Me, kwp, and crawdaddy had 129.25″ between five fish.

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Can’t wait!

What should happen in the event that a fish is hooked at 1:58, landed at 1:59, and photo taken at 2:01? When it comes to those last few casts, I’m curious if we go by when a fish was landed or timestamp on the camera.

My vote would be for rods down, lures out of the water at 2PM GPS time. Land and photo any fish hooked up till that point and be back by 2:20.

I couldn’t agree more.

tetonkajohn wrote:

or give away fillets which we all probably do, but is also illegal.

You can give fish away, but I doubt anyone actually follows the letter of the law (pg 23):

Can I give away fish that I’ve kept?
If you have kept a fish and want to transfer it as a gift, it must be accompanied by a receipt that must remain with the gift. The person receiving the gift cannot possess more than the statewide limit including your gift. The receipt must contain all of the following information:
• Name and address of the owner
• Name and address of recipient
• Date of transfer
• Description of the gift
• License number (DNR number or transaction number) under which the fish was taken

Whats the best way to tell male from female, outside of the shape of the belly? I’ve cut open a few fat walleye/sauger that looked preggers, but they ended up being overweight males. I’ve also cut open a few slender looking fish that ended up being full of eggs.

vger wrote:

FYI – there is culling allowed in WI but it is mainly permitted to fishing tournaments such as B.A.S.S or PWT; which I don’t agree with since I think that is special treatment but I am in favor of keeping fish as healthy as possible after catching/releasing.

How is this special treatment? It would be if tournament anglers were keeping their catch at the end of the day, but they don’t. BASS and PWT release all fish at the end of the day to the tune of ~99% live release. An angler placing fish the in well to eat is completely different. That angler should not be allowed to upgrade his keep to kill catch. Makes sense to me.

I feel like those who feel this is special treatment don’t understand how tournaments work. There are costly penalties for killing fish and you aren’t allowed to keep ’em.

Dusty Gesinger wrote:

I guess the way I read it that is just a size range of fish and 10 of the keeper size were released, but I don’t know that for certain.

I think you’re technically supposed to stop fishing once at your limit, even if going catch and release.

There’s a stigma to keeping ‘decent sized fish’ now more than ever due to the debacle at Millacs and other lakes.

The truth is, the river is a totally different ecosystem than any lake. Millions of spawning fish with billions of eggs in ideal current and rocks = ultra high success rate for the spawn.

You simply don’t get this in a lake.

I keep em all that are legal. The big walleye and saugers are the best eaters in my eyes. Nice wide flakes, cheeks to cut out, and thicker fillets = better eating fish IMO. Side by side with a smaller fish the big fish wins the ‘taste’ contest 100% of the time. I believe this is mainly due to the thicker meat holding onto more moisture while cooking. Plus I prefer the texture of thicker flakes vs skinny flakes of meat.

Jeff Fitzpatrick wrote:

You hear a lot about river walleyes/saugers migrating towards tailwaters this time of year, especially below the P4 dam in Redwing. Is there something unique to P4 that causes this or does a major migration exist in other pools of the upper Mississippi??

Food.

There were a lot of boats struggling to catch fish yesterday, but the right color and presentation would put a few fish in the boat!

MN DNR Fisheries – Lake City wrote:

We don’t have threadfin shad this far north. We do have gizzard shad in large numbers in the Mississippi below Coon Rapids dam. Most of the young of year (YOY) shad die each fall/winter because they are not well adapted for cold water. In Lake Pepin/Pool 4 a YOY gizzard shad will routinely get 6.0″-9.0″ before fall. As for maximum size we have sampled them up to ~20″ in length. Recently we began to age some of the larger gizzard shad using otoliths. What we have found so far indicates that just as walleye and other popular gamefish tend to live longer the farther north they are living our gizzard shad (that are living near the northernmost part of their range) have a potential age near the high end of what has been recorded in the literature. Our current record for the oldest shad aged was a 18.5″ individual that was 9 years old when we aged it.

Curious — so every shad that has an elongated thread attached to its dorsal fin in Pool 2, 3, and 4 is a Gizzard Shad? I’ve snagged quite a few that have that elongated ‘thread’ hanging off the dorsal fin… Always thought they were Threadfin. I am just now learning that BOTH Gizzard and Threadin share the same styled dorsal.

Look at all those carp!

Bob Carlson wrote:

I for one…..disagree

I too read this and thought the same thing. There’s no way there are more pike than smallmouth in millac. The DNR saying this shows how inept they truly are, IMO.

People make wild estimates when they don’t know any better!

There’s 1 chip for nearly all Minnesota lakes. Here’s the lake list: http://store.lakemap.com/media/document/MN_v4_2013.pdf All the lakes you mentioned are on this chip! Just make sure if you buy a chip to know what version you are getting. Ver 4 is the current version. I think ver 3 (out dated now, but maybe cheaper if you can find one!) still has the lakes you want in HD, but you would want to check to be sure.

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That worked about as good as the sign that says PUSH on the door.

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Yea, but at least when I try pulling on that stupid backwards door you can say “HEY BUDDY, CAN’T YOU SEE THE SIGN?”.

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It’s not the end of the word bud.

(I forget too)

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No more complaining until there’s a sign up then

My bets are that no one will ever put a sign up, but still [censored] and moan when guys forget

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How about putting up a sign by the ramp reminding to drain the trailer/boat before pulling ahead. It could be placed by the ramp so when you get in your vehicle it is in plain sight. One time this year I forgot to drain my trailer after launching my boat, a sign might have helped me to not forget. As soon as my boat is off the trailed my mind is already thinking ahead to what spot and bait I’m going to start fishing with, so I just forgot.

“To help us keep the ramp ice free, please drain your trailer/boat before pulling up the ramp”

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This.

A 2×4 in a bucket of cement with a sign attached to it would be perfect!

The people who don’t drain their trailers either don’t know, don’t understand, or forget. A sign would help all 3 of these folks get into the habit of draining the trailer when its cold!

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Fish was released after the photo was taken, I’m told.

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Interesting time/place to take a picture of a fish that was ‘released’ — in the boat on the trailer? Sounds like someone is trying to appease the C&R crowd to me

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I would like to put out a challenge, walleyes from a lake vs walleyes from the river both prepped the same, taste test for a limit creek rod best 3 out of 5 wins a rod, loser buys a rod, the reason for 3 out of 5 eliminates guessing

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I would take you up on this challenge any day! Win or lose sounds like fun, and either way I’d get an awesome new rod

I still think the finer details in prep make a bigger difference than where the fish is from though.

First and foremost, yes, bigger fish produce more eggs and potentially have better genetics. Releasing these fish is EXCELLENT for most fisheries.

Aside from this, I’d argue there are a lot of misconceptions out there about keeping and eating larger fish or river fish.

While some may be true, like the potential for more contaminants, filleting out the center line removes most of them and its a practice I use and recommend on all walleyes regardless of size.

The other thing is ensuring there is absolutely no hint of blood or fish slime anywhere near your meat. I am 100% convinced that THIS is the #1 reason your fish will taste bad, and the blood and slime from different lakes/rivers can effect your meat in different ways.

I’ve eaten quite a few fish from the Hastings portion of the MS river, the dirtiest river water you can find around here, and the meat is sweet, succulent, firm, and better than fish out of any lake I’ve tried.

I feel the slime and blood on a river fish filet is critical to thoroughly rinse off. In my experiences, the effects of slime/blood on the meat with lake fish is more forgiving to sloppy fish cleaning. The end result for the average Joe hacking up a walleye filet – lake fish taste better.

Another thing I don’t think many people consider with larger fish is that thicker flakes of meat make for a much more pleasurable fish-eating experience. I’ll take 1/4″ flakes over 2 millimeter micro-flakes any day.

Here’s a little blog post I wrote up earlier in the year on how I like to fillet fish: http://burchfishing.blogspot.com/2012/03/tips-on-fish-preperation.html

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That H Mong

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Hmoung…. aka H Mong. Emphasis on the silent H.

The river seems like such a fertile fishery when compared to most lakes. I have always wondered why the average size of bass seems smaller on the MS River while other species like walleye bluegills crappies perch etc all seem to be larger than whats available in most lakes.

What gives? I swear I’ve seen 100 boat tournaments that don’t even weigh one bass over 5lbs on the river. Throw a tournament on nearly any decent bass lake in MN you will reliably see multiple fish over 5lbs at the scales.

I might be making generalizations, but if you fish the river a lot you know what I am talking about.