MLFAC – UPDATE

Good news for Mille Lacs?
By Javier Serna Outdoor News, Vol. 51, No. 45

Assistant Editor Javier Mille Lacs committee gets some good news reported on the latest Mille Lacs Fishery Advisory Committee meeting held on October 5th. MLFAC focused on recent DNR assessments and the possibility of open water harvests next summer.

The big question from MLFAC, since walleye numbers keep increasing according to the DNR, will any be harvested this summer? So far a strong year class hasn’t been enough to get the DNR past its apprehension about its being targeted. That left anglers tossing everything back and quotas mostly made up of “hooking mortality.”

Now, another decent year class (2014), data showing a walleye population three times the size from the last assessment, after years of restrictive […]

1855 Ceded Territory potential lawsuit UPDATE
Defendant in Gull Lake netting case sentenced

Defendant James Warren Northrup faced charges following an August 2015 protest over 1855 Treaty harvest rights, a protest that involved illegal netting on Gull Lake. A September 12 ruling by the Court found defendant Northrup guilty on all four counts brought by Crow Wing County Attorney Donald Ryan.

A Crow Wing County District Court then filed a sentencing order on October 23, 2018, on the following counts:

On Count #1, taking fish with nets, Northrup was sentenced to one year in the Crow Wing County Jail. One year of that time was stayed for two years on the condition that the defendant remain law-abiding. He was also fined $50.

Count #2, netting fish without a license, was dropped as it […]

PERM encourages its members and anglers to attend
Mille Lacs Fishery Advisory Committee meets Monday, Nov. 5th

The Mille Lacs Fisheries Advisory Committee will meet from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday, Nov. 5, at McQuoid’s Inn, 1325 State Highway 47 in Isle. The agenda will cover winter regulations, fall assessment and walleye population estimate results, a creel update, and discussion around lake management planning. Members of the public are welcome to attend and observe these meetings, and 15 minutes during the middle of each meeting is reserved for public comments and questions.

Lake Mille Lacs winter anglers allowed 1 walleye starting Dec. 1

Winter anglers on Lake Mille Lacs will be allowed to keep walleye on Mille Lacs starting Saturday, Dec. 1, with no bait restrictions and a limit of one walleye between 21-23 inches, or one fish over 28 inches.

The DNR is “encouraged to see evidence that [their] conservative approach to Mille Lacs is paying off to the point [of] seeing population increases . . .” However, in spite of the number of walleyes over 14 inches nearly tripling in Mille Lacs over the past five years, some year-classes remain below normal. That’s enough for concern that “opening up additional harvest too fast or too soon could jeopardize the population increases we’re seeing.”

The walleye bite is expected to be quite […]

Minnesota gubernatorial candidates Tim Walz, Jeff Johnson state their cases on the outdoors

Outdoors Writer Dennis Anderson Interview Excerpt
Star Tribune October 29

Q Can management of Lake Mille Lacs be improved?

Johnson: I’m not an expert on the lake, its resources or its management, but co-management of the lake as it is currently administered isn’t working. Mille Lacs has an amazing history, but right now it’s not there for the benefit and enjoyment of everyone. We have a court decision in place, and I’ll follow it. But as governor, and with whomever I pick as DNR commissioner, I’ll bargain hard with the Chippewa bands to ensure the resource is managed better.

Walz: The Mille Lacs controversy has to do with sovereignty and relationships, and also climate and the changing lake. Let’s be […]

PERM Letter to the President – UPDATE

Wisconsin Outdoor News features PERM letter to President Trump

We are happy to see Wisconsin Outdoor News also highlighting PERM’s letter to the President. They referenced Minnesota Outdoor News Editor Tim Spielman’s take on PERM’s Letter and included the full text of the letter. Spielman called PERM’s letter an “unprecedented step … that’s needed if [we] wish to see meaningful change.”

Makes sense. A large part of the 1837 Treaty ceded territory is in Wisconsin. They face many of the same “co-management” issues as we do here in Minnesota.

PERM is asking the President to rectify a US Supreme Court’s 1999 decision–as suggested in that same ruling–regarding the 1837 Treaty’s temporary Treaty harvest rights.

If you haven’t already, please join us in making sure our message […]

Last Sunday the Star Tribune carried an article by Tony Kennedy, Mille Lacs among the issues Brad Parsons will take on as Minnesota’s new fisheries chief.

Kennedy covered a lot of Parson’s background and experience with Mille Lacs. He noted Parson’s recognition that Mille Lacs remains a “hot button” issue, “with politics and complicated by biological changes and fishing pressures that are adverse to walleyes.”

A positive sign was Parson’s interest in expanding “the DNR’s informal outreach to people who care about Mille Lacs.” That is, beyond the “state-appointed Mille Lacs Fisheries Advisory Committee.” Kennedy did not mention Parson’s long-standing membership on that Committee.

Parsons said the DNR will create a comprehensive lake management plan for Mille Lacs. Hopefully that effort will include MLFAC’s input, as it was brought up at […]

October 1, 2018

The Honorable Donald Trump
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Request for Presidential Order Terminating the 1837 Hunting and Fishing Privilege of the Chippewa

Dear Mr. President:

I am writing to you as President of PERM (Proper Economic Resource Management), a Minnesota nonprofit that supported the landowners who intervened in the lawsuit filed by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe against the State of Minnesota. In 1998, this lawsuit reached the United States Supreme Court, where an activist Court erroneously and improperly overruled the 1850 Presidential Order of Zachary Taylor that had revoked the temporary 1837 hunting and fishing privileges, which were defined as being “during the pleasure of the President of the United States.”

The four conservative Justices, writing in […]