Mille Lacs, an enormous, round lake some 20 miles across, is suddenly not big enough for everyone who wants a piece of it. After almost eight years of contentious negotiation and litigation over a treaty signed before Minnesota was a state, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and seven neighboring tribes have just concluded their first court-sanctioned spring harvest of walleye.

The source of his problem lies on the other side of Mille Lacs, over on the west shore, where another, very different kind of fishing season has already come and gone. He'll load his rods and bait and fire up the big, 105-horsepower Chrysler outboard, just like always.

He'll slide the faded red 17-foot boat out alongside the dock, just like always. From where Bob DeFeyter sits - in a neat, spanking white cabin on a sun-dappled lake known as the walleye capital of the world - mere mention of the opening of the fishing season today still makes the sturdy 67-year-old light up.īut when DeFeyter walks down to his boathouse at 7 this morning, some of the thrill will be gone.

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