DNR Proposal For Trolling on Iron County Lakes Including the TFF
The Wisconsin Conservation Congress will be taking public comment and votes on the WDNR proposal for allowing motor trolling on most Iron County lakes, including the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage starting in 2011. This would allow 3 lines for each person in a boat for most species including Muskies, Walleyes and Smallmouth Bass. The Wis. Conservation Congress will hold hearings in each county on this issue, among others, at 7:00 PM on Monday, April 12th, 2010. It is Question #25 on the agenda. For more info see http://www.dnr.wi.gov/org/nrboard/co...ring_hearings/
What are your thoughts on this proposal?
www.flambeauvista.com
No way we're ready for this
The thought of legalized trolling in virtually all waters in Iron County is absolutely insane under our current regulations. The only way I see this working would be if we were to change the open water regulations to one line per person and change our Musky size limit to 50", and probably change some other regulations as well. I'm not sure why this change is being proposed but if we are trying to get back some of our tourism from Minnesota and Canada we should probably use the same or at least similar regulations as they do, after all they probably have big fish there for a reason.
Try to imagine this....
Several years ago I was talking with a fisherman from out of the area that told me he had caught 13 Muskies the previous day on a small Iron County Lake. Naturally I asked him what his method was and he told me him and his buddy were using there trolling motor to slowly troll suckers behind planer boards!!!! I informed him that this was illegal and he probably shouldn't do this anymore and was really lucky he didn't get reported by someone. Can you imagine if this was Legal!!!!!! By the way all the fish were released and he had no idea he was doing anything wrong.
How about this thought. Since there is a new no wake law within a 100 feet of shore and that is going to slow down a lot of boats when they are traveling to different fishing spots via the river channel. If you can't go fast you might as well put out a few lines and troll on the way, who know's you might catch something. This will result in a lot of accidental Musky catches or fish that wouldn't have been caught otherwise as Blue Ranger previously mentioned. Aside from a lot of these fish being kept, many of them would be mishandled and probably die after they are released. All of us Musky fisherman have seen the accidental Musky catch of a nearby boat, the fish goes into a small net and then gets plopped on the floor of the boat and released 10 minutes later after 50 photos. There's no question this would happen more if trolling is made legal.
It boggles my mind to think I could go out fishing in the fall with two clients and have nine lines available and troll. That means I could have both of them cast and run 4 or 5 suckers off the boat at different depths and troll at a perfect speed into the wind along a steep dropping rock pile with schools of Cisco heavily concentrated in the area. Oh and then when our hands get cold we'll just motor troll 7 different lines while we warm up.
No thanks I'll keep rowing my suckers when I want to fish into the wind and earn my Muskies.
There's no way we need to be given another advantage in the fishing world. With modern electronics and gps systems along with boats that go 80mph and cameras we can drop over the side to see exactly whats down there I think we already have the upper hand on the fish. Everyone please go to your local meeting and speak against this rule change.
Thanks,
Andy
Iron county against trolling
I was unable to attend the meeting here in Mercer, but I heard from a very reliable source that virtually everyone in attendance was against legalized trolling. Thanks to everyone who went to their local meetings and stood up for Iron county.
Andy
Results are out, and not good.
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/nrboard/congre...10_Results.pdf
The four trolling questions all went "Yes" by roughly 3-2 margins. However, it would be interesting to know which counties were in the "No" column - if it included the affected counties and the other surrounding northern counties, it would be pretty hard to support the "local preference" argument.
County results are up - same link.
Iron and Sawyer both voted NO by nearly 3-1, Ashland also voted NO by a small margin, and Price voted Yes by 2-1. Didn't have time to scan through all the counties to see which other ones were opposed.