Island Lake (St Louis County) special limits

So what’s up with this? My parents live on this lake and it sounds like a new experimental management plan. Copied from MN DNR website:

Special Fishing Regulations: This lake has special fishing regulations that differ from statewide or border water regulations for those species identified below and take precedence. Regulations listed below are currently in place. Visit the fishing regulations page for links to upcoming regulations for specific lakes.

Walleye: All from 15-20″ must be immediately released. Possession limit 10, only one over 20″ allowed in possession.

Sounds like they are also stocking tullibees for forage, ?fattening up the bigger walleyes and muskies? Any biologists out there able to explain the rationale of taking out a whole bunch of young walleye to make the fishing “better”? We caught a bunch up there this weekend and it is true, everything we found was under 15 inches.

I’ve never fished Island Lake, but my college buddies do a lot. A few of them brought this up when talking about opener plans and they like the idea of the MNDNR trying something different. Will it work and produce desired results? Who knows. Not doing anything and staying status quo is going to leave you with a lake full of 12-13″ walleyes as history has shown. Hopefully the size structure can shift and blow through the ceiling that’s currently there.

Much like saugers on the river, I can’t bring myself to stick a knife through 12-13″ fish regardless of regulations…but to each their own.

Do you mean lake quarter pounder?
I guess we’ll have to wait and see

Island Lake is a walleye factory and has an over-abundance of stunted walleye. “The Island Lake Special”. There isn’t the forage base available in the lake to feed them all. All of those 12-13″ fish are around 5 or so years old. You’ll notice they’re thicker than the traditional 12-13″ fish you catch in other lakes.

I believe the strategy is to decrease the competition and allow fish to grow bigger, earlier in life, more like a “traditional” lake. Similar to the pike regs on a lot of lakes.

I was the creel census clerk on that lake way back in 2005 or 06 when I was graduating college. I learned a TON about that lake over the summer. Spent 40hrs a week driving all over talking to fisherman and spying on their fishing holes. Even back then, there were millions of those 12-13″ fish and no one kept them. I was all about it, and tried to convince people that it would be good for the lake if everyone lowered their expectations at catching the traditional “keepers” and kept their limits of them and release the bigger fish. Glad to see the DNR finally got on board with the idea. It should help the size structure immensely! Didn’t hear they were adding tullibee, but that will definitely help the forage base significantly. If I remember right there is an abundance of Logperch in there, but can’t remember if those had a negative effect on the forage base, or why they stand out in my memory.

It’s been years since I’ve been on that lake. I need to make a run down there sometime and see how many spots still produce.

I grew up on that lake – it has had stunted walleyes for as long as I have fished out there. I read a write up about that lake from the DNR a while back and they noted abnormally slow growth rates in the walleyes and low forage. Hopefully the stocked forage helps the growth rates. That lake has an incredible amount of walleyes that are right around 11-12″.

I’m all for the special slot and bag limit because it is something new and tailored specifically for this lake. Clearly the standard statewide regs have not helped the size structure of walleyes in Island Lake. A few years back they put a special walleye slot and bag limit on Fish Lake, which is another reservoir lake a few miles away from Island Lake, and it has helped the walleye population tremendously. Obviously this isn’t apples to apples being different fisheries, but I really like that the DNR is looking at how to improve individual lakes rather than sticking with state wide regs when they might not be a good fit for some lakes.

I’m anxiously awaiting to see how this impacts the walleye population in the long run. I’m also curious how this will impact the ALS fishing tournament – since those 15-20″ fish are what makes or breaks your bag limit for doing well in that tournament

I remember finding loads of big, dead walleyes floating around that lake the days following one of the big tournaments held there. It was a summer one, when the water temps were high. Gave me a whole new outlook on fishing tournaments, and catch and release during the heat of the summer.

DeRangedFishinguy wrote:

I remember finding loads of big, dead walleyes floating around that lake the days following one of the big tournaments held there. It was a summer one, when the water temps were high. Gave me a whole new outlook on fishing tournaments, and catch and release during the heat of the summer.

Interesting… I wonder what tournament that would be. The ALS is always around the first weekend in June and the water temps are plenty cold yet. I’m not aware of any other summer tournaments out there for walleyes besides weekly leagues.

I think UNS hosts a contest in the summer.

rwmcvean wrote:

So what’s up with this? My parents live on this lake and it sounds like a new experimental management plan. Copied from MN DNR website:

Special Fishing Regulations: This lake has special fishing regulations that differ from statewide or border water regulations for those species identified below and take precedence. Regulations listed below are currently in place. Visit the fishing regulations page for links to upcoming regulations for specific lakes.

Walleye: All from 15-20″ must be immediately released. Possession limit 10, only one over 20″ allowed in possession.

Sounds like they are also stocking tullibees for forage, ?fattening up the bigger walleyes and muskies? Any biologists out there able to explain the rationale of taking out a whole bunch of young walleye to make the fishing “better”? We caught a bunch up there this weekend and it is true,

everything we found was under 15 inches.

That is exactly why they changed the regs. As soon as a fish get 15″ someone keeps it. My lake (WI) had a 1 over 14″ – now 15-20″ and 1 over 24″ Size structure has noticeable changed (for the good) in the last 10-15 years. Fished 2 afternoons last week. Caught 16″, 18″, 21″, 22″, 23″, 24″
& a 26″. 20 years ago I would Have caught 30+ fish all 14 1/2″ and one 20″ish.