"One of the big, new things in the northern part of Wisconsin is that a lot of the northern lakes, for the first time in 22 years, will allow harvest of largemouth bass. Previously we didn't allow harvest until the third Saturday in June. Smallmouth bass still need to be released until June 21st, but the largemouth populations are doing so well they don't need that extra protection now. In fact, a lot of the lakes have so many little largemouth that they could use some additional harvesting to thin some of them out. So don't feel bad about keeping a couple of largemouth bass — they make a good fish fry if the walleye aren't biting."

Jon Hansen, fisheries biologist with the Wisconsin DNR, on Saturday's Wisconsin fishing opener