by Bob Jensen

The 2010 open water fishing season is winding down. I still have a couple of trips lined up, but weather this time of year can be a factor. You just never know when the ice will arrive.

In my travels over the past few months, I’ve noticed several things that have an impact on our fishing. The first thing is fishing regulations, specifically slot limits. This past year I fished a lot of different lakes with different length regulations. Some had a minimum length limit, others had slot limits. It was obvious that the lakes that had a slot limit had much better fishing.

The most popular slot limit pertains to walleyes. More and more, we’re seeing a regulation that requires us to release, for example, walleyes that are between seventeen and twenty five inches. For the most part, those lakes provide outstanding fishing.

On lakes that have a minimum length limit, it is apparent that you’ll have a lot of fish just below that limit. For instance, if the length limit is fifteen inches on walleyes, you’ll get a lot of fourteen inchers. Anything bigger than fifteen inches generally gets taken home.

The other thing I noticed is the reaction of some folks to the new proposal that allows for a higher blend of ethanol in our gas. Most folks are very supportive of this proposal, but a few aren’t.

The Gulf oil spill that happened earlier this year should be enough to convince us to consider ethanol as an alternative to oil. It’s much cleaner and environmentally friendly than oil.

Some folks say we shouldn’t use food for fuel. The corn used in ethanol production isn’t people food, it’s livestock food. And ethanol production uses only the starch from the corn. The rest of the corn can still be fed to livestock, and it has a very high nutritional value. We’re actually getting two uses out of that kernel of corn.

There is some concern that adding another blend of ethanol to our gas will confuse consumers. I was at a blender pump in South Dakota recently. From the same pump I could get diesel, regular unleaded, E-10, E-30, or E-85: All I had to do was push the button under the blend I wanted. Very simple thing to do.

People being the way we are, sometimes we resist change. I’m as guilty of that as anyone. But I’ve seen the impact of oil on our environment, and I didn’t like it.

I’ve also seen how high gas prices impacted my ability to go fishing, and I sure didn’t like that.

I live in the Midwest. My friends and neighbors produce ethanol. Ethanol helps our economy, creates jobs, and is good for our environment.

I don’t think the ethanol producers are suggesting we do away with oil. They just want to give us an option to use a product that’s home-grown, is clean, provides jobs, and increases our national security. Ethanol is an option, and I like options. I hope that we will soon have the option to use E-15 gas in our vehicles.

Is ethanol perfect? Maybe a better question is whether ethanol is better than the status quo. We need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, which is getting dirtier, costlier, and riskier to extract every day. With that considered, I think most will agree that ethanol is a good thing.