tribal harvest each year.
Prioritizing issues
The meeting started with broad goals for walleye management in the state. Some of those broad goals included maximizing the health of walleye as well as predator/prey relationships. Understanding trends in changes in walleye populations as well as increasing the size of walleye overall were also mentioned.
Others in attendance wished the department to leverage regulations to create more quality fishing opportunities, perhaps through the use of more stringent slots. More restrictive bag limits were mentioned by many in attendance as well. Wolter and others from the department who were included in the meeting, repeatedly said they were impressed by the number of great ideas from participants, as the ideas came rapid-fire in the chat of the Zoom meeting. Genetics, shoreline habitat, water quality and even climate change were on the minds of stakeholders in the group.
Wolter presented the group with a list of management activities on which the department could be focused and asked the group to choose their top four as they saw them in importance. Of the 10 different things on that list, stakeholders chose protecting high quality walleye habitat as the most important use of time and resources. The next two were fairly close as far as the number of respondents who chose them. Those were restoring degraded walleye habitat and surveying walleye populations. Walleye research made the fourth highest priority on what Wolter said was the largest survey respondent pool in stakeholder meetings thus far.
Wolter spoke about various studies going on throughout the state as well. Many of these studies are going on currently, with results pending, but he felt there was a great deal of work going on that could help inform management decisions in the future as their results are completed. Looking at the amount of forage available, as well as how walleye would respond to removal of competing species are just two of the many studies currently underway.
The discussion then turned to more local issues. Recruitment decline is one issue important in the Northwoods. In some lakes the decline has been dramatic, and in others it is more gradual, but overall, the decline in recruitment, as well as lower success rates in smaller stocked fish in general, has been a concern for walleye managers in recent years. Stocking, Wolter said, is only a temporary solution and does not necessarily mean recruitment will rise with more stocking.
He said eggs are still being laid and fertilized, and in most cases the eggs hatch successfully, but in mid-summer those fish disappear from the system. That stage, Wolter said, is a critical one for recruitment. He said it was not necessarily tied to harvest, although without recruitment, harvests would eventually be effected.
Some lakes, too, are becoming more clear and many show an increase in the amounts of vegetation in the lake. Other species, such as bass, do better in warmer lakes, and as lakes warm with climate change, they are better adapted than walleye in those lakes.
The group was asked what they would support the department doing in response to these changes in lakes and fish communities. Some of the suggestions from the group included studying the zooplankton in the lake, which is the main forage for age-0 walleye, potential impacts of boating as well as understanding the role of electronics in use by today's anglers. Some asked the department to look at what other states are doing and what they may be learning in their own fisheries. Faster closures of declining fisheries was also mentioned in the group as well as working on habitat improvements.
The large group split out into seven breakout groups to brainstorm ideas as well. After each of these sessions, the group got back together to discuss findings and to pair down the list of ideas to see which areas came out as the most important overall. The group was asked, in one session, which walleye regulations were seen as successful and why, and which were not successful and why. A great deal of input came from those breakout sessions as well.
In one breakout session, Kurt Justice from Kurt's Island Sports in Minocqua said he liked the idea of the slot limit, but felt it might be better to move the top end of the protected slot to 26 or 28 inches. He also brought up fall fishing on deeper lakes.
"When anglers are out fishing deep water, bringing fish up out of 35 or 40 feet, in some of these lakes they are catching and releasing fish that are probably not surviving," Justice said. "And I don't know how the best way to do this is, but in some way to make a change in the season ... some way to protect those fish."
If an angler catches three fish, he said, that person could only have the opportunity to kill those three fish rather than catch and release 30 fish, he used as an example, out of deep water, and have that many fish die from hooking mortality when coming out of deep water. He wondered if there might be a way to still have the opportunity to fish in the fall, but also to limit the collateral damage of those fish coming out of deep water.
Local guide Rob Manthei said he agreed with Justice that many lakes could benefit from a higher end to the protected slot. He liked the 26-28 inch upper end on the slot as well. Fish over 25 inches, he said, are few and far in between, which would limit the number of larger fish that would be harvested. He also had the same concern about anglers fishing deep in the fall. He felt maybe a season closure on those deep lakes could help in those instances.
"It's going to make a lot of the fish mongers unhappy, but in the long run we have to think about the next 50 years in our area and not what's going on now," Manthei said. "Between electronics, between waypoint sharing, between apps on your phone, between texting this spot to that spot, whatever. Social media. There's just so much information out there that can put the average angler on fish that would normally not be finding these fish." He said all of this together has drastically increased the pressure on many fisheries.
The entire meeting lasted more than two and a half hours, with a wealth of information and ideas being shared in breakout sessions as well as in the main session. Stocking, research, rehabilitation, and many other areas were deemed as important. The input from this session, as well as other sessions across the state, will all be taken under advisement when looking at creating the final draft of the state's walleye management plan.
Input for the plan will be taken through March 2021 and the stakeholder meetings will continue through that time as well. From March through June, the department will summarize all of the input and create the first draft of the updated plan. In July and August that draft will go out to the public for further comment. Those looking to read the plan or to make their comments to the DNR can find all of the information on the DNR website dnr.wi.gov by searching keywords "walleye management."
Beckie Gaskill may be reached via email at [email protected].
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