HAYWARD, Wis. —
People are also reading… “We’ve seen things here over the last couple of years that I’ve never seen before,” said Brian Bisonette, Gabe's uncle and the conservation director of the Lac Courte Oreilles Conservation Department. “It worries me, what I’ve seen in my lifetime, what’s my grandson going to see in his lifetime?”
Now, with the importance of that history in mind, tribes and local conservation teams are finding ways to keep walleye and the spearing tradition intact. Spearers are required to get permits that limit the number of fish they can take, and some lakes are “stocked,” meaning the bulk of the fish population is born in a hatchery and released into the lake. But the goal in many cases is still to boost natural reproduction.
The goal is an accurate picture of the fish populations of inland lakes, which the DNR gathers in partnership with tribal conservation partners and the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. Pooling their data, experts across all groups are noticing signs of change.