The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

I will open with a question. How many walleyes do you think an angler should be able to keep each day? Across the state of Minnesota, that would largely be six walleyes per day. Lakes with special regulations do vary from this number. The possession limit, the total number of fish that can be in your possession at any one time, is also six walleyes. If I catch six walleyes today, in order to be legal, you will need to eat those fish or give them away in order to go out fishing the next day. How many anglers do you think strictly adhere to this regulation? Not very many.

The possession limit, in my opinion, is designed to add to the hurt when they catch someone with a daily overlimit and then add the citations and fines for over-the-possession limit as well. I am not opposed to this law and its intent.

The final bills making their way through the legislature, and with conversations with the MN DNR include the daily limit dropping to four per day. Who knows where this might end up, but that is what’s being talked about now.

Most anglers do not catch six fish per outing. Many do not catch half of that amount. If lowering the limit to four means the average angler will not even meet that, then what difference would a six-fish limit hurt? That is one side of the argument as to whether the limit should be reduced or not. Many folks say leave it where it is.

I am going to provide a little more perspective from my experience. Lakes in southwest Minnesota do not normally have some sort of biting going on all the time. They will be just like the Dead Sea one week and hotter than hot three weeks later. When these lakes turn on, fishing pressure can be very high.  I have seen 125 boats on a lake that is not even 640 acres in size. Total chaos.

One such hot bite happened about five years ago when an area lake turned super-hot. Even a bad angler could catch fish that weekend. One poacher decided he would make hay while the sun shone. He and five friends went fishing and caught 36 walleyes in about two hours. He offloaded those fish, and he and his friends did it again. The next day, this was repeated. Each angler did not exceed their daily limit. Day three, he fished again with three other friends and limited again. In total, one boat over a three-day period harvested 168 walleyes. The boat owner kept almost all the fish. There was a “turn in poachers” call made, but alas, everyone had gone home by then, and no citations were issued.

If the daily limit was, say four fish per day, this same incident would have amounted to 112 fish. Still a ton of fish, but at least 33% less than with a six fish limit. I wish this were an isolated example, but I feel like it is not.

I support the reduction of the daily limit to four fish per day. I think the possession limit should then move to eight fish in possession, like almost every other state does.

There are a few other issues like serious budget cuts, two lines during open water and the elimination of the shotgun zone, but there is no exact information available to me on those.  Hold on to your favorite fishing hat or shotgun and we will see how this session winds up.

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If you have any questions, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.