Thought I Did the Right Thing..."Keeper" Question

[matthothand]

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[coombia21]

I think you did the right thing. It is almost the same thing for the lakes with the slot, like mille lacs everybody I talked to said they think the slot is the wrong thing but in my mind it is the best thing that happened to that lake. I like to be able to go out fishing and consistently catch slot fish. They are definitely more fun to catch than 14 or 15 inchers, I dont mind not frying fish if it means I can catch nice fish.

[auggie78]

I also think you did the right thing. Unless a walleye over 20" is hooked very deep and bleeding i always throw them back.

[deadeye]

I don't think you did anything wrong. That size fish are the ones that actually repopulate the lake.

I have kept fish of that size myself and while I don't prefer that size for the reason I stated above, I certainly wont loose sleep about it. The ones that are around 18" taste better IMO and still clean up nice.

It doesn't matter what you do, someone will think your wrong and give you a fact to support what they say. So do what you think is right and tell them to get bent

[Burnham]

jman, i never keep the 4-5 inchers because i dont want to hassle with them. all the gills i keep are 6-7 inches, BUT often times, at least being in the metro area as i am, keeping the 4-5 inchers would be the best thing to do for the lakes population of nice gills. many metro lakes are overpopulated with those small gills and weeding them out is needed. if you keep a limit of small gills i'm sure it is enough for a meal. that being said i still dont mess with them if they are 5" or smaller.