Coffee with the DNR

[djkimmel]

Just got back from the Bay City meeting, all I have to say is wow!  Only bass angler that was there, well that would admit it anyways.  It was all about walleye and yellow perch and a little lake trout and invasive species.

I specifically asked about opening the bass season year round, and if not open year round having year round catch and release.  I got two different answers to this question, the first was that they had an issue with this because they are worried they can't control/enforce the walleye anglers who would be "fishing for bass" and keeping walleye illegally.  I responded to this by saying how is this fair to bass anglers who are doing the right thing using catch and release by punishing bass anglers because they can't trust the few people who are going to catch and keep walleye illegally. I also said it's important to increase fishing opportunity for bass anglers and by potentially adding a month or month and a half when the ice is off would increase the amount of time spent on the water.  The response to that was that bass anglers have until the end of December to fish for bass and they feel that is a lot of time already, they also said that they think catch and release fishing has harmed bass populations and reproduction in the spring.  I was almost laughing by this point, couldn't believe what I was hearing.  I asked how catch and release fishing for bass in March and April is harming the bass populations when a lot of bass aren't even spawning until mid to late May and into all of June.  Last year at my opening tournament on Lobdell Lake the fish were still in pre-spawn patterns Memorial Day weekend.  I'm sure some were spawning but not many yet.  The Burt and Mullet BFL was a spawn tournament with tons of fish being caught off beds and when I was up there again in late June there were still a few smallmouth bass sitting on beds.

They didn't have an answer for me to that question and I was pretty disappointed in the answer about them being worried about walleye poaching enforcement in regards to having year round catch and release season for bass.  I feel like this shouldn't be anything to do with bass fishing.  Overall I think I figured out there isn't much love for bass anglers and it's all about walleye and other traditional eating fish in this state.

I also asked about what they were doing about the additional money they were bringing in from in from eliminating the restricted fishing license and all I got was the company line of checking the DNR Website and all the information is listed there.  So not much of an answer there either.  

I am extremely blown away by what I heard, especially about the worries about walleye poaching during a possible early bass catch and release season. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised after reading some of the information that Dan has posted here.  It is going to be hard to change minds in this state, especially since I was the only bass angler who was there out of about 12 people.  If anyone else has a chance to attend any other meetings please get out there and go!  We need more bass anglers standing up for our own out there!

You've hit many nails on the head. First of all THANKS FOR GOING!!!!!!

We bass anglers are notorious for not going. For not participating when we have a chance. You've taken critical step number one! And by reporting back as you have you've let some other bass anglers know WHY we are having a more difficult time than we should. WE HAVE TO BE THE SQUEAKY WHEEL!! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Next, it appears a few old-schoolers scattered in the MDNR Fisheries Division seem to be falling back on claims that fishing during the bass spawn 'may' be harming our bass. Those studies do not exist. Those claims also ignore the obvious that our bass season was designed to TAKE ADVANTAGE of the bass spawn when they moved the bass opener earlier to a holiday weekend way back in 1970 - 44 years ago. We would have known a long time ago if we were going to harm our bass populations.

There's no scientific correlation to better bass fishing due to any regulation they've passed for bass. The only possible fishing regulation is the 1993 and 1995 increase in the size limit to 14" for bass on inland lakes and the Great Lakes. And bass fishing was already improving a number of years before that. Bass fishing did not clearly improve or worsen over time on a large scale level from 1970 until the late 1980s long after the 1970 season change.

Lake St. Clair has had essentially the same special bass season since about 1904. Bass fishing exploded out there in the late 1980s when no regulation changes where made. It was because of all the same factors we can't control through fishing regulations - clearer, cleaner water (zebra/quagga mussels, Clean Water Act) and new, abundant food source (gobies) - things like that. The same explosion has occurred on Northern inland lakes AND many other parts of the Great Lakes despite many of those waters having the bass spawn AFTER the 1970-made Memorial weekend regular opener.

These few other 'biologist' latest fallback is the 'protect the walleye (and pike and muskie and sometimes trout)' argument or as you pointed out and I call it - the punish the majority of the good anglers because of an unknown, unquantified number of potential bad anglers that may or may not exist who supposedly will poach walleye.

My arguments against that are similar to yours PLUS walleye (and pike and some trout and salmon) can be fish year-round in much of the Great Lakes so there goes that argument for bass on the Great Lakes. Next, there are approximately 11,000 inland lakes in Michigan. There are only a little over 300 listed on the MDNR website as better walleye lakes. There are only about 400 listed for better pike. There are only 50-60 inland waters with muskie in them at all (and some of those are put-and-take fisheries with no expectation of recruitment from any spawn so why 'protect' the muskie at all - let people go fishing) and the trout and salmon waters that need protection already have special regulations on them.

You won't be stopping poaching on the Great Lakes where the largest numbers of anglers fish because there is no closed season so no argument of a need to keep bass closed there. It seems extremely unwise use of our natural resources to close 11,000 inland lakes and 30,000+ miles of rivers to stop 'walleye poachers' who will only actually even have the chance to poach on less than 3% of those waters.

That would close 97% of our inland waters to fishing to protect a species that doesn't even exist at all in them, or in a few cases, in numbers high enough to be regularly targeted. What a waste of fishing and Natural Resources economy opportunity. Bass are in most lakes in Michigan. Pike, walleye, trout, salmon and muskie are not. We shouldn't close large numbers of inland waters in the name of simplification or any other trumped up claims to protect fish no one or almost no one is targeting in those lakes.

Bass are part of the panfish family. They are prolific spawners. Bass are generally not a harvest fish. Bass anglers VOLUNTARILY release 80-92% of their keeper-sized bass, and you can fish on almost all inland and Great Lakes waters legally for other panfish ALL YEAR.

Those few lakes where claims are made that some other fish needs protection special regulations already exist to shorten those lakes fishing seasons or close them to all fishing. Meanwhile, the many other thousands of lakes sit underfished, or create an artificial, unnecessary atmosphere of intra-angler conflict or enforcement confusion due to other people and COs trying to guess or mind read what type of fish an angler is trying to catch while we are struggling through a sluggish economy with difficulty retaining anglers and recruiting new anglers.

We have to help the few people stuck in the past understand the necessity of creating an opportunity-based management present and future rather than the restriction heavy way of thinking that has gone on far too long.

My methods of late have been to work mostly from the top down and with like-minded, big-picture people and groups because people who want to spread falsehoods about bass data that isn't there and/or just don't like or appreciate the 589,000 resident and nonresident bass anglers (or any subset of them) are people I don't want to waste time arguing with. I will however continue to put pressure on them to stop spreading falsehoods by making them use specific proofs in public anytime they make claims such as what you were told about 'data' that does not exist. I feel if they are willing to make stuff up I'm willing to call them on it.

I've edited my response to add in new information from the state senate Outdoor Recreation and Tourism committee hearing where Senate bill SB 869 was passed unanimously out to the senate floor with full support of the MUCC AND the MDNR. MDNR legislative liaison Trevor VanDyke testified that the MDNR fully supports this bill to strip all bass season limits out of state law because recent studies have shown bass fishing during the spawn is not harmful to bass, and that we can have a longer bass, that more bass fishing opportunity including tournaments is good for our Natural Resources economy.

I will be trying to get a transcript of of the testimony to get exact quotes but this is the first time I have heard the MDNR go on public record stating the above, and that they support a longer bass season. Fisheries Division chief Jim Dexter was sitting next to Trevor and said he had nothing extra to add or change about the official MDNR statement.

Any MDNR fisheries biologist who states they have evidence of harm appears to be going against department policy, and as I stated above, I will ask all of you, and I will ask myself, that they provide scientific, publicly available published data to back up these types of claims. I am forwarding a copy of your particular report from this Bay City meeting to Fisheries Division chief Jim Dexter at his request. I hope that accomplishes something in helping getting everyone on the same page. Jim told me the message is supposed to be that Fisheries Division has a request for a longer bass season and they are reviewing that request internally - something to that effect.

I believe we will have a longer bass season next year though I do not know the exact shape it will take yet. I also hope that the result of this 30+ year process is not an end result but the beginning of fostering the new open and more transparent MDNR into the position of being a leader in fishing opportunity thinking for all 'types' of anglers equally.

I hope the general practice is to always be honest with anglers even when the answers aren't the easy answers. I hope we continue to reduce fishing restrictions ridding ourselves of all regulations that punish the majority of the good anglers because of a possible minority of bad persons, and that cause unnecessary intra-angler conflicts and things like 'guilty by bass boat' so all anglers can go out fishing whenever they can without the hassle of wondering if they will get targeted by assumption just because they own a certain type of boat or use a certain type of lure.

If any fish is legal to fish for on a body of water, it is most often impractical to start trying to limit anglers to only fishing certain species but not others considering so many fish can be caught with the same methods even in the same places. I believe the only two options we have are:

1) Close a water to ALL fishing - this should only be used when sound science supports and proves the need;
2) Allow all fishing on any open water and clarify which types of fish you can keep during which part of the year verses fish you have to release as soon as you catch them.

I would love to see the possibility of exceptions for catch-and-delayed-release permits or options to allow tournaments (bass, walleye, muskie, salmon, whatever) if science supports a non-creel season but catch-and-release fishing would still be safe while still allowing additional opportunity and adding to our critical Natural Resources economy. Right now, this leads to some anglers and/or some people getting upset that someone is getting 'special' or preferential treatment. I'm not sure how many people this is really a problem for when it gets right down to it, but it is important to be aware of and consider this type of thing.

As it has happened twice before with the 1988 test season and the 2006 catch-and-release season, I believe a few years after we get our new, longer bass season in 2015, the few people left who claim things about harm will once again find out our bass fishing is still fine, reducing their noise that much more moving us closer to common sense opportunity based on truth and science which I also believe will help with our issues with angler recruitment and retention.

[djkimmel]

We are now all paying $11 more to do the same thing we did last year so it is perfectly okay, and YOU SHOULD ALL TAKE THE TIME TO DO THIS, to go to these meetings and voice your opinion. You can also call the MDNR. You can send email. You can mail letters. Make it clear you expect the same time, thought and respect that they give to any other fish in exchange for your support of the new license fee package and your large impact on our fishing management budget.

We bass angles are 589,000 strong. That's the second highest number only behind the number of panfish anglers, and we fish more days than ANY other type of angler. A HUGE chunk of the annual ~$2 BILLION in the Michigan fishing natural resource economy comes from bass anglers - our licenses and fees are a BIG chunk of the MDNR Fisheries Division budget (PS: the new license fees do not automatically continue forever - it has to be renewed in 5 years - remember that).

They put millions into raising and planting the harvest fishes like walleye, pike, trout and salmon. While those are also very important fisheries, we deserve more attention and effort from them than we generally get. Though they don't need to stock bass hardly ever they can definitely help bass anglers, our Natural Resources economy and their management budget with a year-round season, and by looking at some local issues with lakes that need habitat improvement/fixes or other assistance to manage and/or improve those bass populations.

It would make a difference if more of us take the time to make sure our voices are heard. Bass fishing of all types is a significantly positive impact on our Natural Resources economy and their fish management budget. We bass anglers do deserve our fair share of their time and consideration so keep asking for it please.