ISLE, Minn. – In the bait shops and bars, fishing docks and resorts that make up the world of Mille Lacs fishing, the collapse of the lake's walleye fishery has inflamed age-old tensions between white sport anglers and local Indian bands who share the lake.
One resort owner said some "loose cannons" have suggested taking up arms, while a commentator on a popular fishing forum said "chuckleheads" would cut American Indian nets if Indians netted walleye during the open water fishing season.
"Sooner or later someone would end up dead over a damned fish," wrote "Bandersnatch" on the Lake State Fishing forum.
The leaders of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe declined this week to comment for fear it would only exacerbate racial tensions, but a spokeswoman for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission said such frictions have been "long term."
"Nobody will ever be able to convince some of these folks that [Indian band] netting isn't the villain in this circumstance," said Sue Erickson, the spokeswoman.
Eight Indian bands have treaty rights stemming from 1837 to net walleye in Mille Lacs, and this year they netted 10,140 pounds of their 11,400 limit, according to the Department of Natural Resources. State scientists say the netting cannot be blamed for the lake's vanishing walleye population. Still, Erickson said, she follows online fishing forums and sees the comments.
"I can tell the Mille Lacs boys are upset and the resort owners are upset," she said.
A blue-ribbon panel convened by the DNR to study the Mille Lacs walleye crisis concluded in a January report that too many young walleye don't survive, likely because of predation by adult walleye, pike and cormorants.