On Mille Lacs, who’s eating who

Lake Mille LacsNo fish species eating dinner in Lake Mille Lacs ordered walleye as more than a side dish last year. That’s one bit of information — preliminary and full of disclaimers — emerging more than a year into a study by Minnesota biologists trying to figure out what is ailing the lake’s fabled walleye. Another bit: The lake’s burgeoning smallmouth bass population appears en route to exoneration in the walleye mystery; smallies rarely eat much walleye, researchers are finding.

And another: Yellow perch, not walleye or fatty tullibees, were the staple for most predatory fish last year.

The fundamental problem with Mille Lacs walleyes is this: Young walleyes aren’t surviving into adulthood. They’re reproducing at a breakneck pace, and there are no diseases killing them off, so the Department of Natural Resources is looking at two basic possibilities:

They’re being eaten, they’re starving, or some combination of both.

The mystery is hardly an academic one. At two hours or less from much of the metro, the vast central Minnesota lake is a top destination for Twin Cities anglers, who support a robust tourism industry. And while resorts, guides, hoteliers, golf course operators and tourism officials are trying to market other aspects of the area, the main show has always been, and still is, the walleye.

And with generation after generation of young walleye disappearing before adulthood, there simply aren’t enough walleye to go around — a problem made all the more controversial because the lake’s fish are shared by American Indian tribal members who, by court ruling, don’t have to follow Minnesota laws and can net a portion of the lake’s walleye.

The scarcity of young walleye — and the fear that without them, sooner or later, the population could crash — has prompted the DNR to institute strict regulations this year. Only two flaky-fleshed walleye a day can be kept: either two between 18 and 20 inches or one in that slot and one longer than 28 inches. In addition, night fishing is banned for most of the season; no one on the water can be in possession of fishing tackle of any kind from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. until Dec. 1.

The result is that while Mille Lacs offers some of the best fishing in the state, especially for large walleyes, muskies, northern pike and smallmouth bass, the reports from longtime business owners say that fishing boats, which in good years crowd like bumper cars over throngs of fish, are relatively scarce this year.

Meanwhile, the DNR is trying to figure out what’s going on with the walleye in a lake that is changing: Its waters are getting clearer and, in most recent summers, hotter than in decades past.

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