How good was fishing Saturday on Upper Red Lake?
So good that each of the 13 people in our group caught a limit of four walleyes. In fact, we didn't meet anyone who fished the huge northwest Minnesota Lake who didn't catch a limit — and there were thousands of anglers on the lake.
The question some in our group kicked around Saturday evening while consuming a representative sample of the day's spoils was whether enough walleyes can exist in Upper Red — or any inland lake — to support the kind of fishing pressure it saw over the weekend.
Given that Upper Red's walleye harvest this past winter set a record, at 152,000 pounds, the question seemed fair, especially considering that the lake's walleye limit, at four fish, with one over 17 inches, is relatively liberal.
Department of Natural Resources area fisheries supervisor Gary Barnard says the lake's four-walleye limit and size restriction are designed to boost anglers' take from Upper Red.
"Our plan there is to harvest fish,'' Barnard said, adding that primary contributors to the lake's abundant walleye population are the 2009 and 2011 year classes. "You can only support so many fish in a lake. We think we can get better walleye production if we reduce the lake's spawners.''
By "spawners,'' Barnard means the number of female walleyes per acre in Upper Red. The "one over 17 inches'' part of the lake's harvest limit essentially targets these fish, which typically run larger than males.
Ideally, Barnard said, Upper Red would hold between 2.5 and 4.5 female walleyes per acre. "Currently we're at about 6,'' he said.