Spearfishing Tension Reemerges in the Wake of the Barricades

LAC DU FLAMBEAU, Wisconsin — Perched in a rust-colored armchair next to the wood-burning heater in his garage, Tom Maulson points out all the fishing equipment—traditional Anishinaabe five-pronged spears, more modern poles, worn lures and ice cutting tools—nestled between the Folgers cans, hunting gear and boxes in the room. Maulson, a proud grandfather, smiles from under his green camo ball cap as compares how his grandson fishes today to how he did for most of his childhood and adult life.  

Now 81, Maulson is unable to go out spearfishing—an Anishinaabe, which is the traditional name of the Chippewa, annual summer ritual—with younger members of the tribe. It is hard to imagine that the tribal elder wearing navy Sketchers and maroon crewneck, with his mediative awareness of his surroundings, was ever called the “Jim Jones of Minocqua” during the 1990s.

Opponents also, according to a Washington Post article, dubbed Maulson the “Walleye Warrior” when he became a vocal advocate for treaty rights and the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s access to the surrounding lakes for spearfishing. Tension grew between Maulson and sport fishermen, who though spearfishing interfered with their season, during the late 1980s in what is now known as the Walleye Wars.

The conflict escalated to the point of violence. Protestors yelled racial slurs and the phrase “resource rape,” hurling rocks as well as insults, at spearfishermen when they went down to the lakes.

“They were trying to kill our people during the fish wars,” Maulson said. “No different than what’s going on over in, in Europe right now at a war. The Russians, why did the Russians?  You know, because they want to take that land.  They want that land.  Just like America took this land from us, you know.”

Members of Maulson’s family—his son Fred, his grandchildren, and his nephew, Tom “TJ” Maulson—and other members of the tribal community still spearfish today to keep traditions alive. While there are no more acts of physical violence, in 2023, members of the Lac du Flambeau community are hesitant to speak about the Walleye Wars because the scars are too fresh.

The resentment embedded in the stories about the Walleye Wars is still alive in Lac du Flambeau, passed down between community members, Fred said. He sees the recent tensions surrounding the barricades put up by the tribe as an extension of that resentment from the 1980s.

Fred remembered a time when his father— who is also a former judge and council member of the Lac du Flambeau Band—was considered the most hated man in Wisconsin with a bounty on his head. Things escalated to the point that the Maulson home was shot at, a bullet embedded in its tan siding for a period of time, and their dog was poisoned.

“I have bad memories of my high school,” said Fred, who was in high school during the Walleye Wars. “I tell my kids that I hated my high school. I would go fishing and have people from school yell slurs and throw rocks at me, and then, I’d have to go to school the next day and sit in the classroom of a teacher who hit me with rocks.”

A 1983 federal court decision that affirmed the treaty rights of several Chippewa bands to take 100% of the allowable fish catch for the season before the start of sport fishing season, which sparked the conflict that led to the Walleye Wars.

During the walleye spawning seasons of 1989, 1990, and 1991, Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson sent police task forces to Lac du Flambeau to act as crowd control. Protesters threw rocks at tribal members and planted concrete decoys to damage the five-pronged spears traditionally used by the Anishinaabe.

“They got to the point where they were trying to swamp us in boats,” Maulson said. “People swimming in the lake in the springtime, setting concrete decoys that look like walleyes—[my son] got good at picking them up out of the water. Out in pontoons is heckling us.  And it just spiraled into having thousands of people at boat landings constantly calling us every name in a book.”

A federal agreement in the 19^th century granted the tribe regulatory power over, among other things, spearfishing and hunting on tribal land. Out of 861 lakes it regulates, tribal government typically allows fishermen to use 100 to 300 per season. In 1989, Anishinaabe spearfishers caught approximately 16,000 walleyes while hook-and-line fishers caught 670,000, according to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources data.

Tensions rose during the Walleye Wars between tribal members who wanted to practice their treaty rights and town residents who feared how these rights would damage the tourism economy, which relied heavily on sports fishing and hunting. Furthermore, they did not want to be denied access from the Lac du Flambeau chain of lakes because they are a valuable resource.

“Something that non-member natives that live in this community don’t understand,” TJ said “Why we hold our land so, so tight and with respect? Because [white non-members] took it, and they destroyed our culture.” The land, TJ, explains is more than just a resource to the Anishinaabe people. It is their identity, their everything, for it connects them to their cultural roots.

“Our identity was stolen,” Maulson said, agreeing with TJ. “Our spirits were wanted to be stolen—that is what I was told by my grandma.”In response to the tension in Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin Act 31 was signed into law in 1991. The law required Native American curriculum be taught in classrooms across the state to create more empathy and better understanding of cultural practices.

Opponents point to the cruelty that comes with spearfishing, which immediately kills the fish, compared to catch and release, which leaves the fish alive. The catch-and-kill approach of spearfishing is believed damaging to the environment and resulted in “resource rape,” according to conservationists.

To Maulson, there is much more to fishing than that. There is a spiritual connection.

“That fish is sustenance, or as you call it, food for your relatives,” he said. “These guys take fish, smoke fish and give it away. Those type of foods are going to be served to the people that are wishing a good journey to the spirit world.”  

Brandon Thoms, a tribal member who was 17 at the time of the Walleye Wars, did not want to suffer the brutality of the protests because he refused to give up his cultural traditions. Now in his fifties, Thoms lives in Arizona, but he returns home to Lac du Flambeau every spring for spearfishing season. He also says Maulson was like a father to him and is a legend in the community.

“To me, this land is connected to our history,” Thoms said. “Our ancestors are the ones who taught us.”