Home › Forums › Bass Cat Boats › Kyle Erickson & Rick Nichols win MilleLacs Northstar event last weekend
kent7351.
Just seeing the Missle Cat picture makes my back hurt…Practice Angling CPRCatchPictureRelease2010 PIV 200SHO
Congratulations to Kyle Erickson & Rick Nichols 10.80 total weight for 5 Smallmouth on Mille Lacs. Minnesota has a special regulation that restricts the size if yoru event is a small event. It will be very interesting to see what the Elite anglers have in the next month as these guys were culling 25 pound limits of smallmouth to get a limit inside the slot. Man what a trip! BCBhttps://www.facebook.com/northstarbassc … 40/?type=3
So much for a government that works by and for the people. As educated as most fisheries biologists are regulations like that are just ignorant. Best part for them is they even have most of their angling population fooled too.C.O.D. Jr. III
I like slot lakes. It adds another aspect to a tournament. I learned how to fish on lake nacogdoches. With there being more of the 7 plus pound fish in the lake I learned to pattern big fish. Hell I caught six over ten pounds in two weeks. Had a couple shots at teenage class fish. A good friend of mine caught a 13. I now live 45 mins from Fork Ive had tournaments where I had to throw back 45# limits to get my 10 lbs. Last October my partner caught a nine pounder in the owners tournament on fork it was 23 7/8″ long. It damn near made him cry to let it go after he measured it five times. Slot lakes grow big fish and TPWD has it figured out.
Oh trust me on this one, I have been watching the Mille Lacs saga unfold for a long time. There is a group of anglers who are fooled by the regulations but there is also a very large group of anglers who see right through it. Ive been fishing Mille Lacs (not hardcore but off and on) for 30 years. Walleye is king there and the biggest problem for walleye anglers is an overwhelming majority of them do not practice catch and release. Well maybe they do but it is ONLY a hot grease release. Walleye are table fare and nobody ever puts them back unless forced to by slots or limits and some wont even follow those. Yes, the natives have treaty rights to take a number of fish from the lake each year, but it is almost always at 25%(native take) to 75%(state angler take) quota system. In all the years since the treaty rights were reinstated, the natives have taken their quota and very rarely gone over their quota, and if they do they go over by very little. The state anglers on the other hand have gone grossly over their quota EVERY year. The numbers do factor in hooking mortality as in the hot summer months guys will troll lead core or long line troll cranks out over 30 feet of water and the walleyes are down on the bottom. Factor in high water temps, a fish that fairs better in cool water, and a fight as you reel in 100 feet or more of line while the boat is running 1.8 – 3 mph and the fish take a beating. They only have about a 50% survival rate, maybe a little better, but not much. But the fishing is great so you have reports on facebook of guys catching fish so everyone and their brother runs up to the lake cause its 90 minutes from the cities. They kill a lot of fish.So how does this factor in with smallies and muskies? The walleye crowds are woefully uninformed and in my opinion ignorant. Is this a generalization, hell yeah, but a lot of them fit the category. They believe that smallies and muskies are eating all of the walleye fry each year causing the walleye population to plummet. Forget the fact that they are going grossly over the quota of fish allowed each year and continue to kill fish even after the quota is filled and walleye fishing is “closed”. Forget the fact that the forage base (yellow perch and tullibee) of the walleye has been in decline for the last decade because the biomass of the lake trended toward lots of big walleyes but no little ones due to slot limits, the big walleyes simply ate up all the baitfish. Forget the fact that walleyes are cannibals and with the forage base collapse they had nothing else to eat so they started eating the young of the year fish. Forget all the studies that show the contents of the stomachs of smallies show almost no walleye but mostly crayfish diets. The studies of the muskies stomachs show lots of small pike and suckers, they used to show tullibees but they are very scarce in the lake now so evolution.The walleye guys say over and over that the smallies and muskies are eating all the walleye in the lake. So the general mentality was lets relax the regulations on other species, the ones that we say are eating our precious walleye but have no proof of. Who cares if there is a world class fish population in the lake, lets just destroy it because WALLEYE is king and it isnt a WALLEYE. It makes me sick to see the launch boats on the lake that used to take groups of 30 people out for a sunset cruise to soak bobbers and leeches over the side to grab a quick limit of walleye each and every night of the season now switch to target smallmouth because the launch owners feel like smallies are eating all their precious walleye. When they first opened up the regs on smallies a couple years ago youd see posts from launch services coming back with coolers full of smallies headed for the cleaning shack and the launch owners proclaiming “they taste pretty darn good, not as good as walleye, but itll have to do.”I may have ranted a bit much there, but like I said, I have been watching this unfold in front of me for several years. I love the lake and wish they would protect the world class fish population rather than intentionally destroy it. And for the record, I have taken a few walleye from Mille Lacs, but I have released a whole lot more than I have taken, and I dont do the hot water trolling. And I have also caught 9 out of 10 of my best smallies on the lake, all of which were returned to the water after a kiss.Take care,Tom
Out of 5400 fishable lakes in MN, there are a handful that have special regs and they are usually designed to protect a climax population of fish. The rest fall under the state-wide regs. It takes a long, long time to grow a 21″ smallie up here with our short growing season. Personally, I prefer they protect the world-class smallie population on Mille Lacs as opposed to letting the launches harvest them for profit.I just returned from a weeks vacation on a lake in northern MN that has had a 12-20″ protective slot on smallmouth for the last 10 years. My grandson had a permanent smile on his face the entire week, even without wi-fi and a cell signal. Congrats to Kyle and Rick!Last edited by Macsimus on September 1st, 2016, 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Wow. Great to see a locals take. Im just coming at it from a southern clownshoes perspective- To me, When derby fish by definition are returned to lake and by definition are to be weighed in alive, show me a study that shows these sorts of regs work to statistically impact that fishery- Or Better yet that would require work to show that lack of such regs statistically cause a measurevabke negative impact to the fishery. Last I checked, habitat and Natural lake cycles were FARRR more important factors. yes i understand acute and delayed mortality. Yes I realize smallmouth mortality vs largemouth is different. BUT, we are talking about a state with lakes everywhere, smallmouth arent the majority target(like largemouth here), and you already cant fish year round. As for lake fork, if you applied the same regs to Toledo or Rayburn there would be mutiny. Texas only gonna tolerate that kind of craziness in highly limited doses. Is fishing at fork that much better than Toledo bend? Gotta give TPWD credit as the best fisheries advertising machine ever though. Heck they have most Texans fully bought in- even when a number of things they push really dont scientifically matter…..share a lunker program? Lol. Minnesota/wisc DNR- have No cull rules, cant fish spawn rules, and apparently other emotional rules like this one. It just doesnt even pass the basics of a sniff test to be scientific. Pesonally I think these rules are based on sentiment and not evidence since its cheaper than science and fortunately they are in states where bass arent King and folks tolerate a little more top down government than I would. But hey- if the folks Minnesota like those rules then they are serving the population and the fish up there.C.O.D. Jr. III
While I agree that applying the slot regs to tourney fishermen is dumb, I have to confess that I really like that there are a few exceptional lakes in MN that arent getting hammered by derbies. And Im a tournament fisherman. But by gosh, it is FUN to go to one of these special regs lakes and get your brains bit out catching unedumucated fish!! We are blessed beyond belief with the number, quality, and variety of lakes up here. I would never advocate for special regs on all lakes but we have enough that protecting a few of the exceptional ones is a good deal, at least to me.Your point about habitat and natural lake cycles is well taken. And, I will add spring weather. Spawn success and recruitment is highly dependent on these and has little to do with anglers. I know that the cull rule on the Miss River is a cluster but we are not under the same no-cull rule on the inland lakes.A closed bass season until Memorial weekend has been painful and resulted in me spending a great deal of money in other states over the years. We are making progress however. Thanks to a few dedicated individuals, in 2015 we got an early C & R season for bass that begins at the same time as the beloved walleye opener (2nd weekend in May). Also, the Miss River is open year round which helps scratch the itch as well.I do not remember exactly when it happened as it was quite awhile ago, but the MnDNR used to be somewhat isolated from the lunacy of the state legislature. That is no longer true so what you say about emotional (knee-jerk) regs is spot on. I still laugh about the recent attempt to require out-state tourists to take an online class (and pay a fee of course) to get a required invasives sticker that would allow them to pull their boat through MN. Even when headed to another state or Canada! Unbelievable.
Congrats to Kyle “Leechlakelargemouth” and Rick! The special regs definitely made this tournament a challenge. Kyle and Ricks strategy worked out great! Way to go.Thanks to Ivan, Eddy and Scott for putting on another fantastic event!Last edited by kent7351 on September 1st, 2016, 5:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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