One option for winter fishing discussed at Tuesday’s meeting is for the DNR to stick with the current walleye bag limit, in effect since mid-August. It allows anglers to keep two walleyes 18-20 inches long or one fish 18-20 inches and the other longer than 28 inches.
A couple of committee members at the meeting said many anglers were encouraged by the latest walleye regulation on Mille Lacs because it lowered the size of walleyes they can keep. They also noted that ice anglers aren’t likely to over-harvest walleyes in January and February because catchability is down.
Several members of the advisory committee also encouraged the DNR to be more aggressive in setting walleye bag limits. Too often, they said, the state falls far short of its safe harvest level on Mille Lacs. The quota is set jointly at the outset of every year by the DNR and eight Ojibwe bands with fishing rights on Mille Lacs.
