George Spangler  November 28, 1995

"It takes two to speak the truth--one to speak, and another to hear." --Henry David Thoreau

As spring unfolds in northern Wisconsin, Chippewa fishermen are preparing to undertake the sixth year of spear-fishing for walleye in the waters ceded to the United States in several treaties during the Nineteenth Century. Fishing will constitute a re-enactment of Indian traditions that had lapsed for nearly a century, awaiting court recognition in 1983. This year, as in the past, the ears and emotions of the townsfolk of rural Wisconsin will be assailed by the conflicting claims of pro-treaty and anti-treaty activist groups, each hoping to garner public support for their respective views. If past experience is an indicator, we should expect that this issue will again generate more heat than light, leaving the public more confused than ever about the resource management implications of a tribal spear fishery. Almost unnoticed in the emotional arguments of protagonists for each view have been the relative importance of the tribal fishery in contrast to non-Indian angling, and the tangible resource management benefits that have resulted from recognition of tribal fishing rights.

When spear-fishing was re-instituted in 1985, participation by tribal fishers was somewhat tentative. Public opinion opposing the spear fishery appeared to vastly outweigh public support for treaty rights. Many fishermen preferred not to exercise their rights rather than suffer the verbal abuse and threats of physical violence that they encountered at boat landings. During that first season, 2761 walleye were taken in the spear fishery. The fishery grew steadily for the next three years with harvests of 6940, 21321, and 25974 walleye. During 1989, a sudden recurrence of cold weather at the end of the spawning season curtailed fishing activity and only 16053 walleye were taken.

Contrast these numbers with the harvest by anglers. During 1988, all fisheries combined took 698,277 walleye from the waters of the ceded territories. Angling accounted for 672,303 of these fish, 96.3% of the catch.* The astonishing result, that only 3.7% of the harvest occurred by spring spear-fishing, clearly points the finger of responsibility for the current state of the walleye resource to the angling fishery.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has estimated that the walleye fishery of Wisconsin is nearing, or exceeding, the exploitation limits that it can withstand. State testimony before the Federal Court in Wisconsin revealed that many walleye lakes under 500 acres in size had exploitation rates in excess of 35% of the adult stocks, a level regarded as a reasonable maximum for walleye under the DNR's fish management plan. Expert witnesses on walleye biology expressed concern that exploitation rates of 35% might even be too great to provide a sustainable fishery. The critical question today is to ask what must be done to insure that allowable harvest not be exceeded by an intensive recreational fishery.

The answer to this question clearly includes two alternatives. One approach would be to intensify resource assessment activities so that more precise estimates might be made of the exploitation rates and population sizes. This new information could then be used to better regulate the fisheries as their intensity nears maximum allowable levels. Another approach would be to take immediate action to place meaningful harvest limits on the fisheries, and to follow this with intensive assessment to judge the efficacy of the management program.

Fortunately for all users of Wisconsin's walleye resources, the Department of Natural Resources has moved aggressively to accomplish both goals. Realization that the Indian fisheries do not constitute a greater threat to the resource than the traditional angling fishery has prompted the Wisconsin DNR to implement a minimum size restriction on walleye harvest virtually everywhere in Wisconsin, and special reductions in daily bag limits for non-Indians applied to waters where tribal fisheries are expected to take a significant proportion of the harvestable walleye population.

Management activities throughout the ceded territories have intensified greatly since the tribal fisheries became an important public issue. Prior to the reactivation of these fisheries there were only about 1000 creel survey days allocated annually to lakes in the ceded territories. In each of 1986 and 1987, approximately 3000 days of surveys were conducted. Fish population estimates from 1971 to 1984 averaged fewer than 6 per year in contrast to 100 such estimates available since the 1984 season. A 5-year-plan has recently been developed to increase the number of creel surveys and population estimates to 25 per year. Clearly, Wisconsin walleye managers are in a far better position today to insure sound management than they were a decade ago.

Detractors of this argument would point out that no intensive management scheme is without cost, and there may be other resource management issues in the state which will not receive due consideration because of budget reallocations to the walleye fishery. While this may be true, more effective management of 77% of Wisconsin's lakes is an undeniable benefit of the implementation of Indian treaty rights. Intensive study of the Wisconsin treaty litigation underscores the fact that, in resource management, as in other areas of life, there is no such thing as a "free lunch." Responsible resource management is costly, and must be accompanied by stringent controls upon users if it is to genuinely result in an opportunity for sustained utilization into the future.

The conclusion to be drawn here, in spite of the anguish arising among non-Indian users of fisheries resources in Wisconsin, is that all present and future users of these resources stand to reap significant benefits in better resource management as a consequence of the reinstatement of treaty fishing rights.

George Spangler is a Professor of Fisheries in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at the University of Minnesota. Professor Spangler testified as an expert witness on fisheries management in the Chippewa's litigation with the State of Wisconsin.

This essay originally appeared in Minnesota-Out-of-Doors: Spangler, G. R. 1990. To Spear, or not to Spear, is not the Question. Minnesota Out-of-Doors. 36(4).