By Chad Love

Authorities in Minnesota have busted what appears to be a massive gamefish poaching ring that allegedly used nets to haul thousands of pounds of walleye from some of Minnesota's most popular fishing lakes.

From this story on startribune.com: 
Last week, 10 people were indicted in federal court for their alleged roles in a major fish poaching scheme involving the buying and selling of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of walleyes netted from some of northern Minnesota’s most popular lakes. The ten men from northern Minnesota were accused of netting walleyes and other fish from lakes on the Red Lake and Leech Lake Indian reservations and selling them in violation of federal, state and tribal law. The illegal activity allegedly has occurred since 2009 and was widespread. Among the lakes where fish were netted and then sold were Leech, Cass, Winnibigoshish, Red and Six Mile, according to the indictments.

According to the story, in addition to the ten charged last week, 21 more indictments will be handed down today as a result of the three-year investigation of the poaching ring.

Comments (5)

from badsmerf wrote 8 weeks 6 days ago

Lock them up! Those guys are a slap in the face to honest anglers in MN that play by the rules even if they are silly and unfair. They need to be made an example of and receive the maximum sentence. I can't stand poachers, especially if they are decimating an entire population.

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from Ontario Honker ... wrote 8 weeks 6 days ago

Let's see if they can make it stick! I'm sure we'll be seeing some tribal rights issues springing up in this matter. We have quite a few tribal commercial fisherman up here but by and large they police themselves fairly well. Most of them I know are quite industrious types and run pretty clean operations. But they are watched very closely as is the buying end of the business. Most have quite a bit of change tied up in their equipment and don't want to lose it or their permits.

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from mayoaaron wrote 8 weeks 5 days ago

string them up, I fish on Leech and Winne multiple times a year and to hear this, really upsets me

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from miller73 wrote 8 weeks 5 days ago

It's A good thing they got caught, otherwise i feel like they wouldve poached more and more and feeling that they can get away with everything.

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from Douglas Stangler wrote 8 weeks 4 days ago

I hope none of the criminals were Native American. Would bring shame to their tribe.

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from badsmerf wrote 8 weeks 6 days ago

Lock them up! Those guys are a slap in the face to honest anglers in MN that play by the rules even if they are silly and unfair. They need to be made an example of and receive the maximum sentence. I can't stand poachers, especially if they are decimating an entire population.

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from Ontario Honker ... wrote 8 weeks 6 days ago

Let's see if they can make it stick! I'm sure we'll be seeing some tribal rights issues springing up in this matter. We have quite a few tribal commercial fisherman up here but by and large they police themselves fairly well. Most of them I know are quite industrious types and run pretty clean operations. But they are watched very closely as is the buying end of the business. Most have quite a bit of change tied up in their equipment and don't want to lose it or their permits.

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from mayoaaron wrote 8 weeks 5 days ago

string them up, I fish on Leech and Winne multiple times a year and to hear this, really upsets me

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from miller73 wrote 8 weeks 5 days ago

It's A good thing they got caught, otherwise i feel like they wouldve poached more and more and feeling that they can get away with everything.

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from Douglas Stangler wrote 8 weeks 4 days ago

I hope none of the criminals were Native American. Would bring shame to their tribe.

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All submitted comments are subject to the rules set forth in our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.