In the 1980s, Pelican Lake near Orr was well known throughout the Midwest for its big and plentiful sunfish. Motels and resorts near the lake were routinely filled with anglers from Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and of course Minnesota, all seeking fun-to-catch and great-to-eat sunfish.
On occasions when I fished the lake, at day's end a line 10- to 20-anglers deep often stretched around the fish-cleaning house near the Orr public dock. Most everyone had 20-sunfish limits.
Today, Pelican still has sunfish. But not in the numbers or size it once did.
The same downward size trend, unfortunately, affects sunfish throughout Minnesota — sunfish being a catchall word that includes bluegills, pumpkinseeds, green sunfish, orangespotted sunfish, northern sunfish, and warmouth.
The reason: Anglers keep too many big sunfish, generally meaning those 8 inches and longer.
"Sunnies, or bluegills, are easy to catch, they're delicious and it's easy for anglers to take limits when they're biting,'' said Dave Weitzel, Department of Natural Resources (DNR) area fisheries supervisor in Grand Rapids. "When I was a kid, I did it, too.''
Weitzel and other fisheries managers hope anglers agree a new approach to sunfish management is needed. About 16 million sunnies are harvested each year in the state, making them Minnesota's most popular sport fish. So angler buy-in is required if a new regulatory plan is to be effective.
Already, 60 Minnesota lakes are governed by regulations whose goal is to improve sunfish sizes. Some have five-sunfish limits, and the restrictive bag appears to be having the desired effect on average sizes.
