Quote Originally Posted by Defernaut View Post
A thoughtful discussion among adults is not a pissing match. Good thing too, because at my advanced age it would be more like a dribble match. It is inconceivable to me that anyone would be punished because random game fish fingerlings turned up in baitfish. There is the letter of the law and there is the spirit of the law. If I buy a bucket of minnows and a walleye is among them, I am in violation of the letter of the law but in no way have I willfully violated any law. The same is true of the bait dealers and the bait fishermen. If this years walleye recruitment is as good as it appears, that is wonderful but in no way should the shiner fishermen, the bait dealers or the perch fishermen be made to suffer for it. Perhaps the DNR agents could post signs at the dealers mentioning that walleye fingerlings have been mixed in with the shiners and ask that they be released carefully. Maybe thats not practical, but some allowances must be made. They cannot shut down the entire bait industry. Not even the DNR can expect the bait fishermen to sort through thousands of shiners to seperate the occasional walleye. I am finished now.

I did not mean to come across as a fishing scrooge, sorry about that. This whole conversation is in my opinion still based upon a rumor, a rumor that some very reliable sources has made me aware of.

With that being said I am not so sure that I would want the ODNR selectively enforcing the law as it is written, meaning it is ok to possess them now just because of their over abundance in the lakes minnow gathering areas. I don't think the ODNR wants to selectively enforce the law either as it would create problems with other enforcement measures, but are using their discretion about whether to cite or not to cite violations of the possession law. That is why they are asking/making the bait stores to dump their tanks and not issuing citations at this time. Ethical bait stores should not and would not be knowingly selling shiners with a mix of YOY Walleyes included in your bait purchase.

It is part of the fishing game and we all suffer for a very large hatch if that hatch is actually a fact. The minnow boats, bait stores and the fishermen all suffer when these naturally occurring events take place, with the netters enduring the most sufferage, the bait stores can at least get Golden Shiners to sell and we fishermen have the option to purchase them or not. With the number of reports that this is taking place, and this happened to some extent in 2003 but mostly at the net boats dock and not the stores, it would appear that this is even a better recruitment of YOY than 2003, but that is only my opinion. There are reports as far east as the Cleveland area about the abundance of YOY Walleyes in the minnow nets.