New walleye season on Mille Lacs will be catch-and-release

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced Monday a historic set of new regulations that will prevent anglers on Lake Mille Lacs from keeping any walleyes this season and will limit them to using only artificial bait.

DNR Fisheries Chief Don Pereira said the measures are designed to prevent a repeat of last year's midseason shutdown of walleye fishing — a devastating experience to the Mille Lacs community.

Resort owners said Tuesday that the new rules undoubtedly would change the profile of those who visit the lake in coming months. "It won't be the summer we had hoped for," said Terry McQuoid, owner of McQuoid's Inn on Mille Lacs. "But we'll all get through."

People who want to fish in traditional ways from their own boats and keep walleyes for dinner won't be back this summer, said Tina Chapman of Chapman's Mille Lacs Resort & Guide Service. But a "good number" of anglers who merely like to catch walleyes and others who want to enjoy premier bass and northern fishing will keep making Mille Lacs a destination, said Chapman, who also is local liaison to Explore Minnesota Tourism.

"It remains to be seen as to what kind of an impact this will be," she said.

Everyone, including the DNR, emphasized that the fishing restrictions don't mean that there's a scarcity of walleyes. The winter ice-fishing season was a big success, with walleyes biting at about three times the normal rate, and that's expected to carry over into the open-water season that starts May 14.

"Those fish are going to bite like crazy on whatever you throw at them," said Steve Fellegy, a longtime Mille Lacs fishing guide who lives in Garrison, Minn.

"It's pretty sad that it was allowed to get to this point," Fellegy said.

The DNR's Pereira said it was a difficult decision to ban live bait and impose catch-and-release regulations, but both rules will slow the rate at which anglers approach the state's 2016 harvest quota of 28,600 pounds of walleye.

The state allocation stems from a joint fisheries management system with eight Chippewa bands from Minnesota and Wisconsin. Their share this year is 11,400 pounds. Last year, the state exceeded its quota in early August, prompting the shutdown.

Presumed mortality rates for walleyes hooked and returned to the water count against the allocation, and there's no guarantee that the quota won't be breached again this year before the season is over, Pereira said. That's especially true because the catch rate is predicted to be high, with warmer water temperatures accelerating the hooking mortality rate. Artificial baits decrease the hooking mortality rate by 55 percent.

"We really wanted to provide as much fishing as possible," Pereira said.

The one exception to the no-live-bait rule: Launch operators who participate in a DNR study can let their customers use live bait, provided that the launches agree to participate in efforts to collect data for the DNR. The agency wants to use the information to better understand hooking mortality, among other things. Pereira said details of the scientific permit program are being worked out.

The DNR undoubtedly will receive negative feedback from people who don't want restrictions, Pereira said.

State Sen. David Brown, R-Becker, said on Monday that he'll attempt to introduce a bill that would reverse the DNR decision. He said he doesn't know if the bill will get a hearing, but it's for constituents around Mille Lacs who he says will be crushed financially by the drastic change.

"People are calling to cancel their reservations," Brown said.

However, the Legislature would put the Mille Lacs walleye fishery at risk if it tries to undo the regulations, said DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr.

The DNR has not heard from the eight Chippewa bands with Mille Lacs fish-harvest rights and whether they will take their walleye quota this year, he said.

Dylan Jennings, a spokesman for the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission, said the decision is an intertribal matter. Individual bands will decide whether to communicate their plans, he said.

Kevin McQuoid, owner of Mac's Twin Bay Resort on Mille Lacs, said he doesn't believe the lake's walleye situation is dire enough to warrant the regulations announced Monday. "But we'll make the best of it," he said.

He said good fishermen can catch walleyes with artificial bait, including Gulp and other synthetic products. "That part doesn't bother me," he said. "It's the average anglers who just want to bobber fish with a leech in the evenings who might not come."

Terry McQuoid, meanwhile, said his operation lost most of its "meat fishermen" two or three years ago as walleye limits were drastically cut. But he agreed that the latest regulations go too far.

Meanwhile, he touted Mille Lacs as one of the top five bass fisheries in the world. "People forget Mille Lacs is home to more than just walleyes," McQuoid said.

Steve Johnson, owner of Portside Bait & Liquor near Isle, said the DNR doesn't have accurate measuring tools when it comes to hooking mortality and harvest. He questions whether the lake has a failed ecosystem or a failed management system.

"We have a wonderful lake, loaded with fish," he said. "Mille Lacs is the only place where great fishing can be a problem."

Johnson said his own business is diversified enough to sustain this year's changes. He said tourists will still come, but traditional walleye anglers will stay home — and this already has been a trend.

"Give me some great weekends and great weather, and we'll have people up here," Johnson said. "It'll be fine."