Treasured resource

Dear sir:
I would like to reply to the letter of Mr. Al Kaczorek that recently
appeared on-line on your web site.
I, and everyone I personally know, have complied with every Canadian
regulation that we know of when we come up to fish the “river” in March
and April.
We do this not to take home “nice stringers of fish,” although they are excellent to eat, because we know these fish are very vulnerable at this time of the year. We do this because after a long winter, all we want to do is go fishing on liquid water.
Mr. Kaczorek should know of the Remote Access Permit and Ontario non-resident fishing licence that we buy to be able to park our truck and trailer on the Minnesota side–and still fish both sides of the river.
The last I heard, it is legal to do this with the proper permits.
I fished Rainy River for five days this year, spread out over two weekends, and while the fishing wasn’t all that great, I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Where we fished (Birchdale Rapids), we were checked by the MNR and the Immigration officer at least twice every day.
They were very courteous and friendly. They answered any and all questions asked of them. They checked us for fish, licences, and Remote Access Permits.
While I do not dispute that some anglers cause problems for the rest of us, I do think it goes both ways. While we were fishing at Birchdale, we fished within 30 metres of two Ontario registered boats. While we were checked for fish, beer, minnows, licence, and Remote Access Permits, the MNR did not check the Ontario registered boats–both of which had beer on board and one had way too many fish on a stringer over the side of the boat.
I guess both Americans and Canadians can be guilty of poor judgment and not following all the rules set up for us.
Mr. Kaczorek has a good point about the lack of enforcement where he was fishing; there should have been someone checking the boats there. I suppose Ontario is a lot like Minnesota. In Minnesota, the state government can’t seem to find any money to fund the Minnesota DNR, which is funny considering they have more money than they can spend.
They are (get this) even considering giving some of the surplus back to the taxpayers. Now how often does that happen?
I have been fishing Rainy River in the spring for about 15 years now and I can honestly say that not once have I been checked for anything by a Minnesota DNR officer while on the water. In March and April there are very few places to fish so the lack of enforcement is very surprising.
If anything, you can be glad the Ontario government is doing the job they are doing because it is much better than Minnesota.
In conclusion, I would like to say I hope both sides of the river can get along and continue to share a very treasured resource.
Signed,
Tim Cary
Wadena, Mn.