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Buffalo needs a slot limit in a big way for some species. smile.gif

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normally i wouldnt keep anything small like that but thats all you really catch!! except the oddball 18-22 that wind was blowing east to west. we probably let 15-20 of em go before we said you know walleye for dinner lol it was a hot fishing day!! the wind was blowing east to west and all that worked was crappie jigs tipped with a minnow! ill be out there all morning tuesday ya wont be able to miss me the only tracker in the weeds.

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normally i wouldnt keep anything small like that but thats all you really catch!!


exactly why Mn should have a min walleye length to keep em. The reason you only catch small walleyes, is well because everyone keeps everything! How do you expect to catch anything over 13 inches if everyone keeps em! My Gawd, how hard is it to understand??

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Right on Jimbo!

I emailed the fisheries manager for the area about putting a slot or minimum requirement on Buffalo. He said Buffalo is doing well enough as is. He also stated that they want to keep Buffalo as a lake "where the average fisherman can bring home some fish." I politely disagreed and asked for some recent data showing that there is indeed a healthy population of walleyes over 15" in the lake, but never got a response.

Buffalo is going to get absolutely raped of those young walleyes this ice season...sad sad sad!!

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I cant agree with you more jimbo. The problem that we have is that there is alot of people that go out and take everything they can home. The problem with it, is there is going to be nothing left in lakes, if we as anglers keep doing this.

The DNR has to step up and get something done with a few lakes in the state.

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I agree also BUT!!! This post was started to encourage people to talk about their catch. This guy answers the call and he gets GRILLED! Pretty cold! There's nothing wrong with eating a couple. If someone has more that 1 limit in the freezer, then it becomes an issue. If he wants to eat fish every night, than let the chemicals get to him.

TC

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I see what your saying. Im not saying that its wrong that people shouldn't eat them, cuase they should. The problem is, there are some lakes out there that are getting to the point of having nothing in them. I have no problem with people eating fish. Cuase i love to eat them as well.

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He said that they took home their limit of walleyes which means that they took home at least 12 walleyes if there was only 2 in the boat and 2 were 17 inches and 1 was 20 inches which means they kept 9 that were small. I used to fish Buffalo when you could go catch a meal of eaters I won't fish it any more because of the small walleyes in it. I agree that there should be a slot limit on all Minnesota lakes and cut the limit of walleyes down to 4 instead of 6. Keep the lakes for the next generation to be able to catch fish too.

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In 2000, 2003, and 2005, there have been 2.25 million Walleye fry stocked in the lake. If trends hold, it looks like another 750,000 will be stocked this year. 1 boat taking 9 home will not have an effect on any lake. Don't get me wrong. The slot limit on Winnie has been the best thing for that lake. My point was: A guy has some fun and answers the call to share it and he gets grilled. Sportsmen don't do that.

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That's true but how many people go out and think that same thing.Why is it that about 7 years ago you could go out and catch a meal of walleyes out of Buffalo and I haven't heard of any one catching any walleyes with any size. I have caught more than 10 walleyes on Buffalo that were over 28 inchs aand released them all you don't here of that any more all I here is how small they are. The DNR needs to put a slot state wide.

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A slot limit won't keep people from keeping 12" fish. 10" fish and 3# fish live totally different lives. I watched a fishing show earlier this year where the host was catching 5# Walleye on 3/4 Oz. jigs with 5" shad trailers. He said Walleye regularly eat prey up to 25% of their own size. What would you rather eat..a Sirloin from Mill Creek, or a peanut? The DNR report from '03 on Buffalo shows a 2-1 ratio: 15+ inch to 15- inch. The bigger fish are in there. They're just not in the same areas, or feeding on the same forage, as the babies. 1 boat, or 10 boats, or 50 boats, won't make a huge difference in the fish population. Trust the DNR. They know what's going on. And yes, I am a HUGE fan of CPR and Selective Harvest. There is NO NEED to have any more than 1 limit in your possession. If you have 4 in the freezer and 6 on the stringer...you're an (Contact Us Please)!

Sorry all. I didn't mean to start any argument. I just felt bad for Tim. I'll shut up now!

TC

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That's all fine and dandy but no one and I mean no one releases walleyes above 14". Ya there are a few bigger walleyes but not many.

As an aside, I have used all kinds of different presentations and lures and baits and every time I have caught a 25"+ walleye it was on crawler/spinner or just a plain lindy rigged leech. I haven't caught much on big shinners or trolling big cranks.

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To many people feel that if they take the small fish it won't hurt but if everyone does that it does hurt the lakes. I want my kids to be able to go out and catch fish long into the future if we don't do something about it now there will be no fish for the next generation. Don''t be selfish.

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Last Sunday on Waverly: We caught a few 3-4# bass in 14-16 FOW in Lindy Rigs. Switched over to trolling plugs just outside the weeds. Picked up a 3# Walleye on a Spoonplug. I remember my Grandpa telling me about those!

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Last Sunday on Waverly: We caught a few 3-4# bass in 14-16 FOW in Lindy Rigs. Switched over to trolling plugs just outside the weeds. Picked up a 3# Walleye on a Spoonplug. I remember my Grandpa telling me about those!

TC

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tonight on pulaski i was able to get 2 sunfish 1 bass and a little (12") walleye. they were on caught with a slip bobber.

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I wa fishing Pulaski with my brother-in-law. He caught a 20" bass, and several rockies, shallow. While I was casting deeper and catching perch in leeches and fatheads. He started calling me the mad.gif perch king. I suggested fishing walleyes at 2:30 in the afternoon. I kicked his butt, 4 walleyes to zip grin.gif in 1 hour 20 minutes. They measured 23", 19", 18", and a 16" walleye. I told him I was catching perch for the scent. wink.gif But I agree people should fish deeper for bigger fish. Buffalos wiener length walleyes seem to be in 5ft of water.

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Quote:

Buffalo is going to get absolutely raped of those young walleyes this ice season...sad sad sad!!


Good discussion guys.... Although, I will disagree with y'all on the need for a minimum length or slot limit in the case of Buffalo Lake walleye. Here is the justification:

Buffalo has been fry stocked every other year with 760,000 walleye the size of mosquitoes. They have good survival and decent growth. Last fall we electrofished the lake to assess the stocking of those fry. We came up with 85+/hour of electrofishing. A typical good year class in a place like Mille-lacs (where natural reproduction drives the population not stocking) is in the 10/hour range. So that is 8 times higher (relative) of a return on the fry that were stocked in Buffalo. This means there are an awful lot of those walleye around this year as well.

I always question when someone says "they are all keeping those walleyes" Do you really know that those folks are true representatives of the ENTIRE fishing public?? There are many folks like the ones on the site as well that are a bit more selective on what they harvest.

Similarly, it does not hurt the population to be thinned out in this case.... There are plenty to go around in Buffalo. It may even help improve growth rates of the remaining walleye in the population.

So, you could argue that a minimum length limit is needed state wide, however, one shoe does not fit all feet, period! Lakes and their ecosystems are all unique and as cumbersome as it may be we need to try and manage as individually as we can. Sometimes that management may include no length limit. Other times it may mean a slot limit. We live in a complex angling world these days, we get complaints of how complicated the regs books are as is.... So unless there is compelling actual harvest information to suggest that there is a problem that could be fixed with a length limit, it may be better to not place one on a given body of water....

Thanks for the discussion folks... grin.gif

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Smallie - very good post. Can you fill us in on size data you have from that electroshocking??

My concern is that the walleye fishing (for good sized fish), has declined in quality quite a bit over the past few years. I mainly only ice fish the lake, along with a bunch of buddies that keep houses out there, and we just can't find good sized walleyes like we used to. We really hope that the '05 yr class can make it to a respectable size in good numbers, but it's hard to not be pessimistic when you watch guys keep their limit of 10" walleyes, as I witnessed last winter. And when there are hundreds of people out there a day throughout the ice season, it's hard to believe that the population of those little guys isn't taking a beating. But hopefully more people are releasing compared to those keeping, and we will enjoy some good fishing the next couple years!!

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Mo- Glad you all are interested....

We shocked on October 25 2005. 96 young of year fish (also known as fingerlings) were between 5.5 and 9.5 inches while a total of 8 were between 13.5 and 26.1". Keep in mind we were looking on the sand flats for the YOY or fingerlings... so there are adults as well as YOY. That is all I can say.

I understand your pessimistic outlook. It seems as though man folks are raping the resource and in ceertain instances they can in smaller lakes. Just the fact that so many are being caught is a good indicator that there are so many... Anyway, we will be doing another assessment of this years stocking this fall.

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Was out on clearwater yesterday, HOLY WIND, fishing was brutal. Managed 5 bass (keeper size) in the reeds and about 6 or 7 below 12". Also caught 3 sunnies between 7.5 and 8 inches on senkos. One, I set the hook real hard and it came flying out of the water, into the boat, and it wasn't even hooked, just holding onto the tail from the hook back. All fish were released.

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I was out on twin on saturday. It was a great day to be out on the water, and enjoying the awesome weather that we had out there.

I did get into some nice fish. There was a club tournament out there on saturday, which there must have been about 10-12 boats.

Did get alot of fish in deep water, but its a tough lake to find bigger fish. I was having luck on jigworm, with a 7 inch ticky worm.

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I was on Buffalo from 4pm - 8pm and the bass bite was pretty tough. The only bass I picked up was on a hard bottom, with milfoil and deep water close by. I picked up a five pound freshwater skunk (dogfish) and that was it. It sure was muggy out there. smile.gif

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I was on pulaski tonight with my dad and we managed only one walleye. we let it go even though it was 21" because we want it to spawn later.

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Out there with Walleyeking on Pulaski and I did a little better them him. I also managed a 21"'er. I got her around 7:20 bobber fishing in 27 fow. Tryed letting her go but she was a floater and stuck her in the livewell. About 10 mins later I checked on her and found about 20 or so 1" long perch floating around. The fish are gorging themselves on the yoy perch. Later in the evening, around 9, I caught a another walleye , a healthy 20". Same story, spat up some more perch. One fish was caugth on a orange hook with a leech and the other on a orange jig with a leech. The fish both looked very healthy.

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I went out again on Sunday eve. Didn't even see a walleye boated.

Jim, how did you end up and how late did you stay?

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I was out on Clearwater on Saturday. The guy I way with was very protective of his boat and didn't know the lake as well as I do so it was a brutal day. Worse yet no matter how protected we were from the breeze his anchor wouldn't hold. we managed maybe 6 keeper sunnies and that was it.

I know the lake can be intimidating to a first timer so the next time I go out there will be in my own boat, that way I can go where I know to go and actually have a chance.

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Got out with my dad to Sugar. It was a slow bass bite in the morning. We were on the south end. We went up to the north end and wasn't much better. Kind of brisk this morning on the water. Once it warmed up a little we got into the real small bass. Went out to the drop off outside the pencil grass and had a decent day from that point. Nothing too impressive, but plenty of action.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

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