Patrick Durkin: Wisconsin’s spring hearings voters OK April trout opener

Wisconsin could move its traditional trout opener from early May to early April next year, based on a landslide 63-37 percentage vote during mid-April’s annual conservation hearings.

The inland trout opener was one of many fishing-related changes the outdoor community supported during the statewide hearings, a joint effort by the DNR and the citizen-based Conservation Congress. Voters also backed a five-trout bag limit as the basic statewide trout regulation by a 60-40 margin. 

They also OK’d 34 local and regional regulation changes for bag and size limits on trout, bass, walleyes, panfish, and northern pike in scores of waters. To read those details and locations, visit this link.

Spring hearing voters considered 74 proposals. The first 46 were recommended DNR rules, meaning they could become law in 2026 if the congress advances them to the Natural Resources Board (NRB). If the NRB approves the rules, they advance to the state Senate for a final vote.

The other 28 congress proposals sought advice only. If the congress advances them, the DNR can place them on the April 2026 ballot as potential rules for 2027.

The congress has 360 delegates, five from each of our 72 counties. The congress is  legislatively sanctioned to advise the seven-member NRB, which sets DNR policy.

The DNR reported 1,802 attendants at the April 14 in-person hearings. Another 7,474 citizens voted online April 14-16. Wisconsin residents made up 98% of this year’s 9,276 voters.

This was the second straight year with in-person hearings after a four-year absence caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Though in-person attendance made up only 20% of April’s participants, it was 80% higher than a year ago when 1,001 people attended.

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This year’s combined attendance was the lowest turnout for the spring hearings since the DNR and congress debuted online voting in 2019, and it marks the first time participation fell below 10,000 since that change. Combined attendance in April 2019 was 10,712, but participation jumped to a record 64,943 in April 2020, three weeks into the pandemic, when in-person voting wasn’t allowed for the first time in the hearings’ nearly century-long history.

Also boosting 2020’s participation were several unpopular deer-season proposals by Greg Kazmierski and Fred Prehn, two former NRB members. After deer hunters rejected those ideas in 2020, attendance plunged 80% in 2021 to 12,641. In the seven years since online voting’s debut, the hearings have averaged 22,301 participants annually.

In other closely watched proposals, participants voted 58-42 to expand motor-trolling with three lines per angler on all inland waters in 67 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. Assuming the NRB approves the change, motor trolling with three lines will be allowed next year for the first time in Sawyer, Sheboygan, and Waupaca counties. The five counties with one-line restrictions for motor trollers are Florence, Forest, Iron, Oneida and Vilas counties.

In other pending changes, the votes were:

• 65-35 to create a release season for lake sturgeon on several river systems from the first Saturday in June through the first Sunday in March;

• 94-6 to prohibit fishing for shovelnose sturgeon during the spawning season on the Lower Wisconsin River;

• 74-24 to let hunters leave nonedible parts of deer, bears, and elk in the field rather than drag everything out of the woods (hunters in Western states have always quartered or boned out their kills);

• 62-38 to let disabled hunters hunt deer statewide in October during the two-day youth firearms season.

In a likely a historical first for the spring hearings, voters approved all 74 proposals on this year’s questionnaire. Of those 74 items, 70 advanced during reviews May 8-10 at the congress convention in Oshkosh where delegates rejected these four proposals:

• Of 6,830 ballots cast, attendees voted 66-34 percent to let trappers use cellular cameras to check and monitor traps (67 counties passed, four opposed and one tied), but convention delegates rejected the idea because the Wisconsin Trappers Association opposed it;

• Voters backed a congress advisory proposal 58-42 to phase out lead in ammunition and fishing tackle, citing concerns that mammals and birds can die when ingesting lead shot and fragments from lead-core bullets (counties also supported the idea, 36-31-1), but delegates rejected the proposal, citing reports that lead poisoning threatens only individual scavengers, not entire wildlife populations;

• Of 5,565 ballots cast, voters backed an advisory proposal 64-36 to have the DNR create a nonlethal predator prevention program for farmers (counties vote favored the idea, 59-9-4), but delegates rejected it, believing the program would be futile and costly;

• Of 5,806 ballots cast, voters supported an advisory proposal 69-31 to create a sandhill crane stamp to pay farmers for crop damage. The county vote favored the idea, 69-2-1, but delegates opposed creating another crop-abatement system.

Congress delegates OK’d 14 other advisory questions, which means they could return for a second vote in April 2026:

• Increase deer license price (59-41 majority, 6,021 votes);

• Let DNR wardens enforce local ordinances on lakes (79-21 majority, 5,957 votes);

• Protect lakes, streams, fish and wildlife from pollution caused by manure and commercial fertilizers (79-21 majority, 5,926 votes);

• Require hunters to put ownership/I.D. labels on bear baits on public land (77-23 majority, 5,803 votes);

• Create a general habitat conservation stamp (64-36 majority, 5,716 votes);

• Extend the fall turkey season in zones 6 and 7 (76-24 majority, 5,634 votes);

• Create a K9 unit for DNR game wardens (74-26 majority, 5,627 votes);

• Develop requirements for hunting and fishing guides (77-23 majority, 5,409 votes);

• Let hunters shoot white deer in Marathon, Portage, Wood, Jefferson, and Winnebago counties (passed by 60-40 or 61-39 majorities in all five counties);

• Require pipeline owners/operators to submit federally mandated spill notifications to the DNR’s remediation and redevelopment program (90-10 majority, 5,331 votes);

In other news from the congress statewide convention, Rob Bohmann of Racine was re-elected as chairman; Paul Reith of Madison was re-elected vice-chair; Reed Kabelowsky of Manitowoc was elected secretary; and Kevin Schanning of Bayfield County and Mike Britton of Barron County were elected as at-large executive committee members.

Contact Patrick Durkin at patrickdurkin56@gmail.com.