All boaters, anglers and people who harvest bait from the wild must follow new rules regarding moving live fish, requiring water to be drained from boats after being used on potentially infected waters, and how they use and move bait.
The emergency regulations aim to contain a deadly fish virus that has already caused huge fish kills on several Great Lakes waters. They were adopted April 4 by the state Natural Resources Board and went into effect April 8.
They seek to prevent the spread viral hemorrhagic septicemia, or VHS, especially to Wisconsin’s inland lakes and rivers, by prohibiting anglers, boaters and wild bait harvesters from moving live fish or even water from the potentially infected waters of Lake Michigan, Lake Superior and the Mississippi River. The virus can be spread from fish to fish and can survive in water for more than a week; freezing or refrigerating fish does not kill the virus, although chemical and other treatment can. Fish infected with VHS can shed the virus into water in their urine and reproductive fluids; fish infected with the virus essentially bleed to death.
VHS is not a human health threat but more than 25 species of fish are susceptible to it, and state officials say the virus presents a very serious potential threat to fish populations and fishing opportunities in Wisconsin inland lakes and streams.
“We’re very worried,” says Mike Staggs, who directs Wisconsin’s fisheries program. “VHS virus can survive in the water without the fish and it can kill a broad range of species – all of which could allow it to spread quickly in our inland waters and have potentially devastating effects.
“We want you to continue to enjoy fishing and boating, but we truly need your help to protect Wisconsin’s waters and fisheries.”
The rules, which are similar to measures other Great Lakes states have taken, require anglers and boaters to:
- Be careful with live bait. Purchase your bait from a Wisconsin bait dealer or capture bait on the water in which you will be fishing. Anglers and boaters are not allowed to bring in bait from other states under a longstanding rule. You can also capture bait legally in a lake or stream and used in another lake or stream that is not the Mississippi River or any portion of a tributary stream to the Mississippi or to Lake Michigan, Green Bay or Lake Superior, up to the first barrier impassible to fish. Leeches, worms, and insects are not restricted by this rule and are OK on waters not restricted to artificial lures only.
- Be careful with dead bait. Several restrictions apply to dead fish, eggs, crayfish or frogs. Such dead bait may be used on the lake or stream where it was captured. Dead bait may also be used on Lake Michigan and Green Bay (including tributaries up to the first dam), as VHS may already be in those waters. The use of frozen or refrigerated dead bait is prohibited in all other waters. This includes frozen smelt taken from any waters. Dead bait may be used if preserved by means other than refrigeration or freezing, neither of which is assured of killing the virus.
- Don’t take live fish off the Great Lakes or Mississippi River. You may not take or transport any live fish or fish eggs (including bait) when leaving Lake Michigan, Green Bay, Lake Superior, the Mississippi River or any of their tributaries upstream to the first barrier impassable to fish. This includes fish caught and kept in livewells and leftover live bait, or minnows or fish eggs. There are some limited exceptions; contact your DNR office for information for those situations.
- Drain your boat and live well and empty your bait bucket before you leave the landing. After boating or fishing on the waters of the Great Lakes or Mississippi River (including all bays and tributaries up to the first dam), you must immediately drain all water from the boat and boat trailer, bilge, live wells and bait buckets or other equipment used onboard the boat. Place unused minnows in the trash, unless they are dead and will be saved for future use on the same body of water.
- Notify DNR if you see a fish with bloody spots on its skin. Call a local DNR fish biologist to help the agency monitor state fish populations for the virus. DNR is testing wild fish from Lake Michigan and Lake Superior this spring and will respond to fish kills.
VHS caused widespread fish kills in 2005 and 2006 in lakes St. Clair, Erie, Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, and was confirmed in early 2007 in Lake Huron chinook and whitefish collected in late 2005, Staggs says.
Because fish, chinook move widely in and between the Great Lakes, DNR biologists say the virus is “almost certainly” in Lake Michigan, and it may also be in Lake Superior, which is connected to Lake Huron. It may also be in the Mississippi River or the waters that drain to that river, which connect to Lake Michigan through the Chicago Sanitary Ship Canal.
More information on viral hemorrhagic septicemia is available on the DNR Web site.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Mike Staggs - (608) 267-0796, Bill Horns - (608) 266-8782 or Steve Hewett - (608) 267-750 |