Red L. W/E regs. changes

[Lee Borgersen]

  Upper Red Lake walleye regulation changes announced for open water season.

4/2/19


  .....
Bag limit remains but anglers can put larger walleye in the frying pan.

While anglers fishing Upper Red Lake this spring will again be able to keep four walleye, a change in the size regulation will allow them to take one fish over 20 inches making potential keepers out of considerably more of the lake�s walleye population.

Since May 2017, the regulation allowed anglers to keep four fish with only one over 17 inches. Adjusting the one-over size to 20 inches will put more mature females within the allowed four-fish bag limit during the open water season that begins Saturday, May 11.

  ......
Under the new regulation, anglers will be able to keep four walleye under 20 inches, or a combination of three walleye under 20 inches and one over 20 inches.

  ....
We're using the new regulation to let anglers remove surplus spawning stock, which hasn't sufficiently happened under the previous regulation, said Gary Barnard, Department of Natural Resources Bemidji area fisheries supervisor. The DNR will likely adjust the regulation following the 2019 open water season, after anglers remove the surplus of mature female walleye.

The previous regulation resulted in harvest of approximately 234,000 pounds for the 2018 harvest year. While this harvest level was a record high for any year since reopening the lake to walleye fishing in 2006, it was still short of the target harvest range for the lakes surplus spawning stock condition. That level of harvest has not been effective in reducing spawning stock toward the desired optimal condition of 2.5-4.5 pounds per acre.

Red Lake's walleye harvest is managed under a joint harvest plan, revised in 2015 by the Red Lakes Fisheries Technical Committee. An Upper Red Lake Citizen Advisory Committee reviews harvest totals and regulation options and makes recommendations for walleye regulation adjustments for the state waters of Upper Red Lake.

 
The revised harvest plan recommends an aggressive approach when walleye spawning stock is in surplus, as it is currently, Barnard said. Anglers can expect a return to more restrictive size or bag limits in future seasons once spawning stock is managed to more desirable levels.

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More information about Red Lake fishing regulations is available at mndnr.gov/regulations/fishing.

[LPS]

Isn't that interesting....

[glenn57]

didnt want to mix this up with cookies updates, so put it here..............read somewhere yesterday that another house rental outfit closed down for the season.........lake conditions to bad!!!!!!!

[Gunner55]

didnt want to mix this up with cookies updates, so put it here..............read somewhere yesterday that another house rental outfit closed down for the season.........lake conditions to bad!!!!!!!

Not real surprising to me as there's not a lot of the walleye season left & with the current conditions I'll bet it's a real PITA movin their houses & plowin spots for wheelhouses. If the  is a iffy too, can't say I blame 'em.

[glenn57]

Heard today westwind shut down for the season to now.

[LPS]

Wow that pretty much says it all.  Imagine the money they won't be making and probably jobs not there now neither. 

[Leech~~]

Heard today westwind shut down for the season to now.

From their FB page.  Not sure if for the season or just a week or so? Their still going with rentals it sounds like.   


West Wind Resort
Yesterday at 11:02 AM ·
The last round of snow dropped about 7 more inches of snow out on the lake. With the amount of snow and flooding we will NOT be allowing wheelhouses this week and weekend for sure. There is just no place to go that doesn't or hasn't flooded. This week is calling for mild temps so nothing will freeze. Our rentals will be business as usual. We are working on new roads now to bypass some of the slush pockets.

[glenn57]

Thanks for clarifying that leech.

[Leech~~]

I will say this that kind of sucks if your renting a resort house the rest of this winter.  When the snow gets deep and there is a lot of slush, Resorts are less likely to move their house to new spots like they can easily do on a thick ice low snow year.  Once they get things plowed out and harden up they may leave everything in place for a while before breaking new ground out some where's else. Areas under houses could get a little fished out day after day of fishing one spot.  Good luck.   

[glenn57]

earlier today recieved DNR email stating there reducing the walleye limit on red to 3 fish with one over 17.

one of the reasons was because of the heavy fishing pressure that past 3-4 years???? iffin i recall red wasnt fished that heavy last year because of all the snow and slush??????? 

[Jerkbiat]

I recall the same thing Glenn. They also though they had to many fish in there at one point too and loosened the regs up if I remember correctly. I am wondering when they are going to start changing the regs up her on LOTW with all the pressure it gets now in the winter.

[mike89]

seen that 3 fish limit to for there, DNR can really make a mess..

[dutchboy]

Flood the lake with CO's, write a bunch of tickets and publicize the fines. What you have is 1000's of fisherman flooding a couple of lakes (Red & LOTW) pounding the fish. You need to lower limits and tighten slots or step up enforcement.

LOTW can't keep spitting out 12" fish forever. If you watch the fishing shows it's all about getting a limit for every angler every trip.

For political reasons I would never step on Red Lake, but I'm very much alone with that as can be witnessed every weekend the ice is good.

[Jerkbiat]

I think the biggest problem now with LOTW is the plow roads all over this end of the lake. They go from pine island all the way to garden and then go west from there. 7-8 years ago if they went out 11 miles that was pushing it. Last year I think there were something like 15,000 fish houses up here. This year they are talking about plowing a road all the way from pine island to oak island because of the border being closed.

[snow1]

Ill take a shot at this issue,me thinks we're not getting the entire story here as usual from the media,me thinks the natives commercial netting operation is taking a heavy toll on the walleye spawning bio mass,after all the url operation isn't restricted like mille lacs with 100' gill netts,seen pics of trollers dropping 100's of feet of netts,but what do I know,arm chair observation.

Years back during the crappie boom on url the lake was heavily canvased by our dnr and trible wardens,every trip we made we were checked,dnr folks got creative once they found out about shanty town walleye fish fry's few years back,they would roll up on houses and pop holes near the vacant shackes and run a camera down as they knew folks cleaning/eating walleye on the ice most often discarded the remains down the holes,many violations followed

[Gunner55]

earlier today recieved DNR email stating there reducing the walleye limit on red to 3 fish with one over 17.

one of the reasons was because of the heavy fishing pressure that past 3-4 years???? iffin i recall red wasnt fished that heavy last year because of all the snow and slush??????? 

I know of at least 1 resort on Winnie that never even opened for icefishing last year because they couldn't get out to plow any roads & set up their houses. We have a relative that has been goin to Nodak's in the middle of February for the last 10-15 years, not last season. I think he told me they ended up @ River Bend up on LOTW last year.

[glenn57]

the weather and ice conditions changed alot of plans last year and forced some fishermen to go to other destinations. mostly ending up going to mille lacs or LOTW's.

personally i have the same view as dutchy about mille lacs as he has regarding red lake.  and i also think sometimes like snow said we arent getting the full story, but in todays world do we ever??????

URL is a 5 1/2 hour drive from my house. yea i'm using boars anology.......its to far to drive  and an hour from the cabin. some day i'd like to catch a walleye worthy of mounting but i dont see that on red lake. i dont think i'd personally go to red by myself as there are all kinds of walleye lakes close to home and not far from the cabin.

with that being said iffin i was at the cabin with plans to meet up with someone i'd go to red.  few years back a small group of guys here had a GTG UP on red and that was a blast! i'd go for a day trip. i rented through cookie and that feller knows how to take care of a customer!!!!!!!!

[snow1]

Back when url was closed to game fish(walleyes),through my work I had a good connection with a few bio guyz with the DNR  that were hands on when walleye stocking started in 1999 I  think? first year we dropped over 30 million fry,fry came from lake vermillion dnr traps.so in 2000 wilst chatting with a couple fishery guyz from our state dnr they told me about the huge crappies they caught in walleye fry traps,they claimed 3-4 of these massive crappies averaged 10 lbs per pull,that's dang near 3lbs each! never caught a crappie over 1lb before so we (my ole lady before she passed on) took many weekend and sometimes day trips to url icefishing,only one resort was still open after many closed when the lake shut down (Hudacks resort) ,it was a zoo going out of hudacks as the word


leaked,locals sunk crappie cribes as our 50 thousand non native acres was nothing but a sand bottom bowl,the cribes worked,marked with gps cords at a price,seen my first 18" crappie that year someone else caught,also seen a 13lb walleye iced on a crappie/minnow rig even tho the lake was void of walleyes,we caught many crappies over 14"s infact I started a crappie stringer mount of 15 crappies(at the time,daily limit) over 16"s,well never caght the 18"+ 3lb'er but caught plenty over 15"s ,not worth a shete to eat,to dang thick,muddy tasting and mushy,15 crappies would fill up a 5 gal bucket with tails turned up,DNR guyz told me this huge crappie class was from 1996 and what big crappies were not caught would die off as crappies had a 7-8 year life span,so didn't take more than two years when the bite died,good times back then,never used minnows either caught my share of crappies over 16"s.