Mille lacs walleye regs announced

DNR: Catch-And-Release Only For Walleye During Mille Lacs’ Open Water Season

Screwed this up, anyway catch and release, closed in july, not good

Walleye fishing will be catch-and-release only with the exception of July, when walleye fishing is closed.

In addition to walleye restrictions, anglers will not be allowed to use live bait for any species in July. The exception is sucker minnows greater than 8 inches in length for targeting northern pike and muskellunge.

There are also new regulations to maintain and improve fishing for bass and northern pike. Those include:

– Immediate release of all smallmouth and largemouth bass greater than 17 inches during the harvest season that begins Saturday, May 23.

– Limit of three largemouth and smallmouth bass.

– Release all northern pike greater than 30 inches.

– Limit of three northern pike from Saturday, May 9, through Wednesday, March 31, 2021.

Walleye season opens on Saturday, May 9, and continues through Monday, Nov. 30.

I knew some of this was coming, however it’s even more restrictive than I thought. Total closure for walleye the entire month of July…no live bait allowed for any species.

No bass can be kept over 17″ and no pike kept over 30″. Whether many would choose to keep any “trophies” for a mount…that’s off the table.

If there’s any business the DNR is helping, it would be the fish replica business.

Andy beat me to it

https://www.kare11.com/article/sports/outdoors/no-keepers-walleye-catch-and-release-on-mille-lacs-this-summer/89-6c813bd0-0150-4da7-af1f-1b89220d0ed8

Also, no live bait of ANY kind other than suckers 8 inches or longer in July. The article also mentioned that the winter harvest was 30,000 pounds, which is almost historically high for any kind of winter harvest there. I’m fine with a closure/live bait ban in July. The water is urine warm and mortality is high. I’d rather have a planned closure than a sudden abrupt closure again in September. What peeves me off is that winter anglers can actually keep fish and did so quite regularly while there is an entire month of closure and absolutely no keepers during the entire open water season. The winter angling season should have been no keepers if this was going to happen.

Minor changes, no pike over 30 inches may be kept and no smallmouth over 17 inches may be kept, limit 3 of each species.

Finally something new to argue about!

Year 7 of virtually no actual harvest from the lake for 99% of Minnesotans, while 1% gets to commercially net and have 10 fish limits with little to no regulation.

No mention of the night ban, or is that just a given?

Matt

Boy, I can see people rushing up there to fish,is this so the bigger pike can eat bigger walleyes? Give me a break

Matt M wrote:

No mention of the night ban, or is that just a given?

Matt

I thought about that too and I assume that’s the case unless you are specifically targeting muskies during that legal season.

hmmm, a lake with a shortage of bait biomass is now completely protecting the large fish which consume the majority of biomass….

I also have to question the busiest winter in 30 years, as the wheel house season (which is what skews their winter #’s) was basically one month. I remember James and Pat did a show end of January where they said no one was up there, that show aired on January 26th and I assume filmed the week before.

meh..who cares..got bigger fish to fry…

Beats shutting ‘er down after Labor Day! FALL WALLEYE CRANK BAIT TROLLING?? YES!!!

BigWerm wrote:

Finally something new to argue about!

Haha this, this, so much this! Hahahahahahaha!

Perfect timing, look, over here, Mille Lacs!

The walleye regulations are just the new norm – business as usual. We will hear accounts of 50+ fish days early on. A lot of those will be 20-25″ fish that weigh half of what a similar length river fish would (aka they’re starving and are easy to catch).

However, I now don’t understand the protection of all the big bass either. Those things can crush a forage population in no time and are great hunters in the clear, warming waters of Mille Lacs. Perhaps allowing people to harvest some of those fish would give the forage a fighting chance. 99% of people couldn’t tell a medium sized cold water bass from a walleye fillet in a blind test, cooked correctly. This seems like we’re headed towards a bass fishery with a few skinny walleyes mixed in once those older fish die.

buckybadger wrote:

However, I now don’t understand the protection of all the big bass either.

No “overs” for the wall is pretty confusing too, for both bass and northern. With all the lack of forage talk, I’d imagine there will be a lot of little bass and northerns kept.

BigWerm wrote:

Year 7 of virtually no actual harvest from the lake for 99% of Minnesotans, while 1% gets to commercially net and have 10 fish limits with little to no regulation.

Twisted, isn’t it Werm??

Everyone has their personal angles and opinions which mostly just benefit their views or fishing style. For me, someone who has a place on the lake and spends probably 10k per year to the local economy, it’s disappointing to not be able to let my kids slip bobber fish for what amounts to 1/3 of the summer. Actually more than that when you figure August is not typically great for fishing anyway.

Not too happy about it.

eyefishwalleye wrote:

Beats shutting ‘er down after Labor Day!

Unless you made reservations at a resort for a week in July.

BigWerm wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>buckybadger wrote:</div>
However, I now don’t understand the protection of all the big bass either.

No “overs” for the wall is pretty confusing too, for both bass and northern. With all the lack of forage talk, I’d imagine there will be a lot of little bass and northerns kept.

I was more surprised about this than the walleye regs. No chance of keeping a trophy for the wall…if you were ever inclined to keep one for the wall?

lindyrig79 wrote:

Not too happy about it.

Me neither lindy, especially after I already went ahead and made reservations for a week in July for our family vacation. Was definitely planning on getting the grandkids out for the bobber fishing.

Regardless, I’m not going to cancel. We’ll still have a fun family vacation doing other things but it is disappointing.

This will be another hit to the resorts in July. I’m sure they’ll have cancellations.

So go to a different lake? I know this is always mentioned and it gets people very fired up. I am not trying to make people angry. If you can’t make the trip fun, book a different resort on a different lake or different area. Try something new, go to the Alex area, leech area, Winnie area, otter tail area. There’s thousands and thousands of other ones with walleyes. Yes, it’s unfortunate. I feel this is not going to change though; it’s the new normal. Either change and go with the flow or keep complaining and watch people catch fish from the sidelines. It’s the society we live in now. I just don’t understand why so many are surprised by this when it’s been happening for close to a decade now.

This is not a shot at anyone, just my thoughts.

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

I was more surprised about this than the walleye regs. No chance of keeping a trophy for the wall…if you were ever inclined to keep one for the wall?

I really don’t see the point of keeping a large trophy caliber fish anymore when the replica and photos works just fine, if not better. The bass in that lake take a decade to get to trophy size and I’m sure the smallmouth alliance pushed to eliminate the harvest of large bass.

buckybadger wrote:

The walleye regulations are just the new norm – business as usual. We will hear accounts of 50+ fish days early on. A lot of those will be 20-25″ fish that weigh half of what a similar length river fish would (aka they’re starving and are easy to catch).

However, I now don’t understand the protection of all the big bass either. Those things can crush a forage population in no time and are great hunters in the clear, warming waters of Mille Lacs. Perhaps allowing people to harvest some of those fish would give the forage a fighting chance. 99% of people couldn’t tell a medium sized cold water bass from a walleye fillet in a blind test, cooked correctly. This seems like we’re headed towards a bass fishery with a few skinny walleyes mixed in once those older fish die.

I’m no Mille Lacs expert (fish it maybe 5-10 times a year), but why does it always come back to Walleye vs. Bass fishery? The way I see it whether you allow harvest of the larger bass or larger walleye it has the potential to increase the forage base for ALL predatory fish. I guess I don’t see why it has to get so complicated and “one or the other”…..(obvious political reasoning aside, and the fact that the only fish that matters is the almighty walleye).

Charlie W wrote:

So go to a different lake? I know this is always mentioned and it gets people very fired up. I am not trying to make people angry. If you can’t make the trip fun, book a different resort on a different lake or different area. Try something new, go to the Alex area, leech area, Winnie area, otter tail area. There’s thousands and thousands of other ones with walleyes. Yes, it’s unfortunate. I feel this is not going to change though; it’s the new normal. Either change and go with the flow or keep complaining and watch people catch fish from the sidelines. It’s the society we live in now. I just don’t understand why so many are surprised by this when it’s been happening for close to a decade now.

This is not a shot at anyone, just my thoughts.

Charlie,

I’m not sure how anyone could be angry with what you are saying. It is, and certainly should be a well received suggestion.

Ironically that you say this…our family was in fact looking at other areas/lakes for this years vacation, even in Wisconsin.

We were ready for a changeup.

Unfortunately, the resorts we were considering in our price range and cabin size needs were unavailable for the weeks we could go.

We settled on trying a different resort than the one we’ve always stayed in the past on Mille Lacs that met our budget, cabin size, and availability was perfect for our timing.

I’m not surprised this is happening, I should know by now. What is unpredictable is the moving target from one year to the next. They’re never the same, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

That, and I had the false hope that this year would be less restrictive than last year and now find it’s more restrictive.

Oh well, there’s far greater worries in the world now than this little inconvenience.

gim wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:</div>
I was more surprised about this than the walleye regs. No chance of keeping a trophy for the wall…if you were ever inclined to keep one for the wall?

I really don’t see the point of keeping a large trophy caliber fish anymore when the replica and photos works just fine, if not better. The bass in that lake take a decade to get to trophy size and I’m sure the smallmouth alliance pushed to eliminate the harvest of large bass.

The bass fishing community in general is much more diligent (and responsive) in catch and release and doing replicas instead of actual mounts.

I’m thinking these regulations will just be piling on after the virus destroys tourism in Minnesota. Yet another blow to the businesses surrounding the lake.

gim wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:</div>
I was more surprised about this than the walleye regs. No chance of keeping a trophy for the wall…if you were ever inclined to keep one for the wall?

I really don’t see the point of keeping a large trophy caliber fish anymore when the replica and photos works just fine, if not better. The bass in that lake take a decade to get to trophy size and I’m sure the smallmouth alliance pushed to eliminate the harvest of large bass.

Well that’s your opinion on not seeing “the point of keeping a large trophy caliber fish anymore when the replica and photos works just fine, if not better”.

Personally I share the same opinion hence why I ended my comment with “if you were ever inclined to keep one for the wall?”

I know though that the opinion of other’s would be a replica never compares to an actual skin mount. Not for us to decide who prefers what, but the point is these regs have made the decision.

No trophy fish harvest of pike, bass, or walleye out of Mille Lacs this season. So be it.

And yes, I do agree…the Mille Lacs SMB Alliance likely had a voice in the bass regs.

I wonder who was advocating for the pike?

mahtofire14 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>buckybadger wrote:</div>
The walleye regulations are just the new norm – business as usual. We will hear accounts of 50+ fish days early on. A lot of those will be 20-25″ fish that weigh half of what a similar length river fish would (aka they’re starving and are easy to catch).

However, I now don’t understand the protection of all the big bass either. Those things can crush a forage population in no time and are great hunters in the clear, warming waters of Mille Lacs. Perhaps allowing people to harvest some of those fish would give the forage a fighting chance. 99% of people couldn’t tell a medium sized cold water bass from a walleye fillet in a blind test, cooked correctly. This seems like we’re headed towards a bass fishery with a few skinny walleyes mixed in once those older fish die.

I’m no Mille Lacs expert (fish it maybe 5-10 times a year), but why does it always come back to Walleye vs. Bass fishery? The way I see it whether you allow harvest of the larger bass or larger walleye it has the potential to increase the forage base for ALL predatory fish. I guess I don’t see why it has to get so complicated and “one or the other”…..(obvious political reasoning aside, and the fact that the only fish that matters is the almighty walleye).

Walleyes, Bass, whatever predator fish you name…if you protect them and the population of others dwindles, they will fill that void. With recruitment of young walleye being at best very inconsistent on Mille Lacs (and some years terrible) while bass are having good success, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see a shift in biomass percentages for each population.

Nowhere did I say it was “bad” or that bass are “bad”. However, I will be shocked if bass do not continue to take up a larger percentage of the carrying capacity and biomass as years go on. Fast forward a short decade and my hypothesis is that Mille Lacs walleye population is significantly lower than that of bass. That change will be permanent.

Bucky I didn’t take your post in negative way. It only got my wheels turning a bit. Just asking honest questions I had in my head. I enjoy fishing Mille Lacs for both species and would like to see a way to manage both effectively one of these days….instead of arguing over both.

Why do they close down July when the warmest water temps are in August??? (And it’s re-opened)

I should buy the DNR and their scientists a thermometer.

Rest assured MNDNR, we will be spending $1,500-$2,000 of tourist money on a Wisconsin walleye lake in July instead….booked it over a month ago in anticipation of this.

B-man wrote:

Why do they close down July when the warmest water temps are in August??? (And it’s re-opened)

I should buy the DNR and their scientists a thermometer.

Agree.

Probably has to do with fishing pressure drops by August anyway, which is what I was saying before.

Charlie W wrote:

So go to a different lake? I know this is always mentioned and it gets people very fired up. I am not trying to make people angry. If you can’t make the trip fun, book a different resort on a different lake or different area. Try something new, go to the Alex area, leech area, Winnie area, otter tail area. There’s thousands and thousands of other ones with walleyes. Yes, it’s unfortunate. I feel this is not going to change though; it’s the new normal. Either change and go with the flow or keep complaining and watch people catch fish from the sidelines. It’s the society we live in now. I just don’t understand why so many are surprised by this when it’s been happening for close to a decade now.

This is not a shot at anyone, just my thoughts.

Like Andy said, valid thoughts but not that simple for people who own or have places or ties to the area.

I guess I could just pick up and move and pull my trailer and tear down my decks and sheds, not to mention I have two little kids and no time to do it.

Or I could have just a crazy belief after 7 years we’d be able to keep 1 fish or at minimum continue catch and release while bobber fishing with the kids.

Guess not.