Fishing season is just around the corner

Keith Reopelle

The opening day of fishing season, the first weekend in May, is not far off. The winter sports shows have been fun, but cabin fever is mounting and like hundreds of thousands of other Wisconsin anglers I can hardly wait for the open water season to begin.

I spend all of my working hours protecting Wisconsin’s environment. So when I have time off I like to enjoy our state’s natural resources; and my favorite outdoor recreation is fishing. I’ve fished all my life. Growing up in Milwaukee my father took my brother and me on countless weekend fishing outings to Waukesha County lakes, Okauchee in particular and Fox Lake in Dodge County. The fishing was great. We caught many limits of bass, northern pike and sometimes walleye, and that was without the use of sonar.

We spent many a family summer vacation on lakes in northern Wisconsin. I spent a lot of them fishing: Catfish and Cranberry Lakes near Eagle River, Lac Court Oreilles, Grindstone, and Big Round lakes near Hayward. Now I do most of my fishing on the Madison lakes and in Vilas County. I still love fishing, and catch a few from time to time, but a lot has changed. Many of the lakes have changed.

For example, the introduction of the Eurasian milfoil weed in combination with increased nutrient loading from polluted runoff has caused many lakes, or parts of lakes, to be choked with excessive weed growth. Monona Bay in Madison is a prime example. Some lakes in Oneida County have the opposite problem. The rusty crayfish, another exotic species eats native weeds at such a rate that it has completely eliminated weed growth in some lakes.

Clean Wisconsin is working hard to address five critical water quality issues to restore our lakes and streams for fishing, swimming and other forms of recreation:

Reducing Polluted Runoff
Excess nutrients and sedimentation from polluted runoff has greatly accelerated the eutrophication (aging process) of many lakes and rivers leading to excessive weed growth, algae blooms and poor overall water quality. Governor Doyle put $37 million in his budget bill to help reduce polluted runoff. Clean Wisconsin played a key role in developing the state’s polluted runoff regulations and will be working hard this Spring to secure adequate funding through the budget bill to implement them.

Reducing Toxic Mercury in Game Fish
The State Health Department warns anglers and their families to limit consumption of Wisconsin game fish because of high levels of toxic mercury that impact the brain and nervous system development of children and fetuses. Clean Wisconsin is working to strengthen the regulations limiting mercury emission from power plants and establish laws that phase out the use of mercury in products where alternatives are available.

Invasive Species
Carp, zebra mussels, rusty crayfish, milfoil, the list of disastrous exotic species in our Great Lakes and inland lakes and streams just keeps growing and changing our aquatic ecosystems in irreparable ways. Clean Wisconsin is helping to secure funding to address aquatic invasive species across the state and working to establish policies, such as ballast water treatment, to deter new invasive species from entering the Great Lakes Basin.

Great Lakes Restoration
The Great Lakes ecosystem is under assault from a variety of threats from sewage overflows, to invasive species, to contaminated sediments and shoreline habitat destruction. Clean Wisconsin is working with a regional coalition to leverage a major investment in restoring the Great Lakes. We’re also working to support Governor Doyle’s $17 million budget earmark for clean up of PCBs in the sediment of two Lake Michigan tributaries in Milwaukee.

Global Warming
The impacts of global warming are harder to predict but some are coming into clean focus, and it’s not a pretty picture. Warmer weather has meant later freeze up in the fall and early ice out in the spring. The ice fishing season has been gradually becoming shorter and if the trend continues the “hard water” fishing season will, at some point, become a thing of the past. Warming also threatens many of our cold water fisheries. The DNR predicts that habitat for native brook trout, for example, will be severely reduced in coming decades due to warming. Clean Wisconsin is pushing a comprehensive agenda of cutting edge technologies and policies to reduce global warming emissions.

When you wade into your favorite trout stream this spring, or head out on your favorite lake to chase muskies, bass, walleye or panfish think about the many challenges facing our lakes and rivers and remember that Clean Wisconsin is working hard to restore these waters and improve our fishing. And if you see an especially egregious threat to your favorite water, shoot me an e-mail (kreopelle@cleanwisconsin.org). If we can’t help with it we’ll contact whoever we think can. Oh, and if you catch a lot of fish, let me know about that too; you don’t have to tell me the exact spot.