2009 could be Year of the Walleye

Associated Press

Published 01:47 p.m., April 17, 2009

Associated Press

ST. PAUL — For as much as Minnesotans love catching and eating walleye — each year anglers take home about 3.5 million walleyes weighing about 4 million pounds — we still don't know much about managing the walleye's biggest predator: The angler.

In other words, managing walleyes — and anglers is complex business in Minnesota, where the Department of Natural Resources has to balance the walleye population with anglers' desires to catch and eat more fish and a state fishing economy made up of thousands of resorts and fishing-related businesses dependent upon walleyes.

That is why 2009 should be called Minnesota's "Year of the Walleye."

In the coming year, the DNR will be talking to anglers a lot about walleyes and how catching and stocking them is managed.

And some old assumptions about walleye management are being challenged.

It starts Jan. 9 when the annual DNR Roundtable convenes in Brooklyn Park, where the agency will hold meetings on new ideas for stocking walleyes and simplifying the state's complex walleye regulations.

"In many cases, our walleye regulations are working, but at what cost?" asked Dave Schad, the DNR's director of the Division of Fish and Wildlife. "One cost is complexity of the regulations and we're hearing from folks they're having a hard time keeping track of them."

Moreover, there are worries slot limits might be overprotecting large walleyes on some lakes, causing them to cannibalize or otherwise suppress the survival of young walleyes.

Next, starting in late January and early February, the DNR will send mail surveys to 3,000 anglers who fish walleye in Minnesota, asking them about their motivations, travel habits and experiences catching the state fish.

The survey sample pool will be split three ways: nonresidents, rural Minnesota anglers and anglers living in the Twin Cities.

Also this year, the DNR will begin revising its walleye-stocking guidelines for the first time since 1992. The review might result in more fish being stocked, but with less DNR involvement. Revenues from the new walleye stamp, which goes on sale in 2009, may be used to purchase additional walleyes from private hatcheries, DNR officials say.

The DNR wants to produce a new Walleye Management Plan by 2010, said Jason Moeckel, a DNR fisheries officials who is leading the effort to produce the plan.

"We may not call it a plan per se, but a document that can be updated regularly," Moeckel said.

All of this pleases Dick Sternberg, the DNR's biggest critic when it comes to walleye management.

Sternberg, a former DNR employee, began probing the DNR's dropoff in walleye stocking in the late 1990s. His discovery that some lakes had dropped to a fraction of their previous stocking levels prompted the Legislature to fund an "accelerated" stocking program with an infusion of $1 million a year.

Sternberg has also been a thorn in the DNR's side over the stocking of Leech Lake. He has worked with local Leech Lake angler groups to convince the DNR that more walleye stocking was needed to rescue the lake's plunging walleye population. The DNR's stocking efforts have worked, and last summer Leech Lake had one of its best fishing seasons in years.

In a reversal, the DNR is embracing more of Sternberg's management suggestions.

"We're having a lot more communication and involvement with Dick," said Ron Payer, chief of the DNR's fisheries program.

Said Moeckel: "Everybody here would agree that Dick asks some good questions."

One of Sternberg's biggest criticisms has been the DNR has not stocked enough walleye "fingerlings," or walleyes raised in ponds during the summer and stocked into lakes in the fall. Fingerlings are expensive to produce and stock, compared with stocking walleye "fry" right after they are hatched, but fingerlings tend to survive better to be caught by anglers.

The DNR's formula for fingerling stocking is weighted toward pounds, not necessarily numbers. For example if lake X was stocked with 200 pounds of fingerlings and the fingerlings weighed the equivalent five fish to a pound, the lake would get 1,000 walleyes.

Sternberg wants the DNR to raise the numbers of fingerlings stocked and rely less on the number of pounds stocked.

Moeckel explained that the DNR hasn't been able to ramp up its fingerlings numbers because the agency's rearing ponds aren't freezing out annually, leaving bigger walleyes that eat the smaller ones. That makes it difficult to raise lots of fingerlings.

"The lack of winterkill has been a big problem for us in getting our ponds to produce more fingerlings," he said.

The DNR and Sternberg are working on a formula so lakes will be stocked with more fingerlings — ideally, about 20 to the pound — and the additional walleyes will come from private producers.

"We still don't agree on the numbers of fish that will be stocked," said Sternberg. "But they're admitting that things have to be done, and now we're working to get the tools to do it."

Moeckel said the DNR is facing budget cuts and is looking for more efficient ways to stock walleyes.

It costs the DNR $22 to $23 a pound to raise walleye fingerlings, but the state pays private producers about $14.50 a pound for walleyes. Higher staff salaries and fuel costs are among the reasons why the DNR can't raise fingerlings more cheaply than the private sector.

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