October 26, 2007 - TOP STORIES
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DNR test netting results bode well for Leech Lake anglers
DNR considers relaxing state's dock rules
Floods trash, reshape Upper Mississippi River refuge
2007 Northeast Minnesota moose hunt results
59 veterans participate in 16th Annual Deer Hunt
DNR test netting results bode well for Leech Lake anglers
See photos in this week's issue of Outdoors Weekly on newsstands now!
DNR Reports
Anglers who visit Leech Lake in the coming years should expect some good fishing, according to Harlan Fierstine, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) fisheries supervisor in Walker.
His prediction is based upon the results of recent fall test netting conducted by the DNR. According to the results, walleye and yellow perch populations have increased dramatically over the last two years.
The DNR reports that both the 2005 and 2006-year classes are abundant. “September gill nets showed an abundance of 11- to 13-inch walleye from the 2006-year class and many 15- to 16-inch walleye from the 2005-year class,” said Doug Schultz, DNR large lake specialist. “The strong 2005 and 2006-year classes should translate into good catch rates of 12- to 18-inch fish next spring.”
DNR test nets also captured good numbers of walleye between 18 and 26 inches. These fish are currently protected by special fishing regulations on Leech Lake, and will therefore continue to provide quality angling opportunities in coming years.
The number of young-of-the-year walleye (those hatched in the current year), was lower than the previous two years. However, these fish continue to exhibit rapid growth, which usually translates into improved winter survival. As a result, this could turn out to be a year class of moderate abundance. Meanwhile, the population of young yellow perch remains high, and will provide good forage for walleye of all sizes.
Lakewide, walleye counts in DNR test nets averaged 13.1 walleye per net lift, the second highest number since annual surveys began in 1983. The long-term average for Leech Lake is 7.5 walleye per net lift.
DNR considers relaxing state's dock rules
As big docks grow in popularity, DNR takes another look at rules
ST. PAUL (AP) – As super-sized docks become more and more popular among Minnesota’s lakehome and cabin owners, often in violation of state regulations, the Department of Natural Resources is considering whether it should just give up and relax those rules.
There was a time when folks simply used docks as a place to tie up a boat. But waterfront property owners have been spreading out onto the water, putting grills, picnic tables and even hot tubs on their docks.
“Docks historically have been for getting access to deeper water, but a lot of people are just extending their back yards out over the lake,” said Tom Hovey, public waters hydrologist for the DNR.
Docks are supposed to be no wider than 8 feet in any direction under the state’s rules, but so many docks are bigger than that that the DNR issued a temporary amnesty this year for hundreds of oversized platforms. Officials said the agency did not want to assume the role of dock police.
The DNR is now reassessing those rules and may relax them for 2008.
At five public meetings last summer and in dozens of written comments, the debate has shaped up as one between people who say their rights as taxpayers should allow them to have wider docks for safety and enjoyment, versus those who say huge docks encroach on public waters and harm aquatic vegetation and fish habitat.
The trend toward oversized docks has been strong in the Brainerd lakes area and on Lake Minnetonka, Hovey said. Some lakeshore owners have built platforms 24 feet wide or larger, he said.
The DNR doesn’t have a count on how many oversized docks were on Minnesota’s lakes in 2007, Hovey said, but a recent citizens’ survey of two lakes just north of Brainerd found that about 10 percent of the docks there were larger than the DNR allows.
Russell Larson lives on Big Sandy Lake, where he has a dock with an 8-foot-by-24-foot sun deck..
“As far as entertaining on the dock, it’s a quiet, beautiful place to relax, and absolutely you should be able to do that,” he said.
While Larson works for a dock manufacturer, he said his opinions are those of a year-round lakeshore property owner. He said the DNR should focus on the more serious problems of invasive weeds and excessive phosphorus in state waters, not on dock sizes.
Some people build large docks for greater safety for grandchildren or grandparents, or to accommodate larger boats, personal watercraft and boat lifts, or because they have steeply sloping land or no beaches.
But some of their neighbors say docks shouldn’t be used as decks, second lawns or patios. Sprawling platforms spoil views, clutter shorelines, shade important fish habitat and infringe on publicly owned waters, they say.
“I have young children, and I know exactly the difference between a need and a want,” said Ann Long Voelkner of Bemidji, who owns property on three lakes. “People do not need large docks, although they may want them. If people want to party, let them build a deck on their land, not on our lakes.”
Voelkner said dock sizes need to be restricted, not relaxed, especially since the number of docks is increasing with the sales and subdivision of lakeshore property. The problem will worsen, she predicted, as tiered developments are built just behind lakeshore lots with access to lakes.
Large docks actually may be better for the environment in some cases, said Gary Johnson, marketing manager for ShoreMaster Inc., a dock-manufacturing company in Fergus Falls. Otherwise, he said, landowners with marginal beaches might cut down trees, level slopes or make other permanent landscape changes to enjoy their waterfront.
Johnson said docks are temporary structures used for only three or four months out of the year, and he argued that they do little if any harm.
“I understand what people are saying about water being a public resource, but if you look at all the miles of shoreline that we have in Minnesota, it’s a lot,” he said.
Fisheries experts disagree on the environmental benefits.
The Minnesota chapter of the American Fisheries Society contends that allowing larger docks will put aquatic habitats at unnecessary risk and diminish the natural character of public waters.
As larger docks proliferate, said David Fulton, vice president of the group, lakeshore owners are also adding more boat lifts, canopies, platforms, floats and trampolines.
“Much of the shoreline on many of Minnesota’s lakes has turned into a vast array of bright aluminum, decking and vinyl,” Fulton wrote in a letter to the DNR. “If current trends continue, few lakes will retain any semblance of a natural shoreline.”
Floods trash, reshape Upper Mississippi River refuge
By Todd Richmond
MINNESOTA CITY, Minn. (AP) – Before the flood of the century, the part of the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife and Fish Refuge that lies just beyond this meager bedroom community was a sanctuary.
Now it looks like an asteroid hit it. The woods around Garvin Brook have been erased. A crushed car sits buried in chocolate-colored muck. A semitrailer container still slumps in the brook bed, all but buried.
The impact of August’s floods on the refuge may not be as jaw-dropping as the demolished foundations and waterlogged homes along the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. But federal officials estimate the raging waters caused nearly half-a-million dollars damage on the refuge – blowing out culverts, ripping new paths for Mississippi tributaries and leaving behind tons of sediment and debris.
“In local areas, it was certainly devastating to the status quo,” said refuge manager Don Hultman. “That kind of rain event hasn’t happened in our recorded history.”
Now boaters must watch out for new sandbars. Fish could have a tough time surviving the winter. Aquatic plants could starve for sunlight next spring. And someone must figure out how to clean up the tons of junk left behind.
“Anything someone would have in their garage is now out there,” Mary Stefanski, manager of the refuge’s Winona, Minn., district, said as she stood on a cliff surveying the damage around Garvin Brook.
The refuge – a collection of islands, channels, forests and marshes – stretches about 260 miles from southern Minnesota to northern Illinois. It’s home to ducks, bald eagles and dozens of fish species. More than 3 million people visit it annually, making it one of the most popular federal refuges.
Heavy rains on Aug. 18-19 caused floods throughout southeastern Minnesota and southwestern Wisconsin. The floods left seven people dead, caused millions of dollars in property damage and wreaked chaos in the refuge.
The floodwaters were so powerful they forced the Whitewater River over its banks. Before the flood the Whitewater emptied into the Mississippi just north of Minnieska, but the volume of water was so overwhelming the river carved a new bed and now joins the Mississippi a half-mile farther north, complete with a fresh, sediment-built delta.
The story was the same with the Root River near Brownsville, which pumped so much dirt into its Mississippi mouth it, too, created a new delta.
Floodwaters in the refuge’s La Crosse, Wis., district took out a railroad track embankment, sending two BNSF Railway cars loaded with chemicals into the refuge’s backwaters. No chemicals leaked out, however, said BNSF spokesman Steve Forsberg, and the railroad has since removed the cars and repaired the tracks.
The flood blew a concrete culvert 4 feet in diameter into the backwaters, where it still peeks up above the surface, mangled refuge fences and signs, and deposited a rusted-out car in the woods. The floods dumped so much sediment that the muck formed more than a dozen new, disc-shaped islands.
The most dramatic damage lies just outside Minnesota City, a hamlet of 200 people on the refuge about an hour and a half southeast of the Twin Cities.
Garvin Brook, once a 10-foot-wide, 3-foot-deep stream, swelled to twice its size, tearing out a new ravine on its way to the Mississippi and leaving behind all manner of junk.
On a cold fall day, the brook was still twice its size and ran through the canyon it had carved for itself. The shorelines, once covered with lush forest, were bare sandbars. All but buried in the muck were a crumpled car and a box-car-sized container.
Behind it all, where the river turns northeast to the Mississippi, stood a palisade of dead timber, uprooted trunks and branches that moved so fast in the flood they couldn’t make the turn, Stefanski said.
Stuck in the logs were garage doors and part of a picket fence. Styrofoam danced across the brook’s new crater, pushed by a chill October wind.
The flood forced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to scrap plans for a visitor center on the brook’s banks, Stefanski said. The land is gone.
Biologists aren’t sure what long-term effects the flooding may have, but the refuge’s backwaters were “severely affected,” said Terry Dukerschein, team leader for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ refuge monitoring station in La Crosse.
The new sediment left areas shallower. That could mean less deep water that fish need to survive winter, forcing species elsewhere. And new obstacles for boaters.
The mouth of the Root River used to be 9 feet deep, but Dukerschein said her boat ran aground there on a recent post-flood trip.
Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have worked to reduce sediment buildup by dredging and building islands to reduce wind erosion, in hopes of preventing refuge backwaters from filling in and disappearing. The thousands of new cubic yards of dirt will make that tougher, Hultman said.
The sediment also likely buried some aquatic plants. That could result in lower oxygen levels, making life tougher for fish, Dukerschein said.
The new dirt could choke off sunlight to aquatic plants next year, too, if it hangs in the water, Minnesota DNR biologist Dan Dieterman said.
What’s more, scientists must watch for effects from chemicals the flood carried in, he said.
Still, the Mississippi is resilient. In the week or so following the flood, the main channel had snapped back to normal turgidity and oxygen levels. And the new deltas and islands could provide more food and cover for critters.
“There’s always give and take,” Hultman said. “You’re displacing fish. You’re displacing wildlife. It won’t be as good for some species, but other species will move in and take advantage of it.”
Amended recreation regs proposed for Upper Miss
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Reports
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service late last week published a proposed rule in the Federal Register to implement general recreation actions in the approved Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) for the 240,000-acre Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.
The public has 60 days to comment on the new regulations. Comments must be received by Dec. 17, 2007. The new rules are scheduled to take effect in spring 2008 at the start of the river recreation season.
Refuge Manager Don Hultman said the biggest change in the new rules is the establishment of four electric motor only areas totaling 1,630 acres (one area of 222 acres already exists) and eight new seasonal (March 16 – October 31) slow, no-wake areas totaling 9,370 acres. Airboats and hovercraft will not be allowed in slow, no-wake areas during the effective dates.
Collectively, these areas account for eight percent of the estimated 140,000 acres of surface waters of the refuge. The remaining 92 percent of waters will remain open to all watercraft without restriction.
“It’s important for people to realize that the electric motor areas and slow, no wake areas remain open to all uses, including hunting and fishing. Only the means of access changes,” Hultman said.
Hultman said these areas are designed to help limit disturbance to habitat, fish, and wildlife in sensitive backwater areas, and balance the needs of the refuge’s 3.7 million annual visitors who enjoy the refuge in a variety of ways.
Other regulations stemming from the CCP include a ban of glass food and beverage containers on beach areas and other lands of the refuge; clarifying the definition and requirements for camping and campsite sanitation; and clarifying the rules for watercraft mooring, firearms, vegetation cutting and use, and domestic animals.
“Most of these regulations have been in effect for years as described in brochures and on refuge signs. This new rule formalizes the regulations, and fine-tunes and modernizes the language for clarity, ease of enforcement, and consistency with sound wildlife and recreation management,” Hultman said.
The refuge CCP was approved in October 2006 following four years of effort, including 46 public meetings and workshops attended by 4,500 persons. Final rules for hunting and fishing changes stemming from the CCP were published in early September.
In addition to being the most visited refuge in the country, the “Upper Miss” Refuge has the added complexity of a major navigation system, including 11 locks and dams, within its boundary. It is also a world-class fish and wildlife area which harbors 306 species of birds; 119 species of fish; more than 160 active bald eagle nests; thousands of heron and egret nests; spectacular concentrations of canvasback ducks, tundra swans, and white pelicans; and several threatened or endangered species.
The entire proposed rule, along with fact sheets and links to maps and the CCP, is available at http://www.fws.gov/midwest/UpperMississippiRiver/, or you may call (507) 452-4232 and request a copy.
Comments on the proposed rule must be received by December 17, 2007, and can be made via e-mail to: uppermississippiriver@fws.gov. Please include “Attn: Recreation Regs” and your full name and mailing address in your e-mail message.
Comments may also be sent by mail to: Refuge Manager, Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, 51 East Fourth Street, Room 101, Winona, Minnesota 55987.
2007 Northeast Minnesota moose hunt results
Hunting success was 50 percent in 2007, the first bulls-only season in Minnesota
DNR News
The 2007 bulls-only moose-hunting season in Northeastern Minnesota ended Sunday, October 14. Hunters registered 115 bull moose at nine registration stations scattered across Cook, Lake and St. Louis counties over the 16-day season. This compares to 159 moose (bulls and cows) harvested in Northeastern Minnesota in 2006, 163 in 2005, and 149 in 2004.
In the 2007 lottery, 233 once-in-a-lifetime bull-only moose tags were issued in 30 zones, with 229 parties purchasing them. Moose hunting is limited to resident hunters in parties of two to four hunters. Hunting success was 50 percent in 2007, the first bulls-only season in Minnesota.
Party success was 59 percent in 2006 with 269 parties taking 159 moose, 59 percent in 2005 when 276 parties took 164 moose, 63 percent in 2004 when 240 parties took 151 moose, and 66 percent in 2003 when 217 parties took 144 moose. All previous seasons were either-sex hunts, where bulls, cows or calves were fair game. Typically 8 out of 10 moose harvested were adult bulls.
Hunters faced wet, dreary and/or very windy field conditions over the majority of the season. Opening weekend was especially inclement, likely limiting harvest. Cool, days and nights, with significant precipitation made for challenging moose hunting conditions overall.
DNR wildlife managers collected biological samples at moose registration stations to try and assess moose health and physical condition. Hunters were provided kits to assist them in taking various muscle, tissue, and blood samples from their kills. Managers were very pleased with hunter cooperation and participation. Samples will be analyzed in the lab and results may help determine the reason for the declining trend in the Northeastern Minnesota moose population.
Research biologists report that none of the 32 radio collared moose were harvested during the season. There is an on going moose mortality study in Lake and Cook counties. Collared moose are fair game. Hunters are told to ignore the collars in their search for a moose because researchers want to get a better idea of the importance of hunting as a source of mortality.
The Northeast Minnesota moose population is estimated at 6,600 animals throughout St. Louis, Lake and Cook counties. The State and Tribal harvest goal is conservatively set at 5 percent of the winter population.
59 veterans participate in 16th Annual Deer Hunt
The 16th Annual Physically Disabled Veterans’ Deer Hunt was held Oct. 2-4 at Camp Ripley. Veterans from around the state participated. 25 veterans hunted from wheelchairs, including 94-year-old Leonard Thommas of St. Cloud, MN with his guide Roger Lahr.
See photos in this week's issue of Outdoors Weekly on newsstands now!
The 16th Annual Disabled Veteran's (DAV) Deer Hunt was conducted on October 3-4 at Camp Ripley, Minn. This year, 59 disabled veterans from around the state participated with their assigned partner.
On day one, veterans were able to harvest 15 deer with an additional three more taken on day two.
The largest buck, a 6-pointer, which weighed 170 lbs, was taken by George Bonfe of Forest Lake, MN. His partner was Tim Dugas. This was George’s first deer ever hunting from a wheelchair.
Organizations of the Hunt include: Minnesota National Guard-Camp Ripley, Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources and the St Cloud VA Medical Center.
Sponsor’s include: Minnesota American Legions, Minnesota DAV, Minnesota PVA, Minnesota VFWs and respective Auxiliaries, Veterans 4 Veterans Trust Fund, Rice-Sportsman Club, LTD Soldiers Memorial Motorcycle Tour fund, Minnesota Patriot Guard Riders, DAV Chapter #12, Brainerd Sertoma Breakfast Club and MDHA Chapters - Little Falls and St. Joseph.
Next year’s hunt is attentively scheduled for October 7-8, 2008. The Annual DAV Turkey Hunt is attentively scheduled or April 22-24, 2008.
For more information on these hunts, contact Dennis Erie at 320-255-6394, St. Cloud VA Medical Center.
© 2007 Outdoors Weekly Corporation