Lake Katherine Fishery - Always Changing
Late this winter, your Lake Association Board was contacted by a Fisheries Technician from the Wisconsin DNR who was looking for logistical support for one way the DNR assesses the fish population of the lake. Called “creel surveys”, these are voluntary interviews anglers participate in to share information about what they have caught while fishing.
The Fisheries Technician’s signature block caught my eye as it read “Eastern Treaty Fisheries Assessment Team” and “Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources'' reflecting the collaborative nature of managing fisheries in many lakes between the dozen or so Bands of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians that have court-affirmed treaty rights and the State of Wisconsin, which has the governmental authority over the lakes and navigable waters of the state. As lakeshore property owners and lake association members, we all should be aware of how the state and the tribes work cooperatively on data about fish caught as well as models they use to make decisions about appropriate limits for recreational angling as well as the tribal food harvest.
There is an enormous body of literature that covers the history of tribal treaty rights and the current implementation of the court-affirmed rights of the tribes (not individual members). Regrettably, there remains a fair amount of animosity if not blatant racism regarding the rights of tribes related to their hunting, fishing, and gathering. The many years when tribes were largely removed to reservations and their treaties with the U.S. government were ignored led to a false belief that tribes had no rights different from non-tribal citizens. All that changed with court cases that affirmed their off-reservation rights and the Tribes’ exercise of those rights including spearing in the spring, Lake Katherine being one of many lakes in northern Wisconsin where Tribes conduct this food-gathering ritual that their ancestors had been practicing for untold generations.
The court cases altered how fishing is managed in Wisconsin, the largest change being a cooperative approach by the State and the Tribes including the collection of information and the establishment of fishing regulations. Both parties now collaborate to provide opportunities for the Tribes to exercise their rights and for non-tribal citizens to use the privilege they have to enjoy fishing for sport and food. This comes from an important part of the court case ruling - the concept of “co-management”.
Additionally, the tribes are entitled up to half of the annually calculated "harvestable surplus" (the theoretical amount that can be taken without negatively affecting the fish population from year to year). This is mostly for walleye and for a certain set of lakes. The Ojibwe tribes with those rights work together to declare how many fish they will take from lakes and organize themselves around the actual harvest. For tribal spearing that occurs in late April or early May most years, each licensed tribal gatherer must conduct their harvest on particular nights when a reporting station is set up at the public landing and overseen by professional staff and wardens from the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. Every single fish harvested is recorded (and data taken on size, weight, and sex). No tribal harvesting can occur unless there is a recording station set up so they know exactly how many fish are taken.
Non-tribal anglers can fish any day when the season is open and there are no requirements to report the number of fish taken as part of the daily bag limit. It is essentially an honor system with very infrequent checks by WDNR wardens (I have fished Lake Katherine for many years and have never had a warden check). Thus, the actual take for the part of the harvestable surplus that remains for non-tribal anglers is never really known unlike it is for the tribes. Therefore, the WDNR conducts creel surveys as one method to get rough estimates of actual fish caught and kept.
On top of the human harvest, we know that eagles, ospreys, loons, herons, otters, mink, and big fish eat many of the fish in the lake so there is a great deal of harvesting going on by them with no good way to calculate what they take. Therefore, the tribes and WDNR try to be a bit conservative with their estimates of what can be harvested without causing a downward trend in the fish population.
In addition to creel surveys, the tribes and WDNR cooperate in non-lethal sampling of the fish to try to better understand the big picture of what is going on with various fish species in the lake.
Lake Katherine has seen changes over the last few decades. Like many other lakes in this area, the walleye populations have declined while concurrently, the largemouth and smallmouth bass numbers have increased quite a bit. There are lots of ideas about why this has happened, but there are no clear smoking guns (or sharpened hooks!).
Much more could be written about the still vibrant fishery of Lake Katherine and many a story could be told about fishing adventures and the big ones that got away. Perhaps a few such anecdotes could be added in the comment section.
For now, we should all be aware of the ongoing work of the WDNR's creel survey efforts this summer, to understand how the tribes and state work together but each with a different recording system of harvest, and how we as lakeshore owners can do good things on our properties and how we recreate on the lake that support quality fish and wildlife habitat now and into the future.
