08-08-2013, 06:04 PM
One of the biologist stated that a number of surveys had been sent out to the public concerning the inlet being open to fishing and that some 900 had been returned with 75% wanting to keep the inlet open and 25% against it. I don't know how many of you ever received this survey, I know I didn't. One of our BFT members in attendance last night said that he had conducted an online survey concerning the matter and had just the opposite results with 80% for closing the inlet and 20% for keeping it open.[crazy] We understand that studies conducted in the past concerning the survival rate of the eggs deposited in the inlet will not produce many if any walleye fry due supposedly to the heavy silt content, our big concern is the number of walleye that are taken by illegal hooking or snagging. Maybe closing the inlet to all fishing from dark until dawn would help some. When I first moved to Utah in the 70's I know that there was a closure time to fishing the inlet during the spawn from 7 P.M. until 5 A.M. I don't have a problem with allowing more fishing opportunities to fisherman, but taking walleye by foul hooking or snagging makes me sick. The biologist also stated that only 25% of the walleye in the lake spawn in the inlet, he didn't seem to think that was a big number. Twenty five percent of the Bay's population of walleye to me is one hell of alot of fish bottled up in one small area. It's like, should we say, "Shooting Fish in a Barrel". Hopefully we can convince the DNR that some changes need to be made.
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