Minnesota’s Mille Lacs anglers could see two-walleye winter limit

Isle, Minn. — For the first time since 2015, the Minnesota DNR is entertaining a two-walleye limit on Lake Mille Lacs this winter due to a gill-net survey showing high forage numbers and large young walleyes.

An abundance of yellow perch and tullibees began to lead to a poor walleye bite toward the end of the summer on the 132,000-acre lake, and that trend likely will continue into the winter and spring, potentially leading to less restrictive walleye-harvest regulations.

“When you have a bite that’s not quite as strong as what we’ve seen in some of the previous years, that becomes less of a worry that we’re going to bump up against those safe harvest levels,” said Eric Jensen, the DNR’s large lake specialist for Mille Lacs.

The Mille Lacs Fisheries Advisory Committee proposed a limit of two walleyes between 18 and 20 or 18 and 21 inches during its meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 15. The committee was overall displeased with how the ongoing open-water season shook out, with a catch-and-release regulation until mid-August.

That proposed limit could be an extension of the regulations that started Aug. 16, allowing a two-fish limit within a harvest slot of 18 to 20 inches (including one over 28 inches) allowed in possession.

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Last winter, anglers were limited to one walleye between 21 to 23 inches long.

While the DNR won’t solidify the winter harvest regulation until early November, it’s possible that it could be approved as it was proposed at the mid-October MLFAC meeting.

“We’re definitely going to look to do something very similar to what MLFAC has recommended because I think that it’s doable, and it seems to be what we’ve been hearing from other stakeholders as well,” said Brian Nerbonne, the DNR’s central region fisheries manager.

Even though the safe harvest levels for 2025 won’t be discussed until the start of the new year between Ojibwe bands and DNR, the state is well below its yearly safe allowable harvest level of about 91,500 pounds of walleyes.

As of the end of September, state anglers were at just 33% of their allowed walleye quota for the year.

“With all this forage out there, fishing has been really slow, and so there have been a lot fewer fish caught than we thought there were going to be this summer,” Nerbonne said. “And also, the number of anglers that showed up to fish has been a lot lower this summer.”

Despite the gill-netting taking place in September, Jensen said he suspects forage had been increasing throughout the summer, because the walleye bite continued to taper off around the end of June

“We just never have any way of predicting when these events are going to happen ahead of time. Whatever happened this spring, that set up a set of conditions that really brought on that forage, and I’d say that was a big surprise for us,” Jensen said.

With anglers hitting Mille Lacs this winter to potentially catch two walleyes, conditions to pivot to yellow perch may be a viable option to not walk away empty-handed.

“If you’re having a little trouble coaxing the walleyes to bite, you’re probably going to have to move around a bit to get them and probably fish prime hours,” Jensen said. “With yellow perch and looking at the size we have and the numbers that we have, that would be an alternate species.”

Another factor playing a role in potentially loosened winter regulations is that the gill-net catch rates for age 0 walleyes was high, and the size of the young-of-the-year fish also was above average.

“We had the earliest ice-off ever this year (which) probably gave a little bit of extra growing time to walleyes. We’re seeing fish that were actually over 9 inches at age 0. I don’t think we’ve seen that,” Jensen said at the MLFAC meeting.

Looking ahead

Some MLFAC members at last week’s meeting didn’t mind sharing their desires for next year’s open-water season.

Members are interested in a less restrictive May and June walleye limit (not C&R), with the potential to restrict harvest as the season goes on instead of vice versa, as was the case this year.

That would be a departure from this past season’s restrictive start in May, when anglers could only catch and release until Aug. 16. The shift to a two-walleye limit occurred when state anglers had reached only 26% of their allotted take for the season on Mille Lacs.

DNR officials say they’re open to having a more lenient limit at the start of the next season, because a slow bite in the fall usually results in a slow spring bite, too. That reassures state officials that anglers won’t exceed poundage at the start of the season.

“So probably it’s going to be a little slower bite next spring, which, again, gives the state a little bit more comfort in allowing harvest at that time of the year,” Nerbonne said.

A potential concern with allowing the take of walleyes at the start of the year, then restricting harvest halfway through the open-water season when total poundage allowed is almost tapped out, is that it could confuse anglers.

“I think we’ve got to be careful not to manage solely on this contingency regulation, though,” Nerbonne said. “What happens then is we end up having complexity, where anglers don’t know what the regulation’s going to be.”