Iowa DNR Plans To Limit Walleye and Sauger Catch

Yes, we should have more respect than that for the resource. But we live in a hooray for me , to hell with you world. I paid my license and if I can catch a five gallon pail of big gills, a limit of 5-8 lb spawning walleyes, or a hundred little saugers that came out of 32′,not 35′ of water and first you must prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that the mortality is above this or that, I’M GONNA.
Most regulations in our lives were put in effect to deal with that type of thinking. Protecting the rights of the majority.

as usual James… you dig to the center of the matter and define whats bothering me about the whole thing….. the fact is… the fish are WASTED… lets not talk about spawn… these fish already exist… and if let live will become BIGGER… and therefore (ripe)… we are cutting our own throats by destroying the crop before its ready for harvest…. waste.. plain and simple….

I guess we can assume that with the comments we see here that when it comes time to attend public hearings, in an area where we are involved, people will care enough to go and state their opinion. For those of you that do please state your opinion regarding time limits(expiration dates), and if you can’t see your way clear to that at least the requirement for mandates and funding to monitor the situation closely with Fisheries having the ability to discontinue a new regulation that no longer is needed or is actually damaging .

The Upper Mississippi Refuge Plan and even their slide presentation stresses the need for constant monitoring and the flexibility in their planning and ability to change quickly. This is the mind set I think of most if not all of our fisheries people, but a regulation on the books, especially a bad one can pretty much take the best intentions out of the picture unless it includes safeguards.

I don’t think I need to mention some of the best and worst fisheries situations in North America owe the improvement or mess that now exists to fishing regulations. Yes my beloved nature can deal a nasty hand , too.

Unfortunately as a Criminal Justice Management Major I can still remember in our studies of case law ,again and again, it was apparent that #1 The times change and laws , often not only become outdated but damaging .#2 There are very few things harder than removing a law that already exists . I know a fishing regulation and a regular law are in some aspects very different, but I am quite frightenened by the problems that can be cause by both.

In Regard to James comment regarding the waste of bringing small or any fish out of that deep of water , an article in November Field and Stream appears again to shed a negative light, (as many have), on successful catch and release under the best situations as now practiced. Now someone is saying to themselves in the worst of conditions the results will be any better. I don’t think so. Ofcourse the ideal situation is if you aren’t going to keep the fish, don’t fish at all.

Somebody regularly on this and other fishing sites says I would rather practice catch and release and at least give the fish a chance to live. I would like to challange you all to go one step farther. If you don’t intend to keep the fish you are catching, either use barbless hooks or pinch the barbs. Whether it is popular or not I would go one step farther and say if it is legal to keep the fish you just caught, small , large , or in between if you used barbs keep it. Even if it is a 6 inch sauger or God forbid a bass. No I don’t think the barb is the only problem with catch and release, but I challange anyone to convince a frequent fisherman that the barbed hooks don’t do a ton of damage. I recently said in a post that brought up stinger hooks that the main hook(#2 or #4) is even more damaging than the #12 stinger. Obviously again if you don’t intend to keep the fish, don’t use a stinger either.. I would say that the universal exception would be any fish with obvious eggs. There I think the stakes are high enough to take a chance on a succesful release.

Numbers don’t effect quality or success of a spawn??? I’m sorry, but I can’t in any situation other than over population,(for the systems conditions), even in the wildest stretch of the imagination believe that numbers of a species don’t at least present a maximizing,(larger numbers), or minimizing,(smaller numbers), effect on the statistical,( and real life), potential for reproduction of frey. My daughter,(Biology Major concentrating on Marine Biology), actually laughed when I mentioned that larger numbers in a system that could support those numbers had no positive effect on reproduction. She was quick to mention that hundreds of studies have shown that the breeding age populations ability to properly reproduce and then the freys ability to survive to adulthood are controled by hundreds of variables,many more important than numbers , but not that larger numbers,( in a system that could support them), was a negative imput into the situation. The only justification she could even guess that could be used as the basis for this argument is that numbers do not equate to quality, and “sometimes” the strong do survive and “sometimes” they do produce a healthier offspring. Statistically though even down to the tiny criters she sometimes studies, in systems capable of supporting them ,larger numbers produce larger numbers of offspring.

I also agree that fisheries management laws need to be flexible…. and studies need to be made to either support the laws existance or to indicate that it should be modified or repealed……
as for population size vs spawn success… there are studies that show population size… IE larger populations produce larger spawns… is a true statement… as mountain man mentioned.. its more complicated than that.. and population size is only one factor… but it IS a significant factor…..
as for catch and release fishing… and its success… there have been a number of studies… Im sure once again its highly variable.. and a major factor is how stressed the fish are to begin with… and what stress factors they are submitted to in the process….. at some point the fish WILL die….. I think in ideal cases the mortality rate is low…. and in poor cases its high….
my feeling that catch and release in cold water periods, would generally be a low mortality event… but again O2 levels…. and depths are factors, as well as length of time out of water….. whether a fish is netted or unhooked at boat side….

I own a cabin on pool 11…either myself or my parents have owned in the same place for the last 35 years.

My dad asked me this Xmas how fishing was this year. I told him it was the absolute worst year I can ever remember for Pool 11.

I’m no marine biologist. I’m no pro fisherman. I’m no guide. Hell, I don’t fish every month, let alone every week or every day. I don’t pretend to know everything about the why’s and how’s as to why things are the way they are on my stretch of the river.

All I know is this.

The backwater areas are silting in to where in some areas you can’t get in anymore, where 20 years ago you could rip through there full blast, pull up, and catch all the fish you cared to.

The channel gets shallower and shallower. The arguments over channel depth in pool 11 are valid…I can only think of a couple minute stretches where the water’s deeper than 30 feet. 20 years ago, I can remember spots that were 50 feet or deeper.

Every weekend, from anywhere to 6 to 7AM, I am awakened by 20-40 tournament boats screaming up the channel at 65 MPH. When I do get time to fish this early in the morning, I’m constantly fighting for choice spots with other boats, both tournament and amateurs, where 20 years ago I probably had the place to myself.

In the last 5 years alone, I could literally walk the bank near where my cabin is and find walleye and sauger…wouldn’t even need to launch the boat. Every weekend during the fall, I could look forward to catching anywhere from 2-4 real nice eating walleyes, clean these, and feed myself and friends/family for our weekend. No culling, no catching 10 to keep 5. This year, from shore, I caught 4 legal walleye from these shore spots compared to an average of about 20-30 during September/October before, just enough to feed myself and my family/friends for that night. This is fishing three times a day, 2-3 days a weekend, from August to November, maybe 30 to 90 minutes a day total.

My point is this. I’ve fished this area from about 1970 till today. The water is shallower than ever from a lock and dam system finally pronouncing its sentence on the river, eliminating many of the winter habitat that fish used to enjoy because of silting. There is seemingly infinitely more pressure from us anglers out there…there’s just a whole lot more fishermen, with IMHO more weapons at their disposal than ever.

So…less habitat, more fish being caught. What’s that spell? No fish, folks.

I just have this feeling that in 20 years, I won’t have any fish at all to catch. How America’s most historically important physical landmark could be more stupidly managed to the river’s detremit, I’ll never know.

So then I get to this forum. I read about people filling their minnow buckets this and 100 saugers per man that, and I ask…how many are enough? Really. How many fish are enough? 100? Evidently not. 10? People screaming that this isn’t enough. 5? 1? None?

IMHO…anything more than what you will eat that night is too many. I know people here will scream about that, but on pool 11, its just about to that point.

Remember earlier in this rant where I talked about tourney boats flying by my cabin in the morning? I live about 5 minutes from LD10. The reason they’re flying by is because there aren’t any fish in this pool, compared to not that long ago, to catch anymore. They are going mostly upriver it seems. Why? I dunno. Is WI doing it better? MN? IL? Don’t know. All I know is I pay my licensing every year, practice catch/release almost to the ridicule of some of the locals, and trust that the DNR has people smarter than me to research this stuff to the point where they know what’s right and what’s wrong.

Personally, I think fishing from 12-15 through 3-15 should be outlawed on at least this pool. Period. Until it can be proved that the pool is rebounding and going strong again.

Not trying to be a flamethrower. Not trying to incite a riot. Just letting everyone know what I’ve noticed in my favorite fishing spot over the years, my two cents.

I do believe in a size limit on sauger. I have seen (so called fishermen) keep 8 and 10 inch sauger. If closing the tailwater to fishing will increase eye and sauger fishing for the future, I am all for it. We have to look at tomorrow today.

Great Post Bagdropper!!!!! A couple of us around here(pool 9) have already noticed changes , too. In our case hard to decide whether it is all overfishing or part competition from the incredible numbers of Bass, for about the same amount of food. I wish we had a forum here where state and federal fisheries people only could post. Not just their Science, but their gut feeling. I learn more in a twenty minute stop to talk with a warden, or Brecka, or reading John’s posts , or talking to head fisheries guy in La Crosse,(I can’t believe I forgot his name), than I do in monthes of guessing what I am seeing. Lawrence