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WHATS AT STAKE? Current harvest figures amount to 9-18 percent of the sportsfishing harvest on Mille Lacs. The DNR is worried the could jump to 50% or more after a five year period.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has rejected an offer by the Mille Lac Band of Ojibwe and six Wisconsin bands to phase in their harvest of walleye and other fish on Lake Mille Lacs.

In August, the bands proposed a five-year harvest plan that would have allowed them to take 40,000 pounds of walleyes in 1996, then increase the harvest to 80,000 pounds by 2001.

The plan also outlined the bands fishing plans for yellow perch, nothern pike, muskellunge and other species.

By proposing the harvest, the bands hoped to resolve the issue of the fish allocation that will be decided during the second phase of an on-going lawsuit over a 1837 tereaty between the tribe and the federal government. That phase of the trial is set to begin next September.

The band won the first round in August 1994, when a federal judge ruled that they had hunting and fishing rights within a 12-county area of east-centeral Minnesota.

But DNR officials have rejected the bands’ harvesting proposal, saying that plan failed to discuss how much fish the band wanted beyond the five-year phase-in period.

The officials say they're interested in either a total cap on Mille Lacs harvest by the band or they’ll await the federal judges decision next year.

"It's only a five year plan and it only deals with the fish resources on Mille Lacs," said Gail Lewellan assistant DNR commissioner. "It provides something tangible for the short-term, but it leaves bigger questions unresolved. We'd like to seem them permanently resolved, either through an immediate cap on harvest or through litigation."

Lewellan said, "current harvest figures for the bands amount to 9 percent to 18 percent of the sports fishing harvest on Mille Lacs. But," she said, "the agency worries the bands harvest could jump up to 50% or more after the five-year phase-in period, that wouldn't be acceptable to the restort and other businesses in the area," she said.

The DNR also rejects the bands proposed use of 1-inch mesh nets to harvest the fish, because they would endager sizes of fish the agency wants to protect. A proposal allowing spearing of fish throught the ice also was rejected by the agency.

Despite any compromise proposals, Lewellan said the agency is still appealing the August 1994 ruling that found the bands had treaty rights.