2020 Walleye Slot Size?, NO CHANGE FROM 2019

The catch is the "prime spawners" have already had a chance to put some reproductive effort back into the system. When you catch a juvie, it's easy to think of it as a fish that doesn't have the same worth as a bigger, mature fish. But when you kill it and put it on the table, you are effectively removing 100% of that fish's reproductive potential. And we were removing a lot of them, right before they hit spwaning age/size.

No point complaining anymore but I'd like to point out this has not been just 5 years of restraint and compromise but 20 years of gradual restrictions showing very little results considering the timeline.The recreation sport was cut from 6 to 4 to 2 along with size and finally to keeping breeders which I will not keep as years of my conservation practice will not be cast aside.Time to bring back 1 or two under 15.75

Totally agree. Nothings improving apparently. The regs as they stand now are just a way of keeping the money rolling in and the fish staying put, for others to harvest. I do disagree with you saying there is no point in complaining. That's all we can do.

go back to my original post saying that as long as commercial fishing is allowed on this lake we will never have a healthy walleye population where the sport fisherman can take a few home for a fish fry. SO SAD.

As fish get bigger and older they bio-accumulate toxins like Mercury in their bodies. Eating a fish over 46cm means you are likely eating more mercury than if you ate a fish that was 26cm.

Despite the current reasoning about increasing the walleye population etc, why is MNRF encouraging us to eat more mercury by only allowing us to eat bigger fish?

I don't recall the Fish Eating Guide warning us to not eat bigger fish. If I recall the fish guide doesn't specify size of the fish when it says only eat 2 or 3 fish per week/month. I believe the guide is based on some kind of "average" sized fish.

But for Nipissing, all we can eat are the larger fish so has the Fish Eating Guide been amended to reflect the increased amount of Mercury we are eating by only eating the larger fish?

I think most of us only wish, we had to worry about how many nip walleye we are eating

I don't believe they record the length of the fish when taking samples for testing, but they sample everything... so the result would be an overall number, or an "average'. I would imagine though that if they got any significant numbers back they would do more sampling and look at it coser?

I could be wrong. It's been a while.

https://www.ontario.ca/environment-and-ener...ory?id=46178000

Here is the government website for eating fish from Lake Nipissing

That's a good chart. Thanks.

I notice the number of walleye meals per month goes down the longer the fish.

2020 regulations are out. No change from last year.

Maybe 2021 will be the year a change in the slot size

How many years has this current slot been in affect? It doesn't really bother our group because it's still a blast catching a ton of those aggressive 17-18" fish and we always get enough perch for a fish fry. But shouldn't we be seeing some results by now(more 19-21" fish)? Unless as soon as those fish get to that size they're being taken from the lake some other way............

The current slot and limit for walleye has be in effect for 5 years. As for "those fish get to that size they're being taken from the lake some other way............" I would think the ministry would protect this "other way" fishery before sport-fishery. We need to suck it up and figure out how to catch these bigger spawning 46cm stock and kill them. This will not help the fishery but neither is the "other way".

I agree 100%

The walleye population on this lake is doing very well since they implemented the 46cm minimum. I spend an awful lot of time on this lake in the winter and have seen the catch numbers increase drastically.

Have you guys every stopped to think that once the walleye reach the bigger size, that they move elsewhere for their food source where there isn’t so much competition with the smaller more aggressive feeding fish?

If you look at all the areas on the lake that are fished heavily, they are high structure and easy to access areas that hold a lot of fish. The problem is, they hold smaller fish. Fishing areas like DWP, yes, you have to sort through a pile of smaller fish to maybe catch that keeper. I’ve found over the years of fishing this lake in the winter, once I started moving off these high structure areas, my catch numbers went down, but the size of the fish I was catching went up drastically simply because, the bigger fish don’t have as much competition for their food source.

My two pennies for what it’s worth.

Glfpro

If this is true you should become a guide. You'd make a killing. Because none of the operators have figured out where all the big ones hang out.