WINONA — Department of Natural Resources fisheries officials Dan Dieterman and Kevin Stauffer want to let the 10-sunfish experimental regulation on Mississippi River pools 5, 5A and 8 expire next spring. In its place, they'd like to see a much wider set of regulations, including more fish and more states.
The 10-sunfish limit, which went into effect in 2001 on the Minnesota side only, was designed to increase the average size of sunfish, they said. This came on the heels of a major die-off of vegetation in the late 1980s and a consequent drop in fish populations.
"We're not sure what happened there," said Dieterman, assistant DNR fisheries supervisor in Lake City.
The regulations worked on pool 5 but not as well on pool 5A because it was in better shape, Dieterman said Tuesday during a public meeting on the regulations. Pool 8 doesn't have nearly as much solid data as the other pools, he said.
One of the problems with determining just how well the regulations worked is that "this is an incredibly dynamic system," he said, making it hard to really know why populations go up or down.
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But work on determining how well the regulations worked showed there is often intense pressure in some areas, he said. In one case, 98 percent of the bigger sunnies were harvested, he said. Much of the harvesting in those cases came in winter, through the ice.
Not every ice angler walks out with a limit of 10 big panfish, he said, but early in the ice fishing season, fish are more vulnerable and many anglers do get their limits.
The 10-fish limit was controversial when it was first implemented, but that has changed. No one showed up at a meeting Monday in La Crescent, and about a dozen people turned out for the meeting in Winona. Most people seem to like it, including those at Winona's meeting. In fact, one angler said he has heard Wisconsin anglers say they'd like Minnesota's regulations on their waters.
John Roellich, of Goodview, favored the regulations. "I can get more 7-, 8-inchers," he said.
Other anglers also said they like them and want to keep them.
Now that the regulations are set to expire, the DNR can only make them permanent or drop them, Dieterman said. Once permanent, it's harder to get rid of them, and they might impede efforts to work on the bigger, broader set of regulations. "The best way for us to move forward is to not make this permanent," he said.
Right, now, the DNR favors dropping them, said Stauffer, area supervisor, adding that sunfish numbers are pretty good right now, so there's no big need for the 10-fish limit.
What is not pretty good is the river itself. It's continuing to fill in, and there are fewer places to fish, especially in winter. That is going to put more pressure on the resource. In one case, the DNR found one acre of a backwater had 900 man hours of fishing pressure in winter. Newer technologies, and airboats, are making it easier to get fish, he said.
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"Overall, we have fewer fish because we have less water," Dieterman said. "We are losing water, and we are losing water fast." Without good water, fish populations will drop.
Even after all these years, many anglers still don't know about the 10-fish regulation, Stauffer said. "It causes angst among people," he said.
The two said the DNR wants to talk with officials in Wisconsin and Iowa to see if they are interested in some kind of riverwide regulations. The idea is to sit down and look at the river and what people want. In effect, they would be more of a social regulation to see how anglers want to distribute fish instead of a biological regulation designed to increase fish numbers.
One idea for sunfish, crappies and perch is to have an aggregate limit of maybe 20 fish, with no more than 10 of any species. Rochester already has a 10-fish aggregate limit on its reservoirs.
