Slob Ice Fishermen

Ok, enough is enough. Over the last 2 weeks, I have seen beer cans, soda cans, wrappers, Car rims (!!), etc on the ice. Please (and I know this isn’t FTR people) pick up after yourself.

Yesterday was the worst, though. Some myopic individual decided to throw some pike on the ice by Bay Point Park and leave them there. I realize to some purist ‘eye guys, they are a nuisance. They serve a purpose in the ecosystem, so either let them go or eat the smaller ones. This really give a bad name to fishermen.

Enough ranting for now.

Reminds me of what I found one year. Some one had changed a diaper (inside an ice shack, I hope) and left it in a paper bag on the end of a pier. Being a good samaritan, I picked it up and as it was cold, did not notice the smell. Did not take long for it to start warming up in the car though.

It’s too bad the DNR doesn’t have the resources to have the people neded to police our lakes and rivers. Too few people spread too thin. A question. How much “extra” would you guys be willing to spend on a fishing license if you knew that “extra” money would be allocated specifically and entirely to adding additional enforecement officials assigned to field duty?

Me? Quite a bit. To me, > $20 for a fishing license for a season is the best spent money I fork over all year and I get WAY more than what I pay for, in my opinion. Would $30 be too much. No, not to me. $50 a season. Probably not. I do realize I’m a single male, no kids, looking at this from a different perspective given my number of days spent on the water each season and these figures would prohibit some others from particpating in our sport, which would be a VERY bad thing. I’m just curious, in a hypothetical sense, if the DNR said we as sportsman could get 50% more enforcement officials, would you be willing to pay more to get that? Would you even want that? If so, how much more would you be willing to pay?

I completely agree with what you are saying, and what has been said in this post. If needed, yes I would pay extra. But my question is: ‘Why should we, the honest non-littering sportsman have to pay to keep our rivers, lakes, and streams clean?’ It should be second nature to take your trash home or to a proper receptacle. I’ll bet these people don’t let trash litter their yard. We all need to remember the outdoors is everybodys front yard.

BF

Are you kidding me? Heck yeah, I’d pay more. To me, having the opportunity to take my sons into the outdoors is the best investment I could make. Add to that the fact that there are some people out there who feel it is ok to leave everything from cig butts to the trolling motor Nate Cadwell found where ever they please proves to me the need for more CO presence.

I will admit that I’m aware of the naivety that is woven into the cloth of my “more money will solve all our problems” type post. I know it’s there. Maybe more money would help. Maybe it wouldn’t. I’m just curious, at a real basical level, if the more serious anglers that frequent FTR would be willing to foot more of the bill to care for the resources they use? If curiosity killed the cat, shoot me now.

Pay more? Absolutely! Having ice fished Lake of the Woods twice, Upper Red twice and numerous trips to Wabasha’s backwaters, I am growing tired of picking up after others. Somewhat befuddling that I can never catch someone in the act and try and get into their head to see why they could act so careless……… I have a hard time understanding why anyone would litter, let alone toss game fish on the ice…. enuf said.

Ezhook

I think it’s time for Sportsmen who care to speak right up if they see something like the fore mentioned happen. If you get on there case they might think twice about doing it again. The DNR is to money poor with all the budget cuts to handle things like this. So we should help out as much as we can to keep our waterways clean. Maybe a Turn in a Litterbug program would work. Who Knows?

The Pike, one of our most under valued fish, chastised by walleye fishermen, cursed by muskie fishermen, slandered by bass fishermen, thrown away by some slob who probably was fishing them without a liscence………….what I wouldnt give to get slimy right now. The actions of a few reflect on us all. That is why we must call in all poachers, keep our eyes and ears open……..and find a little respect for the lowly Pike!

Amen bigpike……….amen.

Count me in for $50 James…….I would do this.

30-40 years ago the way to clean a car was to collect all of the garbage before you got home and throw it all out of the window. Remember what the road sides looked like? Take a look at them this spring after just one winters littering. Pop bottles, cigarette packages, food containers and packages all over the road sides. One can find McDonalds bags in the ditch 40 miles from the nearest McDonalds. The point is that way too many people are slobs and care nothing for others feelings or the environment. Fact is though that there are many super organizations that walk up and down these roads a couple times a year and clean up after these slobs. Fact is also that there are many wonderful organizations that gather to collect trash on diferent parts of the big Miss. and on other bodies of water as well. Anyway, more money to the DNR, NO. More money to support these organizations and to help create more? Yea.

not only do people need to respect game fish (like pike) but people need to respect non-gamefish. Gar, Bowfin,sheepshead, sucker, etc all have an important place in the ecosystem just like pike, walleye, bass, and muskie. It is no more wasteful to toss a pike on the shore than a walleye or a sucker. I have fishedd for almost every species in the areas that i fish and they are all worthy of pursuit. alright i will get off my rant for now.

We had a problem with people dumping garbage down by the river where I live. A couple of us got together and set up camera’s. Well we found out who was doing the dumping. We took the video camera to our local law enforcement. From the info on the film (license plate number)they were able to site the party responsible for illegal dumping. Needless to say after hearing about this, the dumping of garbage has stopped.

Thank You brother kid……..Thank You

I agree with all the comments from WI and MN fisherman and I think you should pay $50.00 for your liscence and that would keep that Junk from floating down to Iowa and then we would not have to pay a increase in our Liscence Just kidding guys we all have the same problem and I will do everything in my power to support what it takes to clean up our rivers. Right now I am lobbying to get larger motors than a 9.9 on lake McBride but I dont feel I will have much sucess for just the reasons you have mentioned as there is a lot of land owners that do not like what they are seeing and that is just from a small majority of fishermen! What I think we should do is if we see littering going on just right down the boat number or license number of the car and turn it into the authorities as they do not have the resources to see it so we must help them! They have it for poaching so why not littering! It will not take long when their names and fines get posted in their local newspaper for the message to get out to others.

Redman

great post redman and i agree 100%.

There’s certainly room for better coverage concerning conservation officers. Just ask them and they’ll tell you how thin they’re spread. However, let’s assume a $30 fee increase. To put all those dollars, a significant amount, towards law enforcement would be a bad idea. I’d even write a letter or two to stop it. There would be much better things to do with additional dollars — things that would provide more and better opportunities for fishing and hunting.

I agree also Redman. Many fisherman carry a digital camera on there boats for CPR. Just take a picture and send it off to the DNR or CO. A picture is worth a 1000 words and maybe the fines can be put to some good use.

Right now I pay $24 for a Husband and Wife resident, annual fishing license. I could easily see paying $50 for this same license to help out the DNR to help police our waters.

You bet I would pay more for more enforcement. As a non-Minnesota resident I just paid for my annual license. It was forty something with the trout stamp that I will proably never use and I will use it for only acouple of days. I would double the fare for the priviledge of a couple of limits a year, the friends I have met here on the site and honor fishing with the likes of James and Dustin. NO that is not meant to get me a reduction in rates, its just meant to be a statement of FACT.

As far as wasting any PIKE, well some of you know me, NOTHING is better than a 50+”. The good Lord has given me the honor to have gotten two of those beauties.

Only 2 and a half weeks and I will be cured of this nagging fever.

SKPIKE

I would be the first to give $50.00 if I knew that would take care of the “SLOB” problem, but the fact is these slobs never change, the idiots are almost impossible to catch unless you trail them every minute of their lives! I’ve been trying to catch the slob that leaves his plastic Mountain Dew and worm containers along my favorite trout stream everytime down. If you could see the trash my son brings out in his net you would think we’re hauling garbage for a living. These slobs are the same idiots that push land owners to put up the “No Trespassing” signs, do you think they’re going to obey them? Hell no, it just keeps the good honest people out! Do you think these slobs ever think about us tax payers (then included) when they throw their garbage or a lit cigarette out the window? No again and they’re the first ones in line to complain when their taxes go up. Every year I instruct a Design & Making Tackle Class for our local High School Conservation Class and the one thing I tell the students; do yourselves a good deed, pick up the trash that someone left behind. OK, I’m sorry for not solving the “Slob” problem for us, but just wanted you to know how these idiots operate and how I’ve handle it by picking up their trash, it’s hard telling what I will do when I catch one!

To pay more for a license would’nt be a problem, especially when you figure the number of days per year that most of fish and use the license it would equate out to be cents per outing.

Be carefull what you ask for, The goverments history of taxation(license fees)has allways been a bureaucratic mess.If they raise the fee to what you suggest you wont get more inforcement. What you will probably get is a study on how Fat head Minnows are destroying the ecosystem or lead poisining or more native fishing rights or god knows what else. Here that sucking sound, Thats your money being used for things that you dont know about and probably dont like.And when they realize that your willing to pay more they will really put it to you. If you see trash from some other slob,Pick it up.Expecting A goverment orginization to help is folley.Enough of this,lets talk fishing…

Your close… actually what you will probably get with “your money” will be to have it sucked out of the DNR coffers alltogether….. and placed God knows where… funny thing about politics and money, once the politicians have your money they can be just a bit unpredictable with it…. oh sure they will promise this or that….. but what will they deliver?

to be honest, we would be better off with our OWN organization to focus on what we need, at least we could keep politics and politicians down to a minimum……

maybe it would be a place where ARM could step in… and we could all help and train our youth the value of not “trashing” the beauty of the rivers and lakes….. 2 good things accomplished with one move

Gotta agree with you all on teach the youth. When my son was younger I would pay him a nickel for every piece of garbage he picked up while ice fishing. Kept him entertained when he got bored with fishing. Now that he’s older he still picks up and trys to fill the sled. Even with out the money incentive. Now if he’d only clean up his room and make his mother happy!!! LOL

Maybe I’ll have to consider taping the lake that I live on here in Hastings. I litterally have to go down to the lake and clean up after the slobs. Usually a garbage bag or two each time. I wonder if these slobs think that stuff just disappears? I’ve been liberal with allowing people to cross my property to access the lake. But once I caught a couple of younger guys leaving and leaving gifts for us to pick up. I told them as they were leaving to pickup there stuff. When they refused I told them that they had a long walk ahead of them. I made them walk over to the public access and them use the streets to get back to thier vehical. They weren’t none to happy. But I got my point across.
I’m going to be doing some shoreline restoration down here and I don’t want it littered full so I may have to take a more pro-active approach.
The one thing that I, as a shoreline owner, would appreciate is that if there is some garbage on the ice. Please pick it up. Tho you didn’t leave it there it will freeze in and then we can’t get it up until it floats to shore.

Thanks
Chappy342

My thought is If a slob is turned in for littering goes to court, found guilty. They would get a good fine and sentanced to do communty service of picking up shorelines, and I mean some good hours. Maybe this would teach this slob to pick up after themself, and just what a mess it really leaves. Mother nature is great to us and so many people abuse it.

Lifes to short to fish with dead minnows! Jim

Ya but the problem with that is the bleeding heart, feel good, everyone gets a second chance judges we have now adays they would probably get off calling it cruel and unusual punishment.

i think it was redmans idea earlier. i think we should write down their boats numbers on the side of their boat and then turn them in to the state. also if you see them do it and watch them take their boat out you could write down their license plate number.