Publisher’s Perspective

By Tim Douglass, Publisher of the Pope County Tribune

It seems like it has been “spring” for months.  Lake Minnewaska was officially ice free on Wednesday, March 13, making it the earliest ice-out date since records began in 1906.

Although we’ve had cooler weather in April, the spring-like weather started in late February and March.

Does that mean a good walleye fishing opener for our area?

It would seem so, according to experts and avid anglers.

Saturday, when Minnesota’s inland walleye and northern pike seasons begins, the fishing should be good.  And the catching should be good too.

Dennis Anderson, columnist for the Star Tribune recently reported that he looked at statewide ice-out dates, which obviously were early this spring, and also considered peak days that Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Division employees collected walleye eggs during this spring’s spawning runs.

“But mostly I recalled the cool weather and delayed crappie runs that prevailed after the early ice-out dates in 2012 to reach my determination that fishing (and catching) will be productive Saturday when the 2024 season begins — just as it was on the 2012 opener.”

Perhaps more important still than ice-out dates when trying to predict opening day walleye fishing success is the weather that prevails after the ice is gone, Anderson stated in a recent column.

Similar to this year, cool weather was the norm in 2012 between ice-out and the opener, preventing lake water from warming.

So what does this mean for walleye fishing?

DNR treaty fisheries coordinator Tom Jones in the agency’s Aitken office explains this spring’s prolonged spawning season this way:

“When the ice goes out early, some walleyes are close to being ready to spawn, but some aren’t. So the spawning season following an early ice-out usually is spread out over a longer period than it is during late ice-out, when most walleyes are ready to spawn more or less at the same time.”

“On this opener, he added, the spawn will be over, and it might be a good year to venture away from the crowds to find smaller groups of fish.”

Of course, whether or not the walleyes bite on opener is always  a guess, but it looks promising this year.   

   

PDSWM gets grant

It was announced recently that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) awarded Pope Douglas Solid Waste Management grant funding as part of their Greater Minnesota waste reduction, reuse, recycling and composting grants.

The grant gives the local PDSWM a step up in its recycling efforts.

Through this program, Pope Douglas Solid Waste Management will receive $160,591 in funds to purchase an optical sorter for its materials recovery facility. It is expected that this overall project will increase the rate of recovered recyclable material from the waste-to-energy facility sort process from 0% to an estimated 1.5%.

An optical sorter is used to recognize an object’s color, size, shape, structural properties and chemical composition. It compares objects to user-defined accept or reject criteria to identify and remove the items from the production line or to separate products of different grades or types of materials.

In waste and recycling the machines can be used to identify and discard manufacturing waste. It can separate metals, plastics, glass, wood and other types of items. One use that’s very practical is the ability to sort and separate different types of plastic by distinguishing resin types.

Nearly two-thirds of the trash in Minnesota’s landfills can be reused or recycled. If the current trends continue, nearly 8 million tons of additional waste will be sent to landfills over the next 20 years.

This project, along with four others across the state, will help make recycling and reuse more convenient for residents in our five-county areas.  This work will ultimately help reduce the amount of trash that is sent to landfills, which in turn can help improve public health, conserve energy and natural resources, and reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, it was stated by PDSWM.