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Fishing is the state religion in Minnesota. It's deeply, deeply ingrained into the local culture, and it's also one of the biggest reasons visitors come to the state.
Fishing Opener is such a huge deal here that the governor is obligated to set aside an entire day to kick off the opener and participate by fishing a different lake each year.
Many of our rivers don't freeze, but most lakes will be frozen. So yes, ice fishing is a big thing in Michigan. We have four seasons here, so fishing will be different in the spring, summer, fall, and winter. That's what makes it so fun.
But here is something I didn't know until I travelled up to Minnesota and saw their fishing museum. In the far north of these states they don't just put a line a hole. They have a decoy fish, frog, or mouse carved of wood and painted. It is tied to a string the fisherman bobs up and down, and it is carved such that it spins in a circle like it is in distress. The large fish still move a bit under the ice, and when one comes to investigate the fisherman spears it with multipronged spear. I talked a fishing guide about this, and he said in Minnesota the tourists from the twin cities had tried to get this banned as they want to take their picture with a trophy fish in the summer and release it, but as he said people in the north usually don't make as much money so the fish provides a much needed cheap source of meat for the locals in the winter. In addition as the Indians in the area had been provably doing this for centuries and taught the French voyageurs the method as well as the first English speaking settlers this is an important cultural practice.
One day I hope to get to try this as it sounds incredibly cool.
The spearfishing you're referring to is a Native American (Ojibwe) practice and is absolutely illegal for anyone who is not a member of an Ojibwe Nation.
The pdf on the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources website does not mention this limitation in its section on dark house spearfishing. I am not ruling out this as a law in some other state or a Canadian province.
The spearfishing you're referring to is a Native American (Ojibwe) practice and is absolutely illegal for anyone who is not a member of an Ojibwe Nation.
Well, there are similar spearing laws in Wisconsin, as well...maybe in Michigan, additionally? And there have been spearing/snagging seasons that non-natives can participate in, too. I remember people spearing sturgeons through the ice on Winnebago; when I was a kid, I snagged spawning salmon and so forth, too. I haven't done this sort of thing in decades, so I'm unfortunately way behind on current laws. It was a big, contested deal in the WI northwoods years back. Lots of hostility native vs non-native.
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