As walleye population declines, Mille Lacs harvest set at significantly lower level

Walleye harvest totals at Lake Mille Lacs this year will likely be set at the lowest levels since the state and Chippewa bands started managing the lake cooperatively in 1997.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources announced Friday that it is setting the walleye safe harvest level at 60,000 pounds for 2014, with 42,900 pounds set aside for state anglers and 17,100 pounds allocated to eight Chippewa bands that have treaty rights to fish on the lake.

The walleye safe harvest this year will be a significant drop from previous years, including a high of 600,000 pounds in 2006. It's a reaction to declining walleye populations in the state's best known walleye fishing lake. A DNR survey in the fall of 2012 found an average of 4.8 walleye in each of the agency's test nets, down from about 15 in past years.

"We've had a long-term decline," DNR Fisheries Chief Don Pereira said. "We're trying to forecast what's happening to spawners next year, so we're setting safe harvest levels significantly lower."

Agency officials are still trying to figure out why the walleye population has declined so dramatically in the lake while other fish like northern pike continue to flourish.

"Starting in the mid to late-'90s, the water started to clear up, at about the same time, we saw a change in behavior with younger walleye," said Pereira. "A simple hypothesis is that when the water cleared up, it just got too bright in the shallows and the young fish were going into deeper water."

While some in the area suggest that the use of gillnets by the Chippewa bands during spawning has led to the decline in walleye populations, Pereira said that doesn't appear to be the case.

"We haven't seen any drop in the production of young fish in the summer, so that suggests they're spawning just fine," Pereira said. "That suggests that something is reducing their rate of survival from the first fall to their second fall."

Researchers are still investigating whether larger fish are preying on young walleye and contributing to the decline.

The agency will announce the final size and bag limits for fishing on Lake Mille Lacs in March. Officials plan to seek anglers' input into those regulations in the coming weeks.