Lower walleye bag limit among changes to 2024-25 fishing regulations
A creel full of 61 new fishing regulations will greet anglers for the 2024-25 Wisconsin license year.
Chief among them is a daily bag limit of three walleyes on inland waters.
Wisconsin regulations since 1949 generally allowed anglers to keep five walleyes a day.
But management of walleyes, commonly cited as the most popular sport fish in the state, has long been a challenging issue for the DNR.
In many Wisconsin waters the native fish has suffered from declines in natural recruitment and high rates of exploitation. The trends have helped drive regulation changes in an attempt to protect the species.
In 2015 a three-fish daily bag limit was established for walleye in the Ceded Territory (about the northern one-third of the state). The rule was designed to provide certainty for sport anglers in the area where tribal spearing takes place and, depending on tribal harvest, many lakes were experiencing fluctuating bag limits from year-to-year to try to keep the total walleye take within the “safe harvest” zone.
In 2020 a daily bag limit of three walleyes was instituted on the Winnebago System (including the Wolf River and lakes Winnebago, Butte des Morts, Poygan and Winneconne).
And prior to this year eight counties in the Ceded Territory had three-walleye daily bag limits in place.
Although anglers have expressed a range of views on the need for a bag limit reduction, public opinion surveys and other outreach related to an update of Wisconsin’s Walleye Management Plan found significant public concern exists about increasing angling pressure and harvest of walleye in regions where bag limits remain at five per day, according to the Department of Natural Resources.
The DNR described the reduction as a “proactive approach to managing angling pressure on walleyes while simplifying regulations across the state.”
The three-walleye daily bag limit will cover inland waters of the state; outlying waters, including Green Bay, Lake Michigan, Lake Superior and the Mississippi River, are unaffected and remain at five fish.
In another trend related to high angler harvests, two prominent Wisconsin waters will see new, lower daily bag limits for panfish.
The lakes – Mendota in Dane County and Blackhawk in Iowa County – will have daily bag limits of 10 panfish in total (bluegill, sunfish, crappie and yellow perch). The general statewide regulation remains 25 panfish in total and the season is open year-round.
In other regulation changes, musky anglers will see new a minimum length limit of 50 inches in place on Waukesha County waters. The regulation will cover Fowler, Lac LaBelle, Oconomowoc, Okauchee and Pewaukee lakes as well as the Oconomowoc River from Lac LaBelle upstream to North Lake.
In another southeastern Wisconsin regulation, as of this year a fish refuge has been established on part of the Fox River in Waukesha. The rule is designed to protect spawning fish and prohibits fishing from March 1 through May 1 on the Fox from Madison Street in Waukesha upstream to the Barstow Dam.
A fish refuge has also been created on the St. Croix River from the State Highway 8 bridge upstream to the St. Croix Falls Dam. No fishing is allowed in the refuge from March 1 through June 15.
The balance of the new regulations for 2024-25 are specific to individual waters, and most feature only length or slot limit changes for one species.
The new regulations go into effect
April 1. However the general inland game fish season doesn’t open on most waters until May 4.
For full details, check the 2024-25 Wisconsin fishing regulations pamphlet. Copies of the booklet may be downloaded at dnr.wi.gov or picked up at license sales outlets.
Wildlife stamp contests open
The DNR is accepting artwork entries for the state’s annual wild turkey, ringnecked pheasant and waterfowl stamp design contests. The winning designs will appear on the 2025 stamps.
Rules, entry information and reproduction rights agreements are available on the DNR’s Wildlife Stamp Funding and Stamp Design Contest webpage.