Walleyes going to open?

The truncation of the 2013 year class beyond 21 inches is particularly interesting as the 2018 sampling indicated reasonably good numbers of fish available to grow into the 21 inch to 22 inch size groups over the 2019 summer (Jensen 2019). However, it appears that fish available to move into these size classes have become depleted, most likely due to angler cropping from a 21 inch to 23 inch harvest slot over the winter fishing season and through May of 2019.

This makes 0 sense to me. Maybe I am missing something.

Ripjiggen wrote:

This makes 0 sense to me. Maybe I am missing something.

Which part?

Is this from a fall netting survey which would be from fall of 2019 or a spring survey of 2020?

It states that the 2013 year class that was not of legal size to harvest in 2018 has become depleted due to harvest when the survey was done. If it was fall of 2019 how would that be possible when the fish were not of legal size. Are they saying they were poached?

It then says that crop was depleted from anglers that were harvesting 21-23 inch slot not the 2013 class or newer classes.

It is confusing and maybe I am just reading it wrong since it is just a snipit of the study.

gimruis I’m super curious to see these pictures of the skinny walleyes you are seeing. Can you share some pics here?

gonefishin wrote:

Walleye condition, an indication of fish fatness, was exceptionally poor across all size ranges (Figure 39). Medium sized Walleye (14”-20”) exhibited the worst condition ever recorded, while small (<14”) and large Walleye (>20”) had the second worst condition ever observed.

No need now thanks to gonefishin.

Trust me when I tell you have seen the years of the TUBE HEAD walleyes. 2002 I believe. These fish this year look nothing like that. Just google Mille Lacs skinny walleyes or go through the archives here and you will see over the years usually around mid summer people saying that they are skinny. Happens just about every year mid summer. Some parts of the lake are worse than others it is usually the shallow rock fish that seem to be the skinniest. I have pictures upon pictures of plenty of healthy fat fish. It is nothing new.

Went out today on the North end targeting Muskie and Pike. Ended up with a 30” Northern and 20” Walleye. Both fish looked healthy.

Everything I’m hearing and reading indicates the lake opens back up Aug 1st.

Nothing “Official” from the MN DNR website – Go Figure???

So I guess this is as close as it gets:

https://www.kstp.com/minnesota-news/walleye-fishing-use-of-live-bait-to-return-to-mille-lacs-on-aug-1/5809461/?cat=12571

Walleye fishing, use of live bait to return to Mille Lacs on Aug. 1

KSTP
Updated: July 28, 2020 02:30 PM
Created: July 28, 2020 12:48 PM

Beginning Aug. 1, Minnesota anglers will be able to catch walleye and use live bait while fishing on Mille Lacs Lake.

A walleye fishing closure and restriction on live bait was put into place on the lake in July after a record ice fishing season led to the harvest of almost 30,000 pounds of walleye, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

The DNR says the closure reduced the likelihood of another closure later in the season.

A later closure would be put in place if the state reaches its share of the harvest amount agreed upon by the state and eight Ojibwe nations that having treaty fishing rights on Mille Lacs.

gonefishin wrote:

The DNR does a LL Survey of Mille Lacs and the report from the previous year is typically available June/July. I ask and receive it every year.

Was this report from last year? Last year’s skinny fish can plump up in a year!!

Well we fished the southern gravel bars today from 8:30-11am. We ended up catching 4 under 18″ a 2 around 20.5″. Went back out this evening for a little bit and got nothing besides 4 ft waves.
I didnt see alot of boat action overall. I assume that the weather kept people mostly onshore or on the north end.

Good write up Jones. The lack of perch is well documented. I haven’t caught one in years and I used to bump into them regularly. Sounds like there might be a tulibee die off this summer to some extent too. All I can say is that they better not be allowed to harvest fish this winter.

Why should they not harvest fish this winter?

That is the complete opposite of what they should be doing. Their is not a walleye shortage on Mille Lacs.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Why should they not harvest fish this winter?

That is the complete opposite of what they should be doing. Their is not a walleye shortage on Mille Lacs.

There should not be a complete closure in the soft water season if the hard water anglers can harvest fish. It needs to be treated the same all season long. Catering to one group at the expense of another is unacceptable.

I agree that the closure was dumb. But they should absolutely allow harvesting of fish or they are going to have a bigger problem on their hands.

Ripjiggen wrote:

I agree that the closure was dumb. But they should absolutely allow harvesting of fish or they are going to have a bigger problem on their hands.

I’ve already expressed my displeasure on this subject. They need to approach it on a more equal basis. Ice anglers are getting better treatment, and it’s not even close. Granted, the lake experienced its highest pressure and harvest during the winter that it has in many years, but if there has to be a complete closure in the open water season, then they should be prohibiting the harvest of fish during the winter. If it has to be catch and release for both seasons, so be it. But don’t hand hard water anglers a bag of gold and soft water anglers a lump of coal. They should both be given the same treatment.

The whole pandemic thing may also increase ice angling pressure this coming winter so that should be taken into consideration. With the heavy increase in fishing license sales this spring, it will only continue into the winter.

I have been fishing since Wednesday PM. Fished for SMB except last evening for a few hours bobber fishing for eyes. On the East side around Sunset Bay and Big Point only a couple of boats out bobber fishing. There were more boats out last weekend trolling for eyes than bobber fishing last night. Icaught 5 eyes right at sun down with biggest 18.
SMB has been slow most of the time for me. A few would bite at night and the overall size was good.

Not looking to get into a pissing match but someone asked for photos of skinny walleyes as the DNR data does not seem to be enough confirmation. So I poked around a little on the Facebook pages of resorts around ML thinking there should be a lot of photos for reference. Twin Pines appears to have the most pictures of fish. You can come up with your own conclusion but to me the pictures do not paint a pretty picture and the few 18″ eyes I caught the other night surely were not looking like they just left the buffet. I couldn’t agree more that some fish need to be taken out of the lake.

Thank you! Not difficult to see it if you do some comparisons.

I fished Mille Lacs twice in May and once in June and found many of the fish to be very skinny. Here’s a photo of a 24″ walleye caught on May 15th. Is it skinny because it recently spawned or is it malnourished? I don’t know the answer to that.

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I can add a few recent (Aug 1) photos to assist in this discussion.

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Caught 65 fish in basin (Sat-Mon AM) and all the fish looked great. Some were football shaped. Clearly some fish have adapted to a different bait or a different feed pattern than some others, because there is definitely a huge population of thick ones in the lake.
57 of 65 were at or over 20″. 26.5″ was the biggest one we got. 17.75″ was the smallest.

Definitely need to harvest some of the 20-22″ during ice season IMO. They are dominating the lake.

the bass bite was slow in June also. painfully so.