State wide slot limits on walleyes?

Joe Scegura wrote:

My example being Lake Osakis. It has a 15″ min and has a just about every year class present and is a tremendous fishery. Yet the 13″ers don’t get fried by the 1000’s like so many other lakes in my area. I’d like to know your thoughts.

Funny, Osakis was one of the lakes I was thinking about when I wrote my post. Nothing like data to show us the real story.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/showreport.html?downum=77021500

Attachments:

1. 

   Screenshot_20160519-1205382.png
   

Joe Scegura wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>steve-fellegy wrote:</div>
EXACTLY correct–for a LONG time….agreed with by ALL Mn. biologists. Nowadays? Some seem to contradict their own many years old philosophy. Minimum size limits create, historically, huge numbers just under the size limit and less year classes spread out up the size/year class spectrum.

Steve do you think this is true for stocked lakes or just naturally reproducing lakes?

My example being Lake Osakis. It has a 15″ min and has a just about every year class present and is a tremendous fishery. Yet the 13″ers don’t get fried by the 1000’s like so many other lakes in my area. I’d like to know your thoughts.

Steve I just thought of another example of a stocked lake issue. The local Sportsman’s club bought 1000-1500 adult walleye 12-13″ long at $1.50-2.00 each I believe. Then the next week there were 14 boats fishing and keeping limits of these fish. Kinda sad.

I agree with you that on natural reproduction lakes a min size could be a bad deal.

Zooks, I don’t know all the answers but why does Osakis have such a great variety of year classes if the min size doesn’t work? Maybe it doesn’t work and I’m missing something? I’m just curious.

When’s the last time anyone actually read the rules and regs book? There is already slot limits imposed on most lakes, rivers and border waters that have walleye.

Just sayin

I know I can potentially get slammed for posting this… I like to have up to my 6 walleye in the freezer at almost all times. Why? It’s hands down my favorite food to eat, it is healthy (depending on how you make it), and I do not always know when I’ll be able to get out again. I want to be able to pull a walleye or two out of the freezer at any time I want to.

All that said, I am far from depleting our resources. I haven’t fished for nor caught a walleye since September, and have been out of walleye in my freezer since probably November. I generally walleye fish in the summer, and panfish in the winter. Whether it is Northern, Sunnies, Walleye, Crappies, or Perch, I enjoy having enough on hand to be able to make a fish meal once or twice a week whenever I want to. However, I don’t have a single fish in my freezer at this time. And between coming into my busy time of the year at work, a new baby, and new house, I don’t even know when I will fish open water for the first time this year.

I carefully mark all of my packages in the freezer, and know how many fish I can take home without going over my possession. I don’t keep every fish I catch just to keep them. It simply comes down to I enjoy fishing, and fish is my favorite food plus incredibly healthy.

I’d just like to see the possession limit enforced more. Not sure how to do that but check freezers, but IMO, that is the major problem with declining fisheries.

Guys rape lakes when the bite is hot. Double dipping, going out every day and yanking a limit, filling the freezer. This is something that bothers me about more than anything about some guys.
Go get your limit, then lay off em for a while. Pummeling a bite and a single lake into submission is hard on populations and not sporting at all IMO.

Joe, I attached the wrong graph. Granted, I’ve only fished 3-4 times and haven’t for a while but I recall getting lots of 14″ eyes every time. Maybe you have the experience of finding and targeting those bigger fish, just by looking at this graph, sure looks like the population falls off the cliff at 15″.

I don’t want to keep adding attachments on my phone but I’d ask you to take a look on DNR Lakefinder at the other good lakes in the Alex area: Reno, Mary, Ida, Miltona all have a more even distribution of the biomass when looking at the same chart as I attached in this post.

Attachments:

1. 

   Screenshot_20160519-1212592.png
   

Joe Scegura wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>steve-fellegy wrote:</div>
EXACTLY correct–for a LONG time….agreed with by ALL Mn. biologists. Nowadays? Some seem to contradict their own many years old philosophy. Minimum size limits create, historically, huge numbers just under the size limit and less year classes spread out up the size/year class spectrum.

Steve do you think this is true for stocked lakes or just naturally reproducing lakes?

My example being Lake Osakis. It has a 15″ min and has a just about every year class present and is a tremendous fishery. Yet the 13″ers don’t get fried by the 1000’s like so many other lakes in my area. I’d like to know your thoughts.

It is proven location after location time after time around the country that minimum size limits over a long period of time….create less of a balanced amount of year class numbers and more fish under the size limit than any other year class. In other words, according to the proven science, your fishery might even be better in the long run without the minimum size limit–but one over 18″-20″ instead.

Jesse Krook wrote:

When’s the last time anyone actually read the rules and regs book? There is already slot limits imposed on most lakes, rivers and border waters that have walleye.

Just sayin

Huh? “Most lakes”? LOL…95% of the lakes in Minny don’t have slots on eye’s and follow the State reg’s of limit 6 w/ 1 over 20″. You must be looking in the Wisky manual…RR

Pig-hunter wrote:

Guys rape lakes when the bite is hot. Double dipping, going out every day and yanking a limit, filling the freezer. This is something that bothers me about more than anything about some guys.
Go get your limit, then lay off em for a while. Pummeling a bite and a single lake into submission is hard on populations and not sporting at all IMO.

Well said. I just called the DNR on Tuesday for this very reason. The guy was out by himself in the morning bragging about his limit. Then he was out again and I called as soon as I saw the first walleye go in the box. What a tool. I hope the CO got him.

Jesse Krook wrote:

When’s the last time anyone actually read the rules and regs book? There is already slot limits imposed on most lakes, rivers and border waters that have walleye.

Just sayin

Pretty sure we’ve already established that on this thread, haven’t we? The discussion now is about the validity, reasons for, reasons for not…etc?

mnrabbit makes the point that some of us have few opportunities to harvest some fish over the course of a given season, or year.

Pig-hunter also is saying what many of us loath. Most of us ethical sportsman do practice conservative harvest but then like anything else in the world you have the guy that would steal from his own grandmother!
So anyone know the original intent of minimum size requirement? Was it to allow some to reach spawning age/size? Or to put some kind of limit on the numbers of fish harvested?

steve-fellegy wrote:

It is proven location after location time after time around the country that minimum size limits over a long period of time….create less of a balanced amount of year class numbers and more fish under the size limit than any other year class. In other words, according to the proven science, your fishery might even be better in the long run without the minimum size limit–but one over 18″-20″ instead.

Thanks Steve. Is your info for walleye only or panfish too?

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

So anyone know the original intent of minimum size requirement? Was it to allow some to reach spawning age/size? Or to put some kind of limit on the numbers of fish harvested?

I always thought it was to help some fish slip through and become a possible trophy, as well as let the fish get to a decent harvest size.

It seems like stocking fish is like planting a crop. I’m not going to harvest my watermelon when they’re too small or too large. There’s a window in which you get your moneys worth so to speak.

IMO 14″-20″ works for walleye and watermelon!

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

So anyone know the original intent of minimum size requirement? Was it to allow some to reach spawning age/size? Or to put some kind of limit on the numbers of fish harvested?

WS it was explained to me by the MN DNR that the WI DNR started this on >The Mississippi< because they felt the 15 inch walleye would spawn at least once before it was/could be harvested.

We were talking about P4 specifically so I’m not implying this was for all waters. My arm chair doesn’t come with a sheepskin.

Slot sizes are just a lame attempt to dodge what really needs to be done.

Chop the limits. The problem is VOLUME. Freezer filling, double dipping anglers are ripping fish out of lakes at a rate that is decimating lakes and is unsustainable statewide. That’s the bottom line.

New limits and new enforcement teeth are what’s needed.

Statewide daily limit on walleye: 2
Possession limit: 4

Fine for going over daily limit: $500 per fish.
Fine for going over possession limit: $10,000 + $1,000 per fish.

Problem with fish pig freezer fillers would be solved almost overnight. Hammer a couple of them and all other fish pigs would find Jesus overnight.

Grouse

Pig-hunter wrote:

Guys rape lakes when the bite is hot. Double dipping, going out every day and yanking a limit, filling the freezer. This is something that bothers me about more than anything about some guys.
Go get your limit, then lay off em for a while. Pummeling a bite and a single lake into submission is hard on populations and not sporting at all IMO.

I know this is a problem on some panfish waters and it is discouraging to see happen. 2 of us caught a lot of fish this morning yet we came home well shy of the 20 fish we could have taken apiece. I kept 5 for tomorrows dinner meal.

I think selective harvest plays a part in all of this too. We don’t keep smaller crappies and we don’t keep any that are the largest the lake produces. I think that leading by example helps in the fight to get people to take only what they’ll eat fresh, but there are always those with blinders on and when they become a problem we start seeing slots enforced and limits reduced by law. I’d support a 4 fish limit on walleyes state-wide with one over 20″.

This issue specifically is really important to have within the walleye community.

For those that don’t know already, I highly recommend hopping on the DNR Lakefinder and start looking up bodies of water all over the state and see how much walleye stocking is done statewide. Its insane. We as anglers need to start doing our part. There is only so much the DNR can do, and they already are supplementing our greedy livewells best they can with what resources they have.

I would like to thank all who commented on my rant. I just came from the boat landing and since the opener and last ice , I have never seen that many houses or boats on that lake. With no signs of slowing down. Anyhow thanks for the insite. I learned a lot. But I still believe we need min. size limits so one lakes even have a chance for them to get to a decent size.

Slot is a 4 letter word in my book.

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

Pretty sure we’ve already established that on this thread, haven’t we? The discussion now is about the validity, reasons for, reasons for not…etc?

Jeez thanks for letting me know when and what I can post.

The reason for my post is that IF you can only have 1 over 20″ wouldn’t that be a STATE WIDE imposed slot limit? JUST LIKE THE TITLE OF THE THREAD SUGGESTS.

roosterrouster wrote:

Huh? “Most lakes”? LOL…95% of the lakes in Minny don’t have slots on eye’s and follow the State reg’s of limit 6 w/ 1 over 20″. You must be looking in the Wisky manual…RR

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/rlp/regulations/fishing/fishing2016.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=bookmarks

The lakes with walleye populations….looks like more than 5% here have special slots and limits posted in the regs book and at landings….I don’t know though maybe I need my beer goggles to read it more clearly.

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/rlp/regulations/fishing/fishing2016.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=bookmarks

Start on page 29 I didn’t even make through the G’s and I’m guessing I was already at 5% of the lakes with special walleye slots and limits. But what would a whiskey guy know???

if you really want to bring a lake back, have tribal gill net harvesting with no oversight and 100% CPR for anyone who is not the correct race.

Jesse Krook wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>roosterrouster wrote:</div>
Huh? “Most lakes”? LOL…95% of the lakes in Minny don’t have slots on eye’s and follow the State reg’s of limit 6 w/ 1 over 20″. You must be looking in the Wisky manual…RR

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/rlp/regulations/fishing/fishing2016.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=bookmarks

The lakes with walleye populations….looks like more than 5% here have special slots and limits posted in the regs book and at landings….I don’t know though maybe I need my beer goggles to read it more clearly.

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/rlp/regulations/fishing/fishing2016.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=bookmarks

Start on page 29 I didn’t even make through the G’s and I’m guessing I was already at 5% of the lakes with special walleye slots and limits. But what would a whiskey guy know???

LOL! I’ll type slowly so you can understand…Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes (actually it’s officially 14,842…). Go ahead and go through the regulations that you reference and count how many of those lakes have special walleye regs (I did: 50 of them have special walleye reg’s…). Of the 14,842 lakes in Minnesota not all of them have walleye of course so lets say half of them do so call it 7,400 of them do (even though I would think it is way more than that…). You do the math. less than 1% have special walleye reg’s. You Wisky guys crack me up with your math! LOL!!! RR

I can’t go to every single lake But I I am willing to bet there is signage posted at the landings of lakes that are known to have walleye in them stating the special rules and regs regarding walleye. I’m willing to bet you RR 1 Rapala scatter-rap minnow (black and gold if I win) that (aside from the 1 over 20″ slot) 50% or more of lakes in MN known to have walleye in them have special rules and regs for the walleye whether it be posted in the book or signage at the landings.

Jesse…Not going to argue with you on this. The lakes with special reg’s are listed in the book. The math is above…

For example, I am on a 400 acre lake in Northern Mn and it has no sign at the public access. The only lake within 20 miles of mine that has a “sign at the access” is Leech. PM me and I’ll send you my address for my Rapala!

No, I’m going to produce the data and then I’ll P.M. you my address.

Your lake has a “known” walleye population? So far I am coming up with FAR FAR LESS than 7000 lakes with a “known” walleye population.

Just in case though….let me know what color you want?

(edit) P.S. this may take me a few days but I’ll produce some sort of data

roosterrouster wrote:

LOL! I’ll type slowly so you can understand…Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes (actually it’s officially 14,842…). Go ahead and go through the regulations that you reference and count how many of those lakes have special walleye regs (I did: 50 of them have special walleye reg’s…). Of the 14,842 lakes in Minnesota not all of them have walleye of course so lets say half of them do so call it 7,400 of them do (even though I would think it is way more than that…). You do the math. less than 1% have special walleye reg’s. You Wisky guys crack me up with your math! LOL!!! RR

I think there is more like 1700 lakes with walleye in mn. I can’t seem to find it yet but I remember seeing it on the dnr site. Carry on.

Found this link on the Mn DNR website. We are both wrong (But I am closer than you )…

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fish/walleye/management.html

1,700 lakes in Minnesota have walleye populations in them (I was way low on this!). So 50 of them (listed in reg’s booklet…) have special reg’s so 2.9% of the lakes in Minnesota that have walleye in them have “special reg’s”. The other 1650 lakes follow the State regulation of 6 fish limit 1 over 20″…RR

Jesse Krook wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>walleyestudent wrote:</div>
Pretty sure we’ve already established that on this thread, haven’t we? The discussion now is about the validity, reasons for, reasons for not…etc?

Jeez thanks for letting me know when and what I can post.

The reason for my post is that IF you can only have 1 over 20″ wouldn’t that be a STATE WIDE imposed slot limit? JUST LIKE THE TITLE OF THE THREAD SUGGESTS.

Ooh, A little sensitive? Not sure what I said is “letting you know when and what you can post.” Anyway perhaps I misunderstood your post, just seemed to me that we already established the “STATE WIDE imposed slot limit” exists. Also (not saying you), it’s not uncommon for some to jump in at the end of a thread and and post something that has already been said, posted, asked, etc earlier in the thread.
Glad to see you and RR resolved your argument. Who gets the Rapala? If you can’t decide, you can send it to me!
On the serious side, we all know that the waters that have slots, special regs will continue to have them in our and our kids and grand kids lifetime. All that’s left to argue about is if/what should be the State Wide Slot Limits on Walleyes? Ah…oh, that’s where this all began.

Yeah RR I found that, that’s where I came up with FAR FAR less than 7,000. I am still researching special rules and regs per lake. I’m making little progress, I do have to get some work done as well here today. Of the 1700 lakes how many are listed in the regs book? Now how many are not. I will not send a Rap until I have found conclusive rock solid evidence that I am wrong. Using a regs book that just brushes on the popular lakes isn’t viable enough for me.