ISLE, Minn. – Walleye management techniques on Mille Lacs have been affirmed by a panel of four outside experts who reviewed the practices and compared them favorably to systems at other major walleye lakes in the Midwest and Canada.
Results from the highly anticipated audit fit with what the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has been telling its critics for years. Gov. Mark Dayton was the first to be briefed on the report in a private meeting Monday at the governor's residence in St. Paul.
"The science and the assessment program that the Minnesota DNR is implementing on Mille Lacs appears to be appropriate given the scale and size of the fishery,'' said Chris Vandergoot, the federal research fisheries biologist who led the external review from Ohio.
A leader of the Mille Lacs walleye community ripped the report as superficial.
"It's disappointing because we really expected more,'' said Mille Lacs resort owner Dean Hanson, co-chair of the DNR-appointed Mille Lacs Fisheries Advisory Committee (MLFAC). "It did very little to satisfy the questions I had.''
In the wake of the report, which was presented Monday night at a MLFAC meeting at McQuoid's Inn, DNR fisheries chief Don Pereira said Tuesday that no changes will be made in the way his staff estimates walleye abundance or how the agency measures the harvest and fish mortality.
Business owners, lakeside cabin dwellers, fishing pros and other anglers have accused the DNR of underestimating the lake's walleye population and setting low harvest quotas. The recent restrictions have caused temporary fishing shutdowns and regulations that have made it illegal for summer anglers to keep any walleyes.
Those protections will remain in play this year even as the biggest crop of walleyes now swimming in Mille Lacs has grown into sexual maturity and is helping to boost natural reproduction. Still, the DNR has said most baby walleyes in Mille Lacs die before their third year — a critical, unresolved problem.