To protect fish spawning areas, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has begun to close certain portions of a number of Minnesota waters to fishing. The closings are routine and based on local conditions.
Closings occur each year as ice-out begins and waters begin to warm.
Areas closed to fishing are listed on the DNR website. Portions of waters closed to fishing also are posted at access sites and in other visible areas. Anglers may fish in areas that are not posted.
MILWAUKEE -- Lake Michigan anglers had a banner year of chinook fishing in 2010, with favorable winds and other factors helping to increase harvest 47 percent, state fishery officials say.
"It looks like our chinook salmon harvest by Wisconsin anglers was really good in 2010," says Brad Eggold, the Department of Natural Resources fisheries supervisor for southern Lake Michigan, who just completed analyzing surveys of what anglers caught on that water in 2010. "I don't see any reason that 2011 would not be another solid year."
Eggold found that anglers harvested 315,294 chinook salmon from Lake Michigan in 2010, up from 214,621 in 2009 and 256,796 in 2008. More good news for Wisconsin anglers: they accounted for the bulk of the lake-wide haul.
MADISON -- Daily walleye bag limits have been adjusted on 539 lakes in the Wisconsin Ceded Territory in response to harvest declarations made by six bands of Chippewa in Wisconsin, the state Department of Natural Resources has announced. These bag limits are effective between May 7, 2011 and March 4, 2012, inclusive.
There will be a three walleye bag limit for sport anglers on 226 lakes, a two-fish daily bag limit on 311 lakes, and a 1-fish daily bag limit on Potato (Rusk County) and Grindstone (Sawyer County) Lakes. [Full Story]
