There is indeed a need for…

There is indeed a need for helping the walleye on lake of the woods, the sizes of the walleye this last year has dropped alot, lots of 12 inch walleyes with not many good eater size fish of 16 to 18 inch. With that being said, because of covid the summers of 2019 and 2021 there was no recreational fishing on lake of the woods. No United states residents were allowed to enter Canada to stay at resorts and fish. You would think that the two year break in recreational fishing would have helped the populations alot, but as a resort owner who was able to enter Canada and work on my resort, it was very disappointing to see all the commercial netting that occurred on our end of the lake by Morson. I witnessed first hand the extreme netting pressure that occurred day in and day out. One 1/2 mile net takes more fish on one day than my camp guests harvest in one year. Even last year the year after covid the netting was horrible. The natives were netting the same spots for seven days on a row, there was not hardly a fish left within 5 miles of our camp. A complete disregard for the fishery. If you are going to fish the walleye fishery it needs to start with the netting and getting it to stop. I am not on board with any limit cuts on walleye to any recreational fishing unless you can cut the netting. I always hear dont worry we are working on it from your fisheries group but guess what you can work on it all you want and until i see it on paper and quit seeing so much netting taking place your plan will not work even if you cut the recreational limit to zero. People are not going to stop at lake of the woods to fish with lower limits they will go farther north to better fishing and no netting. If you want to fix the fishery then stop or slow the netting. Buy out the commercial fishermen, add 5 dollars to each license and buy them out. People come to lake of the woods to catch lots of fish and release 95% of them and keep a few to eat. you all know the problem is netting so start there and make a difference now.