By Dan Gunderson

MPR News/90.1 FM

The “Danger — High Voltage” sign makes it clear: This isn’t your typical fishing boat.

“We’re doing something that you’re told never to do, and that is use electricity in water,” said Jim Wolters as he unloaded the boat while a brilliant orange sunset reflected across a calm Pelican Lake. “But we do it safe.”

Wolters, an area fisheries manager for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and his three-person crew was about to go electrofishing — research that requires darkness, calm water, spotlights and a generator.

It’s part of an effort to collect data on the muskellunge, the big, enigmatic fish whose success in Pelican Lake generates praise and scorn.

For years, the DNR has stocked the lake with muskies. Lake homeowners, though, say it’s gone too far and that the muskie grow into monsters, eating all the food and damaging the walleye fishery.

The DNR says data doesn’t support that argument, but lawmakers aren’t so sure. There’s an effort at the Legislature now to stop the DNR from stocking new lakes with muskies, so conservation officials are trying to answer the concerns by gathering more data.

Collecting that information requires patience — and power.

About a dozen wires dangled from two pipes that extend ahead of Wolters’ boat. When the crew spotted a muskie in shallow water, they kicked a switch, dropping a 300-volt charge into the water.

“We’re basically shocking those fish so they’re not able to swim away from us when we’re trying to net ‘em,” Wolters said. Knocks ‘em out for a minute or two.”

A cousin of the northern pike, the muskellunge has a passionate following among anglers. They grow slowly, but 48-inch catches are not uncommon. Anglers can’t keep a fish unless it’s at least 54 inches. The DNR manages muskie as a trophy fish and Pelican has a reputation as a trophy lake. The DNR stocks about 800 small muskies here each year.