Veto ended ill-advised fishing provision

The most curious provision of the game and fish bill that Gov. Tim Pawlenty rightly vetoed Tuesday has received little attention relative to the measure's more obviously goofy components.

Well aired, for example, has been a proposal in the bill that would have sanctioned fishing with two lines, so long as an angler paid an additional $10 annually for the privilege of doing so, while being allowed only half a limit of fish.

That makes sense.

Also publicized have been provisions that would have established a deer season in the southeast (who better to do it than legislators?) and expand to 17 the age by which the state must stop coddling young anglers and ask them pretty please, finally, to pay for a fishing license.

But it was a requirement in the bill that would have eliminated fishing in spring along a short stretch of state-owned land on Lake Florida in Kandiyohi County that is gaining new attention.

Some background:

Lake Florida was, through the 1970s, a good black crappie lake. But beginning about three decades ago, these fish began a downward trend in the lake that concerned both fisheries managers and home and cabin owners on Lake Florida.

Perhaps because of that and subsequent stockings, or perhaps because of natural cycling, the DNR's samplings have showed a slight uptick in these fish.

Consider now the west end of Lake Florida, at its outlet to the Florida Slough, where the DNR has long owned (and previously occupied by easement) property where it maintained a small dam and carp trap that consisted, basically, of two rock dikes extending into the lake.

Fisheries managers statewide have long since abandoned traps like these becasue of their ineffectiveness. They did so also at Lake Florida, where, as part of a simultaneous effort to accommodate shore anglers using the small (few acre) site, the DNR built a fishing platform at the end of one of the dikes.

The DNR also has made other modifications that allow fish to move through the area more quickly in spring, thus reducing their vulnerability to angling at that time.

In recent years, the spot has been popular in spring among crappie anglers not only on shore, but also nearby, in boats.

Regardless of whether they're on shore or in boats, some of these anglers take limits of crappies, bluegills or both in spring. But conservation officers, especially vigilant then, in recent years have not written an exceptional number of tickets among either group, according to the DNR.

Why then the game and fish bill provision that would have eliminated angling in spring "surrounding" the DNR site on Lake Florida -- a plan that some say targeted shore anglers?

Bruce Gilbertson, area fisheries manager in Spicer, Minn., who oversees the lake, said no one consulted him.

The proposal surprised not only Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, DFL-Fridley, chair of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee ("It wasn't in the Senate bill, it must have come from the House," Chaudhary said), but also Rep. Al Junke, DFL-Willmar, who represents the area. "I don't know. Ask Rep. Dill," Junke said Thursday, referring to David Dill, DFL-Crane Lake, chair of the House Game, Fish and Forestry Division.

Dill said Thursday he authored the Lake Florida language at the request of the lake association. "My intent only was to protect spawning crappies. It wasn't meant to discriminate against shore anglers," he said. The provision was heard 10 times in the recent session, and no one protested, Dill said, adding that similar protections are used on waters statewide.

Said Gilbertson: "I doubt if shore fishing has any impact on the lake's overall fish populations, including crappies. What affects crappies in particular is lakeshore development and the loss of trees, which can make them more vulnerable."

Shoreline development?

Who would do that?

Chances are, it wasn't anglers who cast a string and a bobber into Lake Florida while sitting on shore.