Wisconsin’s Natural Resources Board has again laid the groundwork for giving more flexibility to the DNR, when it set bag limits for walleye later this spring.
The agency adjusts harvest regulations on northern lakes in the ceded territory, after the state’s Chippewa tribes declare how many fish they plan to harvest.
As Fisheries Management Section Chief Steve Hewett explains, a scope statement passed Wednesday means DNR could later decide to use size limits or season restrictions to help control angler walleye harvest.
“Over the twenty years that we’ve been monitoring the fishery, we have enough information know that we feel in some circumstances we can either make a better rule for the particular lake in question, or come up with a rule that’s more acceptable to the public than reducing the bag limit to 2 or 1.”
Hewett says right now the only tool the DNR can use to control angler harvest is bag limit adjustments.
Hewett says the DNR wants to work toward a permanent solution that could allow anglers to regularly have higher bag limits.
“We are seriously trying to find an alternative regulation mix that would work for the ceded territory, so that we don’t have to go through the bag limit adjustments each year. So that would require some cooperation with the tribes and also with the various angler groups.”
The board passed a similar scope statement last year, and an emergency rule that allowed the DNR to raise bag limits on some lakes from 1 to 2.
