Changing MN culling ban on MN/WI waters

How many of us would support a Bill that would allow culling? Wisconsin Bass anglers pushed for and got a Bill that allows culling. Should we do the same?

I believe you can already cull in MN.

Its been discussed. I can’t remember if you can cull up until you fill your limit or if it is outright illegal to cull a fish once it is in your livewell. I think it is the latter.

From a conservation stand point I think no culling is good. It keeps people from keeping only the biggest fish. From a tourney stand point though it is obviously bad. I think tourneys should be exempt, but require all fish be released. Most tourneys penalize dead fish, so you know they take extra precautious.

Almost certain you can cull until you have your limit.

I am with you pug that culling is not good for the resources. Keep a fish in the live well for half a day bouncing around and it might look like its OK to release but pretty darn sure its going to die. IMHO culling should be illegal.

Page 27 of the 2014 MN fishing regs says :

Once a daily or possession limit of fish has been reached, no culling or live well sorting
is allowed. No culling is allowed on Mille Lacs, or on Wisconsin, South Dakota, or North
Dakota border waters (see pages 37 and 60-65).

I’m favorable to having culling on the WI/MN boundary warer

Stinky, MN/WI Border waters are no cull (while all in-land except ML allow culling). In the last few years many tournament anglers/winners have been DQ’d for doing this. WI angers got an exemption for permitted tournaments, but it only applies to the Wisconsin side of the river. The main opposition comes from MN CO’s, they are concerned that if someone see’s them approaching their boat and they are over limit, that they will immediately dump fish and could claim they were culling. The absurdity to this is why it isn’t an issue on inland waters and permitted WI waters.

Well, lets face it, culling probably happens more times then it doesn’t in MN, especially with all of our slots and special regs we have here. In other words I don’t think much will change if a simple rewording is done to appease the tournament fishermen (I assume that is the root of all this). Poachers will poach regardless of the way the law is written.

So are you saying that right now its illegal to dump a bucket of live fish out? In other words if I have 3 or 4 panfish, and then decide I don’t want to keep them I can’t dump them? If that’s the case, then a lot of tournament fishermen are breaking the law.

dtro, this about all fishing contests on the river. The contest permit gives permission for the Contest Director to live release fish that have been brought into the weigh-in. During some summer months, walleye live release is prohibited. On inland waters with a six fish State limit, you could put and take from your livewell up to the point when you have six total in the well. On the MN/WI waters, any fish put in the well must stay there until weigh-in.

Well I’m not sure I’m entirely understanding what you are asking if we support or not (inland, border, etc) but I will say that any law that requires you to keep a fish once you put it in the livewell is a silly one and should be changed to reflect modern age practices such has tournament fishing and using the livewell to revive fish.

Like I said, I’d like to see it to keep people from say culling 9″+ gills and throwing all the 7-8″ back. But like Darren said, it’s kind of like driving 55. Sure, it’s the law, but no one follows it.

Pug we have the same issue with Pike and Walleyes, folks want to harvest the biggest fish; which we need to keep in the eco-system. The over abundance of small Pike is a good example what happened due to our decimating big pike. On culling back in the 60’s the two DNR’s sat down and negotiated a joint set of regs. Wisconsin is a no-cull State, MN accepted this for the river. We have many river regs that differ depending on which side of the river you are on. Number of hooks, lines, etc. Now that WI is allowing permitted WI tourneys to cull, contests are pullling WI permits and going out of the WI side. Minnesota River Cities are paying a price for this. MN has become a joke nationally for our no cull river rule.

Ah-hem…

MN is becoming a joke nationally due to more then the no-cull rule on the river.

Most if not all out state anglers fishing the river buy a WI non-resident license. Why? Because they will then have a possession limit of 12 walleyes compared to MN max possession limit of six.

The catfish folks from out of state go for the WI license because the daily limit is 25 flatheads or channels (50 in possession). While MN is 10.

Of course I can’t back this claim up with data, but I would bet those two items listed above hurt MN’s economy more then a couple <insert species of choice> tournies. IMHO