Two Minnesota men are each facing a handful of misdemeanor charges for allegedly harvesting wild rice illegally in Becker County more than a month ago.

The men, ages 54 and 36, are each accused of harvesting the grain with illegal equipment and outside of harvest hours. 

Charging documents say the men were using an airboat on Height of Land Lake around 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 28. When conservation officers arrived about an hour later, they found the two men moving bags of rice from the boat to a canoe in the back of a pickup truck. 

Video shows the confrontation between law enforcement and the men accused of illegally harvesting on Height of Land Lake in Becker County back in August. The lake is just south of White Earth Nation.   

Reino Rouso is one of the men facing charges, and claims state harvesting rules don't apply to him because he's a tribal member. The boat, which had a White Earth Reservation registration sticker and was registered to one of the charged men, had a mechanical harvester and a propeller. It also had a motor-driven reel on the front of the boat, according to the document. 

"[Those regulations] don't apply to tribal members, not treaty members," Rouso told WCCO on Wednesday. 

Rouso argues a treaty from 1855 protects his right to harvest. He lays out that argument in a federal lawsuit against the state of Minnesota. The suit asks the court to declare he "has a treaty-reserved right to harvest wild rice on ceded territory free from state regulation" and award him thousands in damages.  

The men say a few hundred pounds of wild rice were confiscated during that interaction in August, so was the boat. He also claims his boat did not damage any rice beds.

"This boat is lightweight, it will not damage rice no matter what you try because it's a flat bottom," said Rouso.

The next day, an aerial inspection of the lake was done by conservation officers, who found damaged rice in area where the boat was used. Using a mapping system, the complaints say the estimated damage and harvest area was nearly 30 acres.   

Both men were charged by summons and are not in custody. 

Rouso says he's a citizen of the White Earth Nation and has harvested rice for many years. A few years ago, he says he faced pushback over using another boat to harvest.

The suit he filed is also asking for the court to stop the state from enforcing wild rice regulations against other tribal members in his situation. No hearing has been scheduled yet for that.

In Minnesota, wild rice that isn't green or unripe can be harvested from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily between Aug. 15 and Sept. 30. Grain must be harvested with a handheld flail that is less than 30 inches long and made of wood. 

It is illegal to use any machine or mechanical device to harvest the grain, except in certain circumstances, according to the Department of Natural Resources. Those include the operator holding a fee title to all the property that surrounds the public water where the harvest is happening, the water is less than 125 acres in size, is within the original boundaries of any reservation and there's no direct public access. 

Any tribal band member who has a valid tribal ID card from a federally recognized tribe in Minnesota has a license to harvest wild rice and doesn't need an additional state wild rice harvesting license. That rule became valid in 2016, according to the DNR.