Mille Lacs Open All Summer

Don’t have the link, but just heard there will be no closure this year. Still a 21-23” keep slot it sounds.

From Fox 9 news

https://www.fox9.com/news/walleye-fishing-on-mille-lacs-lake-open-all-summer

Walleye fishing on Mille Lacs Lake open all summer
By FOX 9 StaffPublished March 2, 2023 2:15PM

MILLE LACS LAKE, Minn. (FOX 9) – Good news for anglers on Mille Lacs Lake this summer: The Minnesota DNR has loosened regulations for walleye fishing this summer, including leaving fishing open for the entire season.

The DNR on Thursday said licensed anglers will be allowed to harvest walleye 21-23 inches long or greater than 28 inches throughout the 2023 open water season on Mille Lacs Lake. This is after a lower walleye harvest this winter and an improving walleye population on the lake after a few years of stricter walleye regulations on the popular Minnesota lake.

“We are pleased to see improvements in both the growth of adult walleye and survival of young walleye in Mille Lacs,” said Brad Parsons, fisheries section manager for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “Those factors create the opportunity for anglers to have a continuous harvest season in 2023.”

Walleye regulations will be in effect from the opener on Saturday, May 13, until the end of the open water season on Thursday, Nov. 30.

There will be no planned closure to walleye fishing in the summer nor a ban on using live bait during the first two weeks of July, like in previous summers.

“As always, we will monitor the factors that determine the state’s walleye take throughout the open water season,” Parsons said. “If conditions warrant, we will adjust regulations, either to allow additional opportunity if harvest is especially low like it was in 2022 or tighten regulations if harvest exceeds our projections.”

The DNR and eight Ojibwe bands who have treaty fishing rights agreed Mille Lacs can sustain a state harvest of up to 100,300 pounds of walleye this year, which is up from 20,000 pounds from 2022. The DNR says adult walleye grew well last year, and year classes of younger walleye in the lake have the potential to contribute to the fishery in the future.

“The lake has been in a state of change since the 1990s. As the water started to clear, we began seeing warmer water temperatures. Change continues with the introduction of invasive species such as zebra mussel and spiny water flea,” Parsons said. “We will continue to monitor the lake to see how ongoing changes will influence the fishery.”

Harvest levels for Mille Lacs Lake are set annually.

Thanks Jon!

Didn’t see anything about a night ban in Jon’s post, but here it is:

There is a night ban (10pm – 6am) that will go into effect starting May 16 (except muskie fishing when that opens on June 3 with lures that are 8 inches or longer) and end Sept 1, when anglers will be able to fish until midnight.

^^^^cant make it normal regs all at once.

Ripjiggen wrote:

^^^^cant make it normal regs all at once.

Lol, one step at a time here now.

meh…..the natives can have that lake!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for sharing.

Good to see them loosen things up a bit. I support the DNR but they are so lost on the management of Mille lacs.

The night ban is pretty telling on how much the dnr doesn’t trust fisherman. It’s pretty sad.

Nothing to do with trust everything to do with control…not from the DNR side.

About time. Be nice to have a fish fry again.

The thickness of that size ML walleye is impressive. I chunked all the legal fish we harvested last fall.
It was good to share & enjoy fresh walleye!
I’m ready to get after them again. Melt snow melt!

It’s a step in the right direction. Now all we can do is hope for a late ice out!!!

Ripjiggen wrote:

Nothing to do with trust everything to do with control…not from the DNR side.

Ding ding ding!!! The sooner we realize our politicians (DNR Commish/Head of Fisheries are political appointees) are subservient to the tribe, the better. And it’s not just Mille Lacs, the Tribes even have the billionaire sports team owners in MN doing their bidding/lobbying to give the tribes the Monopoly on sports gambling.

Glad to see the lake, MAYBE open…for 2/3rds of the day, for possibly, hopefully most of the year. The Overton Window has shifted so far on Mille Lacs regs, it is shocking and should be studied by social scientists and public policy experts for years to come. Basically 10 years of effectual catch and release regs now, and we are celebrating that they won’t close the lake entirely for a portion of the summer. After decades and decades of never closing, no night bans, and an actual harvest over 200k pounds per year!

What is the reasoning behind the nightban in the first place? I guess I have never understood that.

CaptainMusky wrote:

What is the reasoning behind the nightban in the first place? I guess I have never understood that.

Fishing is usually far better at night time for walleyes, especially in clear water like Mille Lacs. The water didn’t used to be so clear. The upgrade of septic systems on the lake combined with zebra mussels changed that. As a result, smallmouth fishing has greatly improved the past 15 years too.

It has always had some sort of night ban. It started after opening weekend and lasted until mid June, and then was lifted. The reason they lifted it in June was right when the bite would start to die off when the water warmed up, and hordes upon hordes of bug hatches kept people off the lake at night.

The reason for a full season walleye fishing night ban now is…well, rip and werm’s posts kind of captured it.

CaptainMusky wrote:

What is the reasoning behind the nightban in the first place? I guess I have never understood that.

The previous night ban was from after opening weekend until early June, for conservation purposes. The modern night ban is for the same conservation purposes, and (imo) for creel surveying purposes. Tough to assign the faux hooking mortality #’s if people are fishing at night when the DNR is not doing creel surverys (aka counting boat trailers in public launch parking lots, and surveying how many people caught) at night.

Per Steve Fellegy on the origin of the night ban: “The “night ban” has been in place, I think, since ’81 or ’82–about the same dates as we have now. A group of Lake Mille Lacs resorters/guides (The Mille Lacs Advisory Association at the time) proposed this to the DNR and pushed the DNR into implementing it into law. The DNR suggested that if it was from sunset instead of 10 pm., it would have a much more positive influence on the night harvest numbers. But the public screamed, literally, loud enough to compromise and put into place what we have now.”

He is way off on his dates. Way after 81-82. Maybe he was joking. Anywho

At the last MLFAC meeting they stated that the adult spawning biomass which is fish 14 inches or bigger is at 1.5 million pounds. They have not seen numbers like that since the early 90’s.

The lake is in great shape. With lots of food for all the fish.

For now.

In 2022 the harvest numbers were 15k of the 80k allowed.

2021 53k of 87K allowed
2020 66k of 87K allowed

I think it is safe to say that not closing in July will not put us close to the 100k pounds of allowable harvest.

Night ban is silly as almost all anglers will be on the water before night fall. Except maybe in the fall when it gets dark early.

Step in the right direction Yes
Still really silly regs. Yes

Ripjiggen wrote:

The lake is in great shape. With lots of food for all the fish.

I think there is a fair number of anglers out there that associate keeping fish with the health of the lake. Which really is not true. The health of the lake is highly dependent on the forage available. When there is a lot, and apparently there is a lot right now, the fish are healthier, but less hungry, so harder to catch. Just because you can’t go home with 3 or 4 keeper sized fish doesn’t mean its not in good shape. It was ranked as the number one bass fishing lake in the entire freaking country a few years ago, and has produced two state record pure strain muskies in back to back years now. Its not just one trick pony anymore.

When there is a lack of forage, the fish are very skinny and hungry. Then people say the fishing is fantastic which tells a troubling story from a “health” standpoint because they are starving.

Ripjiggen wrote:

He is way off on his dates. Way after 81-82.

Could be, that was from an old thread on IDO and the only thing I could find that assigned any date to the start of the May night ban. I’d be interested if anyone knows the actual date?

And the survival of young walleye is dependent on forage. When there isn’t ample forage the walleye get ate by walleye. The lake always has productive spawn even with netting during spawn. Planting perch when forage is low would be a wise move to prevent walleyes from eating all the baby walleyes. That’ll probably never happen though.

FinnyDinDin wrote:

And the survival of young walleye is dependent on forage. When there isn’t ample forage the walleye get ate by walleye.

Good point, and true. Cannibalism from the largest biomass in the lake.

FinnyDinDin wrote:

And the survival of young walleye is dependent on forage. When there isn’t ample forage the walleye get ate by walleye. The lake always has productive spawn even with netting during spawn. Planting perch when forage is low would be a wise move to prevent walleyes from eating all the baby walleyes. That’ll probably never happen though.

Or let MA nature do what she does. She has worked for a long time.

I honestly don’t think you could dump enough perch in a lake the size of Mille lacs. At least not at reasonable rate.

Mille Lacs’ biggest problem is the fact they have kept protecting the larger fish which had the largest numbers and they had to eat something. Keep those bigger fish and the year classes success would be so much better.

BigWerm wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Ripjiggen wrote:</div>
He is way off on his dates. Way after 81-82.

Could be, that was from an old thread on IDO and the only thing I could find that assigned any date to the start of the May night ban. I’d be interested if anyone knows the actual date?

Early 90’s IIRC. Been a long time for sure.

What I remember about early season night fishing was after the first big bug hatch, freaking miserable to be in an open boat with a light on! Pretty much shut the night fishing down for a lot of people including me!

Will never go away IMO. The bar owners love the fact you are out of the boat and sitting in a bar after 10pm. It’s good for business!

Regarding the OP, I like the fact that the DNR has made the commitment to keep the lake open all summer. That is a big deal for the resorts and booking reservations. No one wants to book a cabin early season (now) knowing they might not be able to wet a line for walleyes later in the year. Or worse, cancel last minute after they announce a shut down.

-J.

Doubtful it will happen, but they can still shut it down if they approach certain triggers. They can also do the opposite and open things up if they don’t hit certain triggers throughout the year.
Whether they actually do that will remain to be seen.

I agree it’s a step in the right direction.

Jon Jordan wrote:

Regarding the OP, I like the fact that the DNR has made the commitment to keep the lake open all summer. That is a big deal for the resorts and booking reservations.

100% agreed! I know you know this Jon, but in my original post I wanted to just point out how far and how quickly we’ve come to celebrate the scraps the Tribe lets the DNR give us.

Jon, the resort owners were okay with the two week July shutdown. More than once owners commented at the MLFAC Meetings that July shut down is okay and does not hurt their business. For the the first two weeks in July which include the 4th, the shut down apparently did not affect their business as folks are coming anyway.

There was absolutely no reason for the July shutdowns. Even when considering the worst case temperature scenario and best case bite for the first two weeks in July, the modeling showed there was still very little chance to go over the allotment. However the DNR would take worst case temp, worst case catch rate, and target to be at 50% of the allotment.

This all so as Parson’s commented at a MLFAC meeting, so “I can sleep at night and not have to worry about overage.” So the DNR deliberately set the worst case modeling target at 50% of allotment.

I am so excited, when the family and grand kids are up over the 4th, we can finally all go out and bobber fish, watch the 5 little granddaughters play with leaches, and watch the sunset.