2014 Mille Lacs Walleye Regulations Set

No night trolling on Mille Lacs this Fall

http://news.dnr.state.mn.us/2014/03/25/mille-lacs-walleye-regulation-to-stay-the-same/#more-14112

Mille Lacs walleye regulation to stay the same
(Released March 25, 2014)

DNR extends night ban; increases smallmouth bass, pike opportunities

As part of a plan to increase angling opportunity, improve walleye numbers and stay within the state’s 1837 Treaty safe harvest allocation, the Department of Natural Resources will modify fishing regulations at Mille Lacs Lake for the 2014 season.
The walleye daily and possession limit remain unchanged. The limit will be two walleye from 18- to 20-inches, except one longer than 28 inches may be taken. The night fishing ban, enforced from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., will begin Monday, May 12, and will be extended through Monday, Dec. 1, rather than ending in mid-June.

The 2014 walleye safe harvest level is 60,000 pounds. Of this amount, 42,900 pounds is allocated to the state and 17,100 pounds is allocated to the eight Chippewa bands with 1837 Treaty harvest rights.

“The new regulations reflect our commitment to improving the walleye fishery as quickly as possible with as little harm to the local economy as possible,” said Don Pereira, DNR fisheries chief.

When new regulations go into effect on Saturday, May 10, anglers will be able to keep 10 northern pike, of which only one may be longer than 30 inches. This increases the limit by seven. Anglers also will be able to fish for northern pike for a longer period of time. The close of the season will be extended from mid-February to the last Sunday in March. The northern pike spearing ban on Mille Lacs also will be removed.

Similarly, the smallmouth bass harvest season will be extended and limits relaxed. The smallmouth bass season on Mille Lacs will start May 10 and be exempted from the statewide catch-and-release regulation that begins in mid-September. This means anglers may harvest smallmouth bass from the opener until the last Sunday in February. Anglers may keep six fish, only one of which may be longer than 18 inches. The previous regulation allowed anglers to keep six fish 17- to 20-inches, only one of which could be longer than 20 inches.

“More liberal northern pike and smallmouth bass regulations speak to the fact these species can withstand additional pressure because their populations are at or near record highs,” Pereira said. “The current walleye regulation and the extended night fishing ban will protect upcoming year classes of young walleye, adult spawning stock and help ensure the harvest stays within the safe harvest level.”

Pereira said the suite of regulations reflects significant fish population changes at Mille Lacs. Walleye numbers are at a 40-year low. Northern pike numbers are at record highs. The smallmouth bass population has been increasing since the 1990s. Tullibee and perch populations, both important forage species, are relatively low.

Fish populations likely are being influenced by many factors, including clearer water, climate change, zebra mussels, spiny water fleas, Eurasian watermilfoil and a treaty management approach that focused too much walleye harvest on too narrow a size range of fish.

“Mille Lacs is a system under change and portions of that change began even prior to the treaty management that began in the late 1990s,” said Pereira. “The good news is that we have more than enough spawning walleye and a history of solid egg and fry production. What we need is for the walleye that hatch to grow into strong year classes for anglers to catch. That hasn’t happened since 2008. That’s why we are focused on protecting small walleye and our ample but declining walleye spawning stock.”

Pereira added that the agency is also committed to the long-term protection of the lake’s trophy smallmouth and trophy northern pike fisheries.

The DNR’s approach to managing Mille Lacs is currently under review by a panel of national fish management experts. The agency convened the panel earlier this year as part of a broad approach to involve outside experts and citizens in agency decision making.

Information about panel experts and Mille Lacs management can be found on the Mille Lacs web page.

the bars are going to love this!

Thanks for posting this Will.

One question left to be answered is what will they do once the safe harvest level is reached?

Granted 18-20″ fish are not a strong year class in Mille Lacs to begin with, but I have a feeling that the allocated 42,900 pounds will be reached by summers end.

Thanks for the update Will. Looks like more good news for the resorts!! ahahahahah JK don’t you just love government!!! Hope we can get on the big pond this summer with you??

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Thanks for posting this Will.

One question left to be answered is what will they do once the safe harvest level is reached?

Granted 18-20″ fish are not a strong year class in Mille Lacs to begin with, but I have a feeling that the allocated 42,900 pounds will be reached by summers end.

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I’m 95% sure that they will shut it down to C&R only Justin. However I believe it will happen before we actually reach the full 42,900 lb quota to account for hooking mortality. My guess is if we are at 35-37,000 by July they will make the call to go C&R only.

Thanks Will

Bummer on the no night fishing — It will be the first time in about 10 years without the night runs in the fall for me. Oh well, it is what it is.

Thanks for posting this Will

For people interested in the back story of how the DNR came to this conclusion here are the details of their current plan.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/millelacslake/index.html

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Thanks for posting this Will.

One question left to be answered is what will they do once the safe harvest level is reached?

Granted 18-20″ fish are not a strong year class in Mille Lacs to begin with, but I have a feeling that the allocated 42,900 pounds will be reached by summers end.

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I’m 95% sure that they will shut it down to C&R only Justin. However I believe it will happen before we actually reach the full 42,900 lb quota to account for hooking mortality. My guess is if we are at 35-37,000 by July they will make the call to go C&R only.

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Are we sure this is the route they will take? I would venture to guess there is a fair chance that they shut the lake down completely once the quota is reached.
Leaving it open to catch and release doesn’t do much good either as there are plenty that get killed anyway.

Sad times are a comin for anyone that does business up there.

Well, looks like we were writing at the same time, your post beat mine.

I took a different approach, looking at the Un-Equal Rights Post on Un-Equal Rights

The thing I don’t see much about is the Perch?
A couple friends that fish up there, one for Smallmouth and the other Multispecies both say they see lots of small Perch and have caught Big Walleye’s just full of them.

What are your opinions on number of small perch filling Walleye’s so they don’t bite?

I see another problem: Zebra Mussel’s filtering water, making it cleaner and now open Smallmouth season to allow more harvest, when they are they one’s eating the Zebra Mussel’s. What will result from this change?

My feelings are that the MN DNR is going to do just what any other goverment agnecy does when they get involved. Screw it up even more…

Increasing the limits of pike and smallmouth bass is just rediculous. How this going to fix the root cause which is the walleye issue…

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Well, looks like we were writing at the same time, your post beat mine.

I took a different approach, looking at the Un-Equal Rights Post on Un-Equal Rights

The thing I don’t see much about is the Perch?
A couple friends that fish up there, one for Smallmouth and the other Multispecies both say they see lots of small Perch and have caught Big Walleye’s just full of them.

What are your opinions on number of small perch filling Walleye’s so they don’t bite?

I see another problem: Zebra Mussel’s filtering water, making it cleaner and now open Smallmouth season to allow more harvest, when they are they one’s eating the Zebra Mussel’s. What will result from this change?

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The forage base is a huge issue. As with all of the issues up there I understand it was a combination of things that brought it down, but I’d say at least 90% of the problems are a direct result of mismanaged slot restrictions that resulted in targeting the same sized fish year after year and resulted in completely throwing off the natural balance of the lake.

Once the size structure was tilted too far towards having more larger fish and fewer small fish all it took were a few down years of hatches and perch population tanked resulting in a forage base crash. [This isn’t rocket science, Dick Sternberg was hired by PERM over 10 years ago to evaluate the lake and he predicted almost EXACTLY what is happening today with basiclaly only difference being smallmouth and muskie populations were not part of his evaluation]

I hope the DNR learns from this colosal mess before other lakes with slots fall into the same trap. I also think that increasing the harvest of smaller pike and smallmouth is a very good thing for the lake as a whole… Restricting harvest too much will only continue to create an unnatural size structure and continue to make the lake highly susceptible to continued forage base issues.

Most importantly and least likely to happen is the metric for controlling harvest on Mille Lacs NEEDS to be changed from a non-biological system using lbs and then converting back to number of fish… It needs to be managed using biology not politics

10 pike per day?? I pull crankbaits around up there quite a bit, in and around the weed beds and don’t catch 10 pike in a whole weekend. How the heck did they come up with that number??

Bummer about the night ban. Resorts like the Red Door and others that depend on that fall trolling run to keep their cabins full are going to suffer mightily.

They have their work cut out for them, that’s for sure. I can see the benefit of increasing pike and bass limits to the fishery while still protecting their trophy class range. What I don’t understand is why they would keep the 18-20″ slot… It has proved to be an inefficient slot range for protecting a walleye population, while the 17″-26″ “must release” slot on many northern MN lakes has proven to be successful for maintaining a healthy population. Granted these lakes aren’t commercially netted like Mille Lacs, but a none under 12″ and none inside 18-26 would be a better option–one would think.

I think the additional limits on pike and smallies is an OK thing but I’m 55 years old and haven’t kept a smallie since i caught a 5 pounder on Rainy when I was 14 years old and I think a lot of people are like that. I don’t see walleye meat hunters all of a sudden throwing tube jigs to walleyes on the rocks and if they did the shear numbers of boats on the rocks would be overwhelming. I never have really fished pike on ML so can’t attest to that bite except to say I agree if there were as many as the DNR claims I think my crank baits would have pulled in a few & over the last 5 years the number is ONE. I think the spearing is great, never done it but if it takes some of the forage eaters out of ML then great. I think the one fish over 28″ is a joke, make that number one over 22″ or 2 under 18″, one 23″er will provide my wife and I a nice dinner and I’d be fine with that and it would help bring down the big fish population and I be a lot of fisherman would just as soon take one bigger fish than 2 small ones.

What I would have like to heard is that the tribes agreed to switch to nets that have bigger holes letting the smaller eyes swim through, it seems to me the only thing the tribes are giving up is the poundage of their share of the quota and doing nothing to prevent targeting the smaller fish things aren’t going to change until the tribes truly pitch in and help by recognizing they are part of the problem and take responsibility for their share of it. Until they do consider this one fisherman who will continue to drive right by their stores, casinos, restaurants and resorts. In fact if anyone has a list of all the places up around ML that the tribes own I’d love to see it posted so I make sure they don’t get a dime of money.

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{clipped} In fact if anyone has a list of all the places up around ML that the tribes own I’d love to see it posted so I make sure they don’t get a dime of money.

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Reading all the info on Mille Lacs the last couple of years a few of us over here in Wisconsin have often discussed when this situation would come to a head. I have not fished Mille Lacs for a few years now but did once or twice a year for many years. What a lake it was back then. We could catch walleye and perch more times than not while open water and ice fishing, Some of my favorite times was looking forward to heading out ice fishing on the east side I believe to 2 1/2 and 3 mile reefs if I am not mistaken. I don’t want to be long winded but thought I would write to say it hurts to have watched such a wonderful body of water come to this. I feel for all of the locals and resort owners that have busted there butts for many years to have to deal with this. I sincerely hope they can put a plan together that will allow this wonderful body of water to flourish again. I often wonder were this lake would be today without the yearly gill netting. I believe I know the answer. I wish all locals and resort owners the very best in years to come.

I agree with Crossin Eyes! One of my friends fishes almost exclusively for Pike in the winter & summer & he has rarely caught 10 in an entire day with multiple people fishing.
“10 pike per day?? pull crankbaits around up there quite a bit, in and around the weed beds and don’t catch 10 pike in a whole weekend. How the heck did they come up with that number??” I pull a lot of crankbaits for Walleyes from weed edges, rocks to the mud and caught very few Pike in the last 8 yrs that I have been going there. Does anyone catch a lot of Pike?

The walleye limit should be 40″. If you want to keep 2 20″s, fine. 3 13″, why not. One trophy, good there too.

People are wondering where the young walleye are. Huh, big and small fish swim out of nets so they keep mostly 15-19″ fish. The slot has been from 16-20″ with various sizes for many years. It kind of answers itself, doesnt it.

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Does anyone catch a lot of Pike?

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As most of you know, I exclusively troll crankbaits for walleyes out in the open basin of Mille Lacs in the summer on average 2-3 days per week from June 1st through Labor Day. I’ve done this for the past 13 years. In a typical year I would only catch 1-2 pike total for the year. Last summer, I was averaging 1-2 pike per day and all of them were between 32-40 inches. I believe this is in direct correlation of how the lake is being mismanaged. More pike have either relocated out to the open basin due to the lack of the forage base/small walleyes in their typical habitat locations OR there’s simply too many mature pike in the system.

So Brad, do you still plan on yanking numbers of walleyes from the deep in the summer? Just because they appear to “swim away just fine” doesn’t mean they live. Just saying and there are a lot of guys like you doing it.

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So Brad, do you still plan on yanking numbers of walleyes from the deep in the summer? Just because they appear to “swim away just fine” doesn’t mean they live. Just saying and there are a lot of guys like you doing it.

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After the end of June, the majority of walleyes are going to be taken from deeper water. From a fish mortality perspective, I would take people trolling cranks in the basin over people pulling live bait on the flats. I will surely be out there with my barbless cranks!

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So Brad, do you still plan on yanking numbers of walleyes from the deep in the summer? Just because they appear to “swim away just fine” doesn’t mean they live. Just saying and there are a lot of guys like you doing it.

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Before you jump people for “yanking” fish from the deep you should understand, NOBODY takes better care in handling fish than Brad. Actually a lot of us that yank fish from the deep use a lot of care handling fish, from bringing them in slowly, to having them out of the water a very short time, to spending time getting them going again when in the water. All the crap that is spewed about hook mortality is just that CRAP. Sure there are people that handle the fish poorly causing some mortality, but the great majority of the fish you see floating are not dying from hook mortality and a lot of them aren’t even walleyes. They are tulibee that are dying from high water temps.
In any case, are these really the fish we are worried about on ML? The 22-26″ walleyes? Last time I checked this is the part of the population that is way too high and eating all the forage.

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So Brad, do you still plan on yanking numbers of walleyes from the deep in the summer? Just because they appear to “swim away just fine” doesn’t mean they live. Just saying and there are a lot of guys like you doing it.

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Yes – this summer I will try and catch walleyes while trolling large crankbaits in the open basin of Mille Lacs. I will continue to promote this type of fishing for the following reasons.

1. T-Bone is right – open water trolling with large crankbaits does not target small walleyes. About 4% – 1 out of 25 walleyes caught out of my boat is under 20 inches. This data has been pretty consistent over the last 13 years.

2. Based on my personal experience, I feel the hooking mortality is far less using large crankbaits than using live bait. Due to the size of the crankbait and the speed that you’re trolling – you rarely see hooks buried deep in their gullet. I also feel the DNR estimates for hooking mortality is greatly over exaggerated.

3. In regard to fishing in deeper water – due to the amount of line needed to achieve the desired depth of your crankbait (i.e. 150 feet), it takes a longer time to reel in a walleye versus vertical fishing. This gives the walleye’s gas bladder time to adjust in regard to hydrostatic pressure. Also, imploding bladders protruding from a walleyes mouth is far more common for smaller walleyes than it is for larger ones. In fact, I’ve only witnessed it a couple of times ever when a large walleye had an imploded bladder and it happened when I was ice fishing and I’ve never seen it while fishing the open basin.

As state anglers we must stick together and all of us must try and do our part. That includes writing and voicing our opinions to public officials, to the DNR, to the Mille Lacs Fisheries Input Group, to the Press and anyone else that will listen. In addition, I’m also going to:

– Personally not keep any walleyes while fishing on Mille Lacs. I will promote and suggest to my clients to do the same.

– Continue to preach and practice proper handling /catch and release methods. For example, here’s an article I wrote last summer – LINK

– Continue to NOT support any business that supports gill netting.

– Continue to promote and support the local resorts and businesses around the Mille Lacs area. They will need it more than ever.

Hi guys: I just signed on here. FYI: I live on the north shore of Mille Lacs and obviously am very concerned about what is going on with our fishery.
As you probably know, our DNR has hired this panel of experts to do some review of what the DNR has been doing with our lake.
The latest word that I have heard is that the report of this panel is NOT going to be shared with the public, in other words – we, the taxpayers who are paying $100K for this study, will not get to see the results.
This concerns me greatly and is just another reason why the DNR is viewed as not being trusted to be honest and forthcoming with us.
I am contacting all my political representatives to let them know that it is mandatory for the public to see this report. I am asking any of you on here to do the same.
WE are paying for this study and if the “experts” feel Mille Lacs Lake is and has been mismanaged by the DNR, we should be told about it.

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The latest word that I have heard is that the report of this panel is NOT going to be shared with the public

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I am a little curious here. Can the public request a formal audit of the DNR’s investigation process? The DNR is a public entity, don’t we have a “right” to request this?

-Drew

I have a much different perspective on open water trolling in the heat of the summer than you guys. Obviously you guys are emotionally attached to that method of fishing because you enjoy to do it and it catches fish- I get it. The problem is that you guys are long line trolling in deep water during warm water periods of the summer. You say you try to reel in slow- well ok- but you have 150 feet of line out? That’s a long fight in deep water during an already high stress time period due to warm water at the surface. Also, I know how many of you open water summer trollers don’t stop the boat while reeling in a fish. So now, you are dragging the fish while the boat is still trolling (got to get that double right) while you have a 150 feet of line out. Can you say prolonged fight in deep water in the heat of the summer? And to the live bait vs open water trolling debate. Live bait fishing at least you don’t have a ton of line out so you are not fighting fish to exhaustion. Set the hook right away, reel it in slow, much better than long lining cranks in the hot deep. But personally, I choose to not fish deep during warm water months unless I plan on keeping every fish I catch.

I think we all need to take a look in the mirror and ask ourselves what can I do to make this a better fishery. One of them being the method in which you fish. Are you going to open water troll in the heat of the summer on a lake that is on the brink of collapse? I sure hope not. It doesn’t do anybody any good to sit here and point fingers at the DNR or at the native american community. We have no control over their decision making, but we do have control over our own conservation practices.

Baby Mallard – I think you are missing the main point. State anglers (you and me) are not the root cause why Mille Lacs is in it’s current state.

There’s a lack of small walleyes in the lake – not large ones. Open water trolling with big deep diving crankbaits targets big walleyes and it’s very rare that we catch walleyes under the slot limit. I can also count on one hand the number of walleyes that I have knowingly killed while fishing the open basin. I’m going off of my own data – not speculation.

Also, promoting not to fish the lake really hurts the local resort owners and businesses. I plan on being more vocal and make my presence known on how I feel about the fishery and what needs to be done. I’m not just going to go away and ignore the problem.

As I already stated above, we all need to do our part – but our focus should be on how to stop the gill netting versus talking about hooking mortality.

NOTHING happens until you get the DNR & The bands to sit down in a public meeting and explain their management practices. How they can as government supported bodies continue to dodge open meeting is beyond me.

This is where the outrage should start.

A few things to clear up here Baby Mallard.
The controversial long-lining you are referring to is not what Brad and most others are doing trolling with 150 feet of line out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longline_fishing Here is a link where you can read about the definition of the long lining that actually hurts fish on a consistent basis. Also to be included would be Great Lakes trolling for trout and salmon, a practice that is seldom the target for catch and release.
-It takes almost the same amount of time to reel in a 30″ walleye from 150 of line back than it does to bring one up carefully from 40 feet deep vertically.
-One of the primary reasons the boats don’t stop moving when a fish is hooked is because the lines would get tangled up, not to get the double.
-A 2-4mph speed is hardly yanking a fish through the water and if anything it is tiring the fish less than if you stopped the boat and let the fish fight back. And even much less than playing a fish slowly after hooking her while vertical jigging, as she exerts much more energy when she is allowed to fight you at her will. If a fish fights you at her will, she will expend all the energy she has to prevent her voyage toward the net.
-Fish mortality if ever a real factor is much higher with live bait due to the increase in opportunity to get a hook set into the gills or gut.
-As mentioned a few times but just to be stated again for emphasis, the problem with the fishery is that there are too many big walleye, not the contrary.
-The most important thing we can do the help the situation involving the big pond is to stay at the resorts and book fishing trips with experts like Brad, so the economy can stay afloat, on the contrary the worst thing we could do is push traffic away from local business, especially business that has such amazing respect for the fishery.
Mind you, this is coming from someone in the resort/outfitting/guiding business that could benefit from business lost from Mille Lacs. However, I believe I can speak for a majority of our community here that we would much rather see the Mille Lacs’ economy survive and continue to flourish, than to gain from any of its loss.
You are right on 1 account for certain, “I think we all need to take a look in the mirror and ask ourselves what can I do”
That is the best thing anyone has said on the topic to date. The solution is a simple one; we can spend money in the local economy of the Mille Lacs Lake area and continue to use local business, so when the lake does recover we have a place to stay and someone with experience to guide us in the direction of catching fish!

Guys, I mean no disrepect, but I don’t agree with your opinions on open water trolling in the heat of the summer. I guess we will agree to disagree. 150 feet of line out isn’t a lot of line out? Huh? Live bait fishing doesn’t kill fish…fishermen kill fish. We need to educate fishermen to set the hook right away….reel in slow….handle the fish with care in a timely manner….good releases etc. Apparently we need to educate fishermen on fishing in deep water when the apparent goal is to not keep any fish. Why are you catch and release fishing in deep water period? And add in warm water temps and tons of line out? So in order to get little fish we need healthy spawners. Those 20″ers aren’t going to lay eggs? Better kill em because there’s too many large fish…right.