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Reel out those fishing rods

Published (4/6/2012)
By Bob Geiger
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Rep. Tom Hackbarth sponsors the omnibus game and fish bill. (Photo by Paul Battaglia)Mother’s Day and the state fishing opener may not conflict this year, even though they are scheduled the same weekend.

The omnibus game and fish bill passed April 3 by the House would start the fishing season a week early this year, if it is signed into law.

Sponsored by Rep. Tom Hackbarth (R-Cedar), HF2171 also includes a Minnesota wolf-hunting season that coincides with the start of the deer hunting season. The bill awaits action by the Senate, where Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen (R-Alexandria) is the sponsor. If the Senate fails to pass the identical bill, a conference committee would be needed to work out the differences.

Rep. David Dill (DFL-Crane Lake) offered the amendment that would jump-start Minnesota’s 2012 fishing season, which is officially scheduled to start May 12, with a “bonus week” starting May 5. The shift would only apply for this year.

“(Because of unseasonably warm temperatures) the fish have done most of the work that they must do to make other fish,” said Dill. “The fish already are moving out (into deeper water). This is a bonus week. We have a constitutional amendment that says we have the right to hunt and fish.”

Culling the wolf, stopping the carp

The late-2011 removal of wolves from the federal Endangered Species List resulted in the transfer of management of Minnesota’s estimated population of 3,000 wolves to the state on Jan. 27, 2012. Under the bill, up to 400 wolves could be taken during the first season, which could begin the same day as the deer hunting season.

Prospective wolf hunters would pay a $4 fee to enter a lottery that would pick up to 6,000 hunters for the season.

A large part of the floor debate was devoted to a series of amendments that would have changed or deleted a section of the bill that could require publicly owned shooting ranges to host youth firearms safety tests four times a year.

Rep. Ann Lenczewski (DFL-Bloomington) contends that requirement represents an unfunded mandate to local governments and creates taxpayer-funded competition for privately owned shooting ranges.

“This is real government-creep into private enterprise,” said Rep. Bev Scalze (DFL-Little Canada). “Why would we want to interfere with small business?”

Rep. Jean Wagenius (DFL-Mpls) expressed concern that the bill contains zero funding to defend Minnesota’s western border from the invasive Asian carp.

“South Dakota is home to Asian carp,” said Wagenius. “It’s the same carp that are coming up the Mississippi River. We are working hard, particularly on the Legacy bill to defend against that. But what we are not doing is working on the carp coming in from South Dakota.”

She referred to $12.2 million in that bill to, in part, erect barriers on the Mississippi River to block the carp from advancing further north. Asian carp barriers are limited to the Mississippi River in the Legacy bill, rather than the Missouri River and tributaries that extend toward the Minnesota-South Dakota border.

“If this goes to conference committee, we really need to worry about this because the Senate has no carp language in its bill,” Wagenius said.

Other provisions in the bill include:

• expanding the Department of Natural Resources’ mission to include recruitment of new anglers and hunters and keep existing participants, including women and minorities;

• allowing electronic sales of hunting and fishing licenses during a government shutdown (the DNR estimates $2.2 million in license sales were lost during the July 2011 state shutdown);

• setting a $26 wolf hunting fee and establishing a wolf management and monitoring account funded by wolf license fees to provide wolf management, research, damage control, enforcement and education;

• establishing a “walk-in access program” to provide public access to private land for hunting;

• allowing bear hunters to leave hunting stands in the wild overnight if the owner’s address, driver’s license and DNR license numbers are attached;

• allowing road crews to trap beaver whose dams are causing damage or threaten to damage public roadways;

• providing for state authorities to drain shallow lakes to manage invasive species;

• allowing use of snowmobiles with metal traction devices on paved public trails unless they are specified as closed trails by a local government or DNR; and

• specifying that holders of commercial licenses to transport minnows must ship them in tagged containers and be kept separate from minnows from Minnesota. It also requires a $1 million bond be provided in case a licensee is convicted of letting invasive species into Minnesota waters.

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