I’m planning on fihsing URL for about 10 days in early June. I’m sure we will have leftover fish and hopefully some pickled fish on shore. If we come in with a full limit, will we be over? Or does fish go OUT of your limit when it’s cooked???
it counts toward your limit until one day after it is eaten.
Another words, if you catch your limit, eat them for shore lunch, you are done keeping fish until the following day.
I learned the hard way with one uneaten fried walleye fillet left over from the previous night and bringing in our limit for another fish fry the next day 
Otis’s post is correct, there is some clarification, in mn your possession limit and daily limit are the same, so you can’t go catch a limit freeze them and go back for a limit the next day. Fish in the freezer count, just the same. I know it’s different in some states.
I beleive, without looking into regs, that your max limit of Walleye in MN is 6 possesion. I also beleive that no more than 4 of them can come from URL, meaning if you we to fish another lake and kept 2, you could then go onto URL and catch another 4. You can not go out catch your 4, put them in fridge and go out and catch 2 more. Those 2 have to come from another lake.
Please correct me if I’m wrong on this as I try my hardest to keep up with the Law!
How about this one. Your friend from Wisconsin gives you 6 WI walleye in exchange for 6 MN walleye. How about that one! Can you go catch some more?
Or how about if I keep a limit and I leave them on the dock while I run into the cabin and the neighbor or an eagle steals 2. Do I have to wait for them to eat them before I can catch and keep 2 more? Huh? huh?
Im pretty sure while you are on URL you possesion is 4 no matter if some came from another lake… Kind of tough to prove where they came from if there in a jar not prepared by a license fish packer. regs are on page 25 in the 2011 book. Not worth the risk IMO, URL can be pretty strict.
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Here’s a headache for a warden: I bring a jar of pickled walleyes to camp with me. Do they count in my possession limit? Not trying to be a smartazz, just don’t want any tickets…
Since it takes a minimum of 7 days to pickle fish (unless hot pickling) I would GUESS you would be ok…pickle northern instead. 
Pug, your questions are easy. Once you catch a limit in MN you are done, whether you or an eagle eat them.
pug –
Even if the eagle ate the fish, they still count towards your daily limit. Once you stringer or livewell a fish, it counts. In another occasion on a northern MN lake, I was checked on the water where the DNR took the stringer of fish into their boat, measured the fish, handed the stringer back and my dad tossed the stringer into the lake. However, no one re-tied the stringer to the boat. Fish were gone, stringer and all. We asked the CO if they still counted towards our limit and he said that they did. And ironically, he stated that even if an eagle came down and ripped one off of the stringer, it would still count.
As far as someone swapping fish, every package is supposed to be labeled with names/license #s, where it came from, date etc. for this exact reason. Without that, they are in YOUR possession and count towards YOUR limit.
Trust me, I picked the CO’s brain really hard that day 
In the end, it comes down to how strict the CO wants to be or if they want to look the other way.
We were told by LOTW staff that cooked fish no longer count towards the limit.
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We were told by LOTW staff that cooked fish no longer count towards the limit.
I think most would disagree with this.
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We were told by LOTW staff that cooked fish no longer count towards the limit.
I think most would disagree with this.
The staff at one of the major resorts on LOTW told us not to worry about left over fish in the fridge and they didnt count towards limit. We were carefully monitoring our limit every day. I’m guessing resort employees at a world renowned Walleye mecha might now something about limits. Call the DNR if you care enough to know the real answer.
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We were told by LOTW staff that cooked fish no longer count towards the limit.
I think most would disagree with this.
The staff at one of the major resorts on LOTW told us not to worry about left over fish in the fridge and they didnt count towards limit. We were carefully monitoring our limit every day. Call the DNR if you care enough to know the real answer.
Re: left over fish in the fridge… that’s absolutely 100% incorrect info. There is no such thing as daily limit in MN. Only possession. I could write a short book about the number of instances I know of first hand when people got nailed for keeping a possession limit of fish with fillets in the fridge. I should also point out that almost all examples took place at a resort or lake cabin.
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How about this one. Your friend from Wisconsin gives you 6 WI walleye in exchange for 6 MN walleye. How about that one! Can you go catch some more?
Or how about if I keep a limit and I leave them on the dock while I run into the cabin and the neighbor or an eagle steals 2. Do I have to wait for them to eat them before I can catch and keep 2 more? Huh? huh?
now, that all depends on if someone is watching you or not… 
I’ve seen them look in the cooler at a limit and then look in the garbage can for bones.
I think they just wanted to get you busted Mike! 
in regards to the 6 fish state limit and URL. If you have 2 fish from another lake it needs to be clearly identified and left on shore. If it is on the lake (ie. fish house or boat) it is deemed URL walleye possession. I have seen this topic covered many times and that is 100% the correct answer. AGAIN, fish from another lake must be CLEARLY indentified (ie, in clear bag, for transport, labeled from “x” lake.) (and vice versa if going to another lake after going to Red and taking your 4 there.)
ANd even then I wouldn’t do it. just opening up a can of worms.
Stu – i really believe that the DNR would only want you to have 4 URL (any lake/river for that matter)walleyes in possession at 1 time. No matter the shape or form. so that means dead, alive, filleted, cubed, boiled, fried,canned, frozen, etc.
The whole left over from a previous meal thing is somewhat silly but I guess just eat what you cook or don’t plan on keeping a full limit the next day.
I think it would be good to bring a C.O. or someone really “in the know” into this conversation because I think it’s extremely important. There are many people that think they know the law well, only to find out they don’t.
I agree with James that a possession limit, is a possession limit, period. Fillets in possession, are fillets in possession. Whether they are on the fish, in the freezer, in the frying pan, or in a bag of leftovers.
That said, I was standing right beside Suzuki when the owner of a very prolific LOTW resort, who also happens to be a very staunch supporter of this website, told us EXACTLY VERBATUM that… “fish are counted in your possession until they are cooked.”
Many of the same group that fish with us on LOTW will be going up to URL for the opener as we have for the past 5 years. There are 9 of us. We always have our limit of 36 fish that we bring back to the cabin and fry up. We fry ALL the fish. We might have a couple leftover fillets at the most. The next day we go back and get another limit of 36 fish to bring home to mama and the kids. We have been told many times that this is perfectly legal.
Mike Lee
I don’t find your post meaningful in the least. Not sure what part of the information above is worthy of a
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We were told by LOTW staff that cooked fish no longer count towards the limit.
I think most would disagree with this.
The staff at one of the major resorts on LOTW told us not to worry about left over fish in the fridge and they didnt count towards limit. We were carefully monitoring our limit every day. I’m guessing resort employees at a world renowned Walleye mecha might now something about limits. Call the DNR if you care enough to know the real answer.
I’m guessing employees a a world renowned Walleye mecha also know if you cant go fishing they can’t make money. the customer gets th ticket not the resort.
What Sweet said(?)
Awe crap! I said something that made sense to BK! what has my life come to? 
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We were told by LOTW staff that cooked fish no longer count towards the limit.
I think most would disagree with this.
The staff at one of the major resorts on LOTW told us not to worry about left over fish in the fridge and they didnt count towards limit. We were carefully monitoring our limit every day. I’m guessing resort employees at a world renowned Walleye mecha might now something about limits. Call the DNR if you care enough to know the real answer.
I’m guessing employees a a world renowned Walleye mecha also know if you cant go fishing they can’t make money. the customer gets th ticket not the resort.
SA I highly doubt they would operate that way. Their rep would intantly be damaged and out of business they would be.
I checked the manual and its ,not suprisingly, open to interpretation but my take from the rules are that cooked fish count even though it doesnt point it out. I still think its possible there is some kind of unique situation or aggreement to look the other way on LOTW in the winter.
With the high volume and high catch rates it could make sense. And for clarification we are talking about several pieces of left over fish. Not cooking and stacking em up.
From page 9 of the 2011 MN DNR Fishing Regulations:
Daily and possession limits are the same unless otherwise noted. Fish are in an anglers possession whether in hand, in cold storage, in transport, or elsewhere……
Further on page 10:
…Fish used in a meal still count towards the daily possession limit.
My take is that No, you cannot have a pickled fish in your possesion without it counting towards your daily limit. It is in your possession until it is consumed. Feel free to discuss this with the CO as he is writting a ticket
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Awe crap! I said something that made sense to BK! what has my life come to?
ummmm no comment. 
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in regards to the 6 fish state limit and URL. If you have 2 fish from another lake it needs to be clearly identified and left on shore. If it is on the lake (ie. fish house or boat) it is deemed URL walleye possession. I have seen this topic covered many times and that is 100% the correct answer. AGAIN, fish from another lake must be CLEARLY indentified (ie, in clear bag, for transport, labeled from “x” lake.) (and vice versa if going to another lake after going to Red and taking your 4 there.)
Right on! Happend to us before coming for another lake and they still did not think we were truthful until we showed a camping pass and gas reciept with a current date showing where we came from.
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I was standing right beside Suzuki when the owner of a very prolific LOTW resort, who also happens to be a very staunch supporter of this website, told us EXACTLY VERBATUM that… “fish are counted in your possession until they are cooked.”
I’m certainly not trying to call anyone out or discredit anyone. The resorter might have been sharing his experiences with how the CO in that area dealt with the situation on that particular body of water. It isn’t, however, the way I’ve seen it play out elsewhere in practice during my travels or in accordance with the letter of the law. If the “applies toward a limit until cooked” ruling was accurate then I could catch a limit a day for a week, cook them each evening, and go home 7 days later with 84 fillets? Sorry, that’s no going to fly.
No matter how you slice it, cook it or change it from the original shape… if you have more than a possession limit on hand and a stickler CO stumbles across you… you’re toast.
Well stated once again James. 
I guess that leftover piece of fish will have to come with me the next day for breakfast so that by noon when I boat my last fish, there’s no sign of it except for the skid mark….
We should all be so lucky as to be on a trip when the fishing is so good we actually have to worry about such things, right?
Once there cooked and eaten….
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