Do you think ice fishing is damaging open water fishing?

[brushape]

I used to live/fish in SD. Most of the lakes there are stocked although some probably have some spawning. Ice fishing hurts but I would say Facebook hurts more. There was a hot bite on a lake a few years ago. You could get a limit of 21" walleyes in a few hours. Once the word go out that the bite was hot, there would be vehicles/boats from IA, MN, and NE. It was crazy. There was always a GFP guy there checking limits, etc. There was probably some illegal harvesting but not much. I'm guessing a 2500 acre lake having hundreds or maybe even thousands of fish taken out of it every day adds up. I'm sure it would have been the same in winter it just happened that the bite hit during the summer.

[Wallychowder]

Originally Posted by brushape

I used to live/fish in SD. Most of the lakes there are stocked although some probably have some spawning. Ice fishing hurts but I would say Facebook hurts more. There was a hot bite on a lake a few years ago. You could get a limit of 21" walleyes in a few hours. Once the word go out that the bite was hot, there would be vehicles/boats from IA, MN, and NE. It was crazy. There was always a GFP guy there checking limits, etc. There was probably some illegal harvesting but not much. I'm guessing a 2500 acre lake having hundreds or maybe even thousands of fish taken out of it every day adds up. I'm sure it would have been the same in winter it just happened that the bite hit during the summer.

I heard guys from MN were even running out and buying $100,000 boats to fish that lake at the time ! Don't they realize that you can buy walleye fillets for $10 bucks a pound ?

[Dacotah Eye]

That would probably be about $140 a pound less than Walleye costs me. lol

[Wallychowder]

Originally Posted by Dacotah Eye

That would probably be about $140 a pound less than Walleye costs me. lol

🤣

That's not the worst of it, then they went out and sold those boats for a profit after using them!