The lake that my family fishes has a healthy population of walleyes. The WI dnr states that the growth rate is slow. Do wallye populations act a lot like blue gills where they grow slowly if there are too many. We typically only catch 12-13 inch fish. Should we be keeping these if they are thick enough or should we be releasing these. I would like to see the lake one day have with much larger fish.
Thanks
If I only caught 13″.. they’d be stinking up the pan 
Anything smaller than 12″ would go back from me…unless I was really hungry 
big G 
That is the same exact thing as a certain resivour up here in Duluth MN. Hey if you wanna eat you gotta fillet em. Those arent too small, i mean there not ideal but hey ive got used to filleting 13 to 14 inchers on this resivour before just because anything bigger is tough to come by. You catch these fish all day long, and year after year it is the same thing, despite hopes that they will get bigger, but it never happens.
Not saying theres no hope in your lake, but some lakes i feel are stunted and produce 90% of their fish as 13 inch walleyes. Yes there are bigger ones, and trolling cranks yeilds them time to time, but if you wanna jig and lindy rig, you better adjust your mind and start thinking a 19 incher is the new 28.
It is frustrating. The first year during opener I got a nice 21 inch. Since than nothing but small ones. Protected fish are 14-18 and we can’t even find those.We typically troll in 8-10ft maybe we need go deeper. This next year I want to try more three way tolling to stay close to the bottom. Maybe we can have better luck with that.
How big is the lake? try trolling some larger lures, i have had success trolling reef runner deep little rippers (600’s) and keeping smaller fish off my line and targeting the bigger (17 plus) inch fish.
It is a pretty big lake I want to say 120 mils of shoreline. It could be angler error. I guess i have a whole winter to study up on it.
It could be angler error, but not if everyone else catches small ones…
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The area I fish pretty much no longer has any walleyes to speak of and will not be stocked either. I’m down to targeting bass in these lakes.
Ouch! 
Jeff you can always head down south about 20 miles to Pool 4 and bring Dean some cookies…
We see the same thing up by our cabin. Lake is loaded with 12-13 inch fish but they have a 15″ min on the lake??? We do catch some larger ones but 4 out of 5 are under legal size. I would double check the regs if your in WI. MN has no size limit in general “lake specific” but I dont know about WI????
If it is legal at our lake I would not feel too bad about eating some fish!! They still have two fillets and those small ones fry up pretty good.
I’ve fished up there and on wissota, it almost seems like the whole system is that way. I know people get some nice fish on wissota but the ratio of small to big is crazy. The slot regs. on these 2 lakes MAKES you eat the small fish. Anyone fish Old Abe? I think Cornell is similar too.
my personal opinion, keep em!
our fish and wildlife stocked a lake in hopes of creating a ‘trophy’ lake for Walleyes and its failed, brutally.
What we have is a wack of 14-20 inch walleye and NOTHING over that 22″ in mark. These smaller fish are not spawners and the forage is gone, cant even find a perch bigger than 6 inches and the pike population is nearly gone as well. MILLIONS of small walleye that cant eat eachother and to big of slot limits. Keep those fish, eat em… drop the population and let the strong fish survive and spawn. It will take a few years but with personal management I think lakes that have hardly any regulation should be taken into your own hands. If I could take these small walleye home, I would, but we cant so they are just fun to catch. lol 
Amen Fil
Think with the majority of that system you’ll find slow growth rates with adequate reproduction. Usually, the forage in these systems are just not adequate for producing enough calories for these fish to grow fast. Systems, like the mississippi, have forage bases(shad) that are vastly plentiful and high in calories(oily)-this allows lots of walleyes-saugers to grow fast and be plentiful. Your reproduction sounds excellent, but suffers from slow growth and overpopulation. Only thing to do is, lower the overall population so it balances with the forage base. Two ways to do this: 1) eat the 13 inchers 2) make sure the predators (pike,mainly) are eating the 13 inchers–for that you need BIG pike. Some research is showing that unless these top tiered predators are protected and allowed to do their job of eating, all the lower species suffer. Visit with the DNR and see what the plan is for upper end predators are for your body of water and have a fish fry with the 13 inchers!
Once the caloric value of the forage is balanced with the walleye population, you will have fewer fish overall, but better quality in size structure.
Good luck!
Decide whether the fish fry is worth the fine. Although it may be true that harvesting some smaller fish may help the size in the future, that is for the DNR to decide and their current size limit requires them to be 15″. We can’t ignore the rules just because things aren’t going well. Enjoy catching the fish and let them grow.
I have never heard of any lake that had no size limit on walleye. A 13″ walleye would be called a big perch. nice eater…
I beleive the body of water he is referring to has a slot limit you can keep fish under 14″ & 1 fish over 18″ between 14″ & 18″ are throwbacks. There are quite a few lakes that have these regs in the ceded territory. 
thanks white tip. Don’t get much of any walleye regs like that here on the left coast. I myself prefer walleye under 17″ for eating. bigger ones go back. then if I got a load of big perch, all the walleye go back! If I ever get to the land of cheese, you’ll have to take me to this lake…
There are overs in this body of water along with what I consider to be a bigger sister lake Wissota. Which we know from some of the FLW walleye tourney results held there a couple years ago hold true.If I remember correctly another Tuffy guy did pretty well there also. If your ever in this part of Cheeseland drop me a line. 
Good luck this year in your fishing endeavors. 
no problem sir and good luck to you. Bad winter and USPS has me KOO KOO for Krazy puffs this year. every morning I check those lotto #s. Hope to get out there someday… and meet that other Tuffy guy too…
Hey, sorry if my previous post sounded harsh. I forgot about those lakes in Northern WI that have no minimum size limit. I’m just a big believer in following the rules. I’m from Washburn and fish all the time near Hayward. Where are you located if you don’t mind saying?
On Lake Holcombe ther is no minimum. 14-18 must be release and only one over 20. I’m getting really good at cathcing those 12-13 inchers.
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