Keeping 12" walleyes

[jb426]

OK, I fish on a lake (Big Sandy)that has tons of 12" walleyes. I fish all day long, seven or eight hours and catch 25 to 30 12" walleyes along with a few "keepers". My personal slot has always been 14"-17" go in the live well all else back in the water. I've fished this lake for 5 years. The first year I thought that the next year would be great because all the 12"'s would grow into 15"'s. Didn't happen, every year I catch boat loads of 12"'s and a few "keepers". My question is; Should I keep the 12"? Lot more filleting, but if I could get the word around and more people would be keeping 12"'s would that help bring the average size up?

[goblueM]

go for it

if there's nothing but 12 inchers in there you're not going to severaly impact the fishery, imo. if you'd keep a 12 inch perch, why not keep a 12 inch walleye if it isn't going to hurt the size structure and might even improve it?

[prov1900]

I would ask the DNR folks and see what they think. It could be that there has been some excellent back to back year classes of walleyes. As long as they fit the legal keeper regs, why not keep a few?

I have never heard of walleyes "stunting" but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

[Esox_Magnum]

Since our DNR dropped the 14" min lenth guys started keeping those 12" fish now its tough to get a good eater eye in the 14-17" ranger. Most are up to 12 and over 17. Personaly I still wont keep one under 14 but the if law allows it by all means keep them.

[Quetico]

This has been a touchy and controversial issue. Back on the general discussion board this past spring people were talking about the 14" minimum on 'eyes going state wide. Many people had strong views both ways.

My view? There is a small hike in only lake in Northeastern Mn I fish on occasion. The DNR lake survey says its going extremely high numbers of 'eyes between 10-14" and very few 15"+. My own catch results confirm the survey results. So I keep fish 10-13" and release all fish over 13.5".

I think if the lake your fishing has overly abundant numbers of fish in the 12" range and fewer larger fish, keep those 12" fish and release the larger fish. Go keep your 12"ers.

[Quetico]

Also because of this I would never support a board state wide 14" min on 'eyes. Although I would support a 10" minimum. Or simply a 5 county metro wide 16" minimum to protect heavily fished metro waters.

[BrdHunter01]

12 in walleye compared to a 12 in perch.... hmmmm take those fillets and compare them.... Much different. Some people keep them, some people say that keeping a couple keeps the fishery in balance. I just cant find the will to fillet up a 12 in walleye, such a tiny fillet its hardly worth it. IMO a 13in walleye is a little better, I've tried filleting 12 in eyes and will never do it again. I fish Mille Lacs mostly in the summer and I've never caught so many 12-13 inchers. I don't keep them but I know people that do... I guess its a personal preference but my opinion is let them go to grow!

I don't want to get into a statewide limit but I would def. support one for the fact that more eaters will be available because people won't be filleting those tiny things. Plus there are so many different laws out their now, how can anyone keep track of them all? Its getting out of hand if you ask me... JMO

[jb426]

I agree, cleaning 12" fish suck. need all six just for one meal. Thats why I never would have dreamed of keeping anything under 14. To much work for such little reward. Same reason I don't keep pan fish. But if it meant upping the average size even a little, well maybe. Does anybody think the high population of pike could have anything to do with it, can't see how but????? Or maybe the bigger fish head down the mississippi???

[gregg52]

12 inchers best eating in my opinion

I keep em

[Big A]

If she fits across the top of my 5 gallon pail. nose to tip. She fits in my frying pan !

mm mm good

[eyewarrior]

As long as those eyes aren't caught in too deep of water I say let em go & hope they will get bigger. Those 12" eyes caught in 30'+ will in all likely hood die any way so you might as well keep enough to eat but then give em a break until you need another meal. Not sure of the circumstances in you particular lake - depth, fishing pressure, time of year etc. but over the years I've seen guys catch & release deep fish for hours only to keep a few while killing many. Just because they swim away doesn't mean they will live to fight another day.

[PerchJerker]

I have no problem with you keeping some 12 inchers. If you want them, keep them and eat them, and more power to you!

I LOVE the suggestion PROV1900 made regarding talk to the DNR fisheries office and get their take on what's going on in the lake. Maybe it's the effect of how the lake was managed, maybe it's several strong year classes, maybe you're just not catching the bigger ones due to locations or presentations, etc. They are a great source of info.

I don't like the idea you had about spreading the word for more people to keep 12 inchers to increase the size of the fish in the lake. That's armchair biology --- talk to the DNR about what you're catching and what they think is going on in the lake, and go from there --- they are the experts.

[Esox_Magnum]

Keep in mind the smaller fish are the majority of the poulation, keeping a bait away from them long enough to get it to the bigger ones is normaly the problem. I know from hours of watching them on the camera a bigger one slides in eyeing your bait and the little guy comes flying in out of nowhere and gets the bait.

[leech~~]

Don't spend your time driving all the way up to LOW if you aren't going to keep some 12" eye's and Sug's!

[Big A]

Don't spend your time driving all the way up to LOW if you aren't going to keep some 12" eye's and Sug's!

+1 to that !

[Brad B]

by imposing a 14" min across the state mille lacs would only have a 4" window from 14" to 18" this may have a impact on the resorts. I personally keep a 12" eye from mille lacs that was almost dead but the guy on the launch that caught it didn't want it and I didn't want to see afish get wasted so I asked him for it and he gave it to me. let me correct my self there would still be 1 fish over 28" allowed.

[Smails]

I read an interesting article in in-fisherman on walleye fillets earlier this year. In summary, it said that one 16" walleye will yield more fillet weight than two 13" walleyes. Something to ponder.

[Esox_Magnum]

Compaire a 12" perch to a 12" eye on fillets, perch wins.

[jwmiller33]

i pondered the same "12 inch walleye problem" on island lake reservoir (duluth) this past summer... it seemed like there was a major year class of these little buggers and for a while, i could only catch 10-14 inchers... i have often times thought about keeping a couple of the 12 inchers, but i dont eat fish enough to spend my time fileting those little guys.. in situations on lakes where there are tons and tons of the 12 inchers, i would have no problem with a guy taking a limit of them. however, on other lakes where there isn't this problem, i do not support taking the 12 inchers, however, to each his own. i dont have a problem with guys keeping the smaller ones on lakes with tons of the small eyes, however, i dont think that by doing this, one would be helping out in "evening out" the year classes.

[Svinekotelett]

them 12ers dident grow cause they were kept

[jb426]

All good advice. I think I'll just do what I've been doing and keeping 12"ers when i can't catch any anything bigger. I'll leave the mangement of the lake to the pros. It's still fun catching little eyes for the kids, watching my five year old work a jig and pull up a walleye of any size is heaven. When he catches a snag (pike that he can't reel in) is fun too.

[zackthehunter]

we kepp almost every walleye we can last summer we let one go but i think it was only about 7 inch good eating better than a sunny one day we caught 4 walleyes and they were all about 12 inch

[kingfish689]

walleyes will school to size I fish a lake near town where when I put the aqua veiw down all you see is small fish but if a larger one come through the small ones wil scatter if I see alot of small fish and not many big ones I will move some times only 50 feet or so will do it, (this is much easier with a gps cause you can see bottom lay out better)some times I will sit on the small ones cause I am just there to catch fish and I like the action. but if I am after a meal I will not hesitate to move off the small fish you are not likely to find a 19 inch fish in a school of 12 inch fish so if you have alot of small fish try moveing I know people that swear there are no big one in the lake I am talking about but they are there and there is alot of them. so good luck and see you on the water P.S. big sandy has some nice crappies in it give them a shot they get over 12 inches on that lake

[jb426]

That it does, big crappies and sunnies.

[andrew chadwick]

depending on the lake. I like to keep them at around 13 inches, but some lakes they don't get very big. A good example is Island lake. One day last summer we got 50 walleye out there, and only one was bigger than 14 inches.