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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Early FDL walleye take very limited

Netting expected to continue, but likely won’t reach 2,500-pound quota

Marshall Helmberger
Posted 4/28/16

LAKE VERMILION— The first night of netting by members of the Fond du Lac Band at Peterson’s Landing on the western end of Lake Vermilion went off without major controversy Tuesday night, and with …

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Early FDL walleye take very limited

Netting expected to continue, but likely won’t reach 2,500-pound quota

Posted

LAKE VERMILION— The first night of netting by members of the Fond du Lac Band at Peterson’s Landing on the western end of Lake Vermilion went off without major controversy Tuesday night, and with only a minimal harvest of walleye.

Band members were expected to be back for another night of netting late Wednesday, after the Timberjay’s weekly presstime.

A total of 18 band members participated in the first night’s harvest. Participating members deployed a single, 100-foot net on Tuesday evening and recovered it on Wednesday morning.

Fond du Lac biologists and law enforcement recorded the harvest, which included 13 walleye, totaling 38 pounds, along with 37 northern pike, totaling 51 pounds.

Fond du Lac had set a walleye quota of 2,500 pounds, with no quota for other species, so the first night’s harvest represents only a tiny fraction of the allowable catch.

Band members determine day-to-day whether they’ll continue the harvest and couldn’t say how long beyond Wednesday they expected to continue with netting operations.

The scene was a busy one, according to observers. “There were a lot of different enforcement people there,” said Edie Evarts, Tower area fisheries manager, who went to observe the harvest on Wednesday morning. The DNR has no authority over the netting, which is authorized under the terms of the 1854 Treaty, which is regulated by the federal government.

Brian Borkholder, a Fond du Lac biologist who oversees the harvest, said he couldn’t comment on the first night’s harvest or how long the operations might continue on Lake Vermilion.

While Fond du Lac has long had rights to hunt and fish within the 1854 Treaty zone, which includes most of northeastern Minnesota, this is the first time in recent memory that the band has opted to exercise its rights on Lake Vermilion. The band had proposed to harvest on Vermilion last year, but the Bois Forte Tribal Council had prevailed upon Fond du Lac officials to delay for at least a year. Bois Forte band members have undertaken subsistence netting on the lake for generations, which does not appear to have had a significant impact on the lake’s walleye population, which remains among the most robust of any lake in Minnesota.

Under the terms of the 1854 Treaty, Indian tribes are allowed half the safe harvest on lakes within the treaty zone, although the harvest announced by Fond du Lac won’t come anywhere near that level. Evarts said the DNR considers 65,000 pounds to be the safe harvest level for walleye on Vermilion.

Even so, DNR officials have been in discussion with Fond du Lac about their long-term plans, which currently include an annual harvest on Vermilion. “Their intent is to alternate each year between the east and west basins,” said DNR regional fisheries manager Joe Mix.

Mix noted that the Fond du Lac harvest is intensively managed, with both law enforcement and a team of biologists on hand whenever a netting or spearing night is established. “We’ll know right down to the fish, what they harvest,” said Mix.