Plenty of politics to go around

Let's take a look at the flap following a last-minute amendment to the game and fish bill proposed by Rep. David Dill, DFL-Crane Lake, and Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, DFL-Fridley, that requires the Department of Natural Resources to implement some sort of special fishing regulation on the Fish Lake Reservoir near Duluth.

The bill has not yet been signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

The intent of the regulation proposed by Dill and Chaudhary would be to increase the average size of walleyes in Fish Lake, and/or to boost the number of walleyes there in excess of 20 inches.

Dill offered the amendment in the House at the behest of Chaudhary. Because Chaudhary has a cabin on Fish Lake, he is being accused by some of conflict of interest. Additionally, the insertion of the directive by Chaudhary without an airing of the proposal denied interested parties a chance to weigh in. Chaudhary has since apologized, saying he should have checked more widely to see whether new regulations were supported.

Pertinent questions: Was Chaudhary's attempt to intercede in the state's fish management business unusual in a state in which fish, wildlife and natural resource management is and long has been defined by politics?

And: To what degree are intercessions by Minnesota politicians into natural resource management a natural response -- perhaps even a logical one -- to the DNR's oftentimes glacial pace in addressing management of -- and especially improvement of -- the state's resources?

The answer to the first question is easy. Actions like Chaudhary's (for better and worse) are more the norm in Minnesota politics and resource management than the exception. This year's game and fish bill makes the point. In it, legislators, over the DNR's objections, a) open Cass Lake to spearing of northerns, b) set a deer season in the southeast, c) allow youth anglers 17 and under to fish for free, thereby costing the agency at least $500,000, d) allow ATV riders to shoot grouse while only 10 feet from their machines, and e) most ridiculously, allow anglers to use two lines in summer, while being allowed to take only half the limit they would otherwise be allowed, if they pay $10 extra ... and so forth, into resource-management nutso land.

Similarly, Sen. Tom Baak, DFL-Cook, was critical in the establishment this session of what might someday be Minnesota's best state park -- in Baak's district, on Lake Vermilion.

Other examples abound -- many of them necessary prods by legislators to a DNR that often trudges along slowly under the weight of its own bureaucracy.

Return now to Fish Lake.

In March, the DNR held a meeting to show interested Fish Lake anglers results of recent DNR creel surveys of the lake, and to detail how various slot-limit regulations might affect the lake's walleyes, according to DNR computer models.

About 30 people showed up. Each filled out a questionnaire before the DNR laid out its creel survey and modeling results. Later, after the DNR told the anglers they would have to throw back walleyes in the 14-20 inch range if they wanted bigger walleyes, the anglers were queried again.

A fourfold digression: 1. The DNR in the past 20 years has implemented special regulations on many Minnesota lakes. 2. Oftentimes the DNR is painfully slow (Leech Lake is the most recent example), to begin the special regulations process, even when agreement is nearly universal that they're needed. Why? Because the DNR is itself political, and often follows more than it leads. 3. New slot regulations often are opposed initially by one or more constituencies, and 4. Slot regulations, together in some cases with other management techniques, usually in the end produce better fishing, with happier anglers among all strata of users.

The DNR's agenda was (and still is) to gauge the opinions of a larger sample of people regarding Fish Lake. Then the agency -- which doubtless will proceed frustratingly slowly -- will decide whether to begin the process that might lead to new walleye harvest rules.

Chaudhary and other legislators, meanwhile -- but in this case Chaudhary especially -- would do well to remind themselves the citizenry doesn't appreciate being left out of the legislative process.

Pawlenty, if he wishes, could serve that reminder personally. The game and fish bill is a mess, and he should veto it.