Wisconsin motor-trolling laws continue to be confusing

At risk of provoking someone to stuff my row-trolling gloves with poison ivy, I predict the sun will keep shining and muskies will keep striking plugs and bucktails across Wisconsin even though it became legal Wednesday to motor troll statewide.

Maybe I should be as livid as traditional bowhunters when Wisconsin legalized crossbows, or as outraged as birders when Wisconsin allowed mourning dove hunts. And maybe I should risk getting booted from a Natural Resources Board meeting for threatening its seven members with a muskie net. Hey, they ejected Patricia Randolph for brandishing a catch pole while opposing wolf hunting a couple of years ago.

But I must ration my overreaction pills for another issue; maybe another lifetime. After all, every time someone forecasts a plague of toads for new outdoor opportunities — such as legalizing rifles and handguns statewide for deer hunting — we somehow forget five years later which tragedy we dodged.

Granted, some folks think Wisconsin is so unique, its muskies so special and its lakes so exceptional, that we can justify being the only place in North America with any bans on motorized trolling. Worse, we complicated things by banning motorized trolling outright in eight counties in the recent 20 years, declaring it OK in 19 counties, and partially banning it in the rest.

No matter how much we try justifying these subjective, inconsistent, hodgepodge bans, they’re confusing to follow and enforce, and even more vexing to justify to the civilized fishing world. Therefore, it’s logical that many sportsmen and the DNR are trying to simplify things.

The regulations now in place probably aren’t the long-term answer, either, but at least they include a default rule to get folks started. That is, when in doubt while motor trolling, fish with one line per angler and no more than two lines per boat. That will cover you statewide.

Realize, though, that you can use up to three lines per angler on all inland waters in 55 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. Anglers can also use up to three lines each on select waters in 12 other counties, as well as waters bordering Michigan and Minnesota; and lakes Superior and Michigan. In fact, the only counties where you’re restricted to one line per angler and two per boat are Iron, Vilas, Menominee, Ozaukee and Milwaukee.

These rules will remain three years, and then die unless replaced by the DNR Board and OKed by the Legislature. The DNR is tasked with submitting a more streamlined rules package in time for voters to consider at the April 2017 statewide conservation hearings.

As with many fishing and hunting regulations, motor-trolling rules are as much a product of societal demands and perceptions than scientific facts and necessities. Obviously, until outboard engines were invented, motor trolling wasn't an issue. History suggests we can thank a Norwegian immigrant named Ole Evinrude for creating this nearly century-old controversy, for he invented outboards.

Evinrude’s family settled near Cambridge in the 1880s, and Ole Evinrude went to Madison at age 16 to work in machinery stores and to study engineering. He co-founded a custom-engine shop in 1900, invented the outboard engine in 1907, and founded the Evinrude Motor Co. in 1909. By 1919, he invented lighter, more efficient two-cylinder outboards, and before long, people were toting them all over the state to fish.

We assume it didn’t take long for someone to discover it’s easier to troll with an engine than with oars. We can also assume fishing guides who rowed clients around soon lost business to engines. We can further assume purists thought it sinful to fish with help from a machine. And just to be sure, we can also assume many good folks thought motor trolling would kill fishing itself, and so in 1923 they persuaded righteous lawmakers to ban the tactic.

That statewide ban on inland waters stayed intact for 35 years, until the state opened five waters to motor trolling in 1958. When that affront didn’t burst Earth into hellfire, Wisconsin quietly opened a few other lakes to motor trolling. When Earth kept rotating on its axis, policymakers brazenly opened Racine County and seven northwestern counties to motor trolling in 1964. And when policymakers lived to tell the tale, they added many waters larger than 500 acres to their infamous list in 1970, except, of course, for muskellunge waters.

Eventually, motor trolling became a standard fishing technique across much of the state, much as it had in all other states and provinces. In fact, back trolling was legal from 1990 to 1994 in Wisconsin, before it was banned in some areas for perceptions it was killing too many muskies. Some even thought it caused eternal harm to Vilas County’s muskies. But the average length of the largest fish registered in the county’s musky marathon was larger after back trolling was allowed than before.

Meanwhile, muskie norms kept changing. Few people today keep muskies, size limits are longer than ever, and no fishery has found motor trolling any tougher on muskies than casting or row trolling. In fact, it’s probably safe to say more muskies get harmed inadvertently when hooked by walleye or panfish anglers, and played to exhaustion on lightweight tackle.

Sigh. We have bigger worries than the new motor-trolling law. And if people like me are proven wrong, we can let this rule die when it lapses: May 4, 2018.

Patrick Durkin is a freelance writer who covers outdoors recreation for the Oshkosh Northwestern. Write to him at 721 Wesley St., Waupaca, WI 54981; or by e-mail at patrickdurkin56@gmail.com