do the natives still commercially fish LOW

[alanexpup]

HI. I am just wondering if the natives are still allowed to fish LOW commercially, taking fish by the thousand of tons?

[Obabikon]

Yes, they are allowed. However, the frequency of it is WAY down. Nothing like it used to be.

[scotttheguide]

They are limited to how much they can harvest.

[Wall-i-Lama]

Alan, It is my understanding that anyone who possesses a commercial license can fish commercially on LOTW. I've also read where only one company is authorized by the Ministry of Natural resources to purchase the fish. This allows control of both the number of commercial fisherman and the knowledge of how many fish are being harvested. I've have heard from several sources that many of the commercial fishing license are owned by non - natives and are not used.

Aside from that, I believe that any native in Ontario can use nets for subsistence, but few do.

I've fished the LOTW area out of Sioux Narrows for the past 5 years and have never seen anyone using a net.

My unofficial "creel survey" indicates that there must not be much commercial fishing going on. If there is, it is having no effective on the sport fishing. The fishing in this area for walleye is outstanding and we have many days in excess of 50 keeper walleye. We do our part and release all but those kept for dinner.

I'm not an expert on any of this, but just as an ordinary fisherman, I'd say that commercial fishing on LOTW Ontario is not a big issue.

Good luck this summer, maybe we'll see you on the lake!

[alanexpup]

HI. well thats good to hear. i know when i was a kid we came accross some nets strung accross an area and it full of big dead walleyes and northerns that were half rotten away. ok thanks. alan

[fishing frenzy]

There are still a good number of nets at the NW Angle area.

[Outfitter17]

From what I understand most of the walleye and northerns sold at Sportmans service in I. Falls comes from natives that net on LOW

[rpieske]

Tim told me it's been getting harder to get the walleye and northern. Less folks commercial fishing LOTW.

[dclhomes]

We have a cabin on Lobstick Bay. The last couple of years the fishing has gone to crap on Long Bay. I know there are a couple natives that net Long and out as far as Chisolm. They don't mark their nets and usually run just at dark. I believe they are taking MORE than they are allowed, any fish you do catch now run smaller like 13-16". The nets target the larger eyes which is why I think they may be hurting the area. 3 years ago it was common to catch 3-10 eyes around 20" in Long Bay in a couple hours, haven't done that since. They run every day so imagine 50-100 nice eyes taken out all summer. Hopefully I'm wrong, they're just feeding their families, or the fish have moved or (uggghh!) I don't know how to catch them!!! Have a safe summer! Dennis

[alanexpup]

how big a family do they have that they need 50 big walleyes everyday? I thought it was for subsistance not profit. I am beginning to think the canadians let the natives get away with tooooo much. The indians here know that to get ahead they need to asimilate into our culture as much as possible and they did to a great extent. it seems in canada they have refused to do that.