Mille Lacs walleye troubles: How'd we get here? How do we get out?

The announcement last week that night fishing would be banned this year on Mille Lacs and that the walleye limit there would be one — as in one — was not unexpected. Given the relatively few walleyes that swim in the lake these days, a declaration making Mille Lacs walleyes entirely catch-and-release beginning with the May 9 opener could have been justified.

That the state’s premier walleye fishery could decline so far so fast suggests skulduggery on many fronts, and the inclination is to point fingers. Indian nets are to blame. Or the Department of Natural Resources. Or the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in 1999 that eight Minnesota and Wisconsin Chippewa bands reserved off-reservation hunting and fishing rights in what is now a 12-county region of east-central Minnesota, including Mille Lacs.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/299464781.html