PERCH EXTRAVAGANZA OR MODERATION?
By Mashkodebizhikigahbaw, Benjo Sam
In what sometimes feels like an entire lifetime ago, I can re member villages of ice shanties gathering around Mille Lacs for their chance at their trophy-caliber walleye overnight with an occasional eelpout mixed in. But during February and beyond, while there is still ice upon the lake, the real trophy was the jumbo, yellow perch Mille Lacs once offered in what seemed like a bottomless abundance.
Fishermen would travel from far and wide at their chance to f ill their truck bed, sometimes literally, with the bright yellow and black tiger-striped perch with fins as orange and bright as f ire itself. It was a bite that excited anglers of all abilities and sizes because of their pure abundance across the muddy water basin afar from the shores of the Big Pond. Whether you want ed action or a bucket full to bring home for dinner, it always seemed like perch provided an opportunity for anglers to keep more than their fair share of fish in a trip.
Documentation in Minnesota shows that the history of harvest and possession limits of perch has been forced to be reduced multiple times in the last 50 years, and when fishermen of days past boasted about bringing home a truck bed full of fish day, after day, after day, we began to wonder at what point is this going to stay sustainable? Fast forward 50 years, with the last 12-15 years’ worth of changing landscape through advancements in technology, invasive species, poor hatch rates, and poor year-class recruitment of both walleye and yellow perch we have found ourselves in an interesting predicament that resembles the same reasoning as the last shift in resource management around the yellow perch of Mille Lacs and great er Minnesota.
Across social media outlets and news centers in the Mid west that cover all relevant stories throughout the ice belt, the talk of the town bars, and as far as the eye can see — the big gest story to hit 2024-2025 in all things ice fishing just might be the return of the yellow perch on Mille Lacs Lake. From guides to resorts to your local anglers in between, a strange phenomenon took shape at the tail end of the 2023-2024 ice season that resembled perch fishing in the days of old. Between back-to back years of incredibly high snowfall and last ice season that was so short you could throw a baseball through it, it has been speculated that a near record high perch hatch has grown into quite the story. The year classes of 2020-2021 yellow perch grew into a social media boom that reached the far corners of ice fishing propaganda and drew in quite the crowd in fair pursuit of the coveted jumbo perch Mille Lacs Lake has to offer.
So much so, that you-tubers, both famous and old, fishing news outlets, and podcast hosts could not stop the talk about how the yellow perch is back. But what does back mean, what has this done for the lake, and where do we go from here? There’s no denying that resorts, fishing guides, and the local economy saw a boost in consumer traffic this winter. Driving by any access and resort and you can see that excitement is surrounding the fishery like when I was just a young kid growing up on these very shores.
But post after post on social media, while flaunting buckets and buckets of jumbo yellow perch made me start to wonder — is 20 perch too many? This question is one that came up many times through December and January as word got out that the jumbo perch was back. But when the state and tribal DNR enforcement teams started looking at the numbers, calculating angler hours, projected harvest rates, and ultimately the entirety of the science behind the creel team data it was found that the State angler harvest had already surpassed their annual quota for yellow perch, by more than 6,000 and counting.
This forced the state to take action to reduce yellow perch harvest daily/possession limit from 20 to five yellow perch between March 11, 2025 to November 30, 2025. The current state angler harvest quota of 36,500 pounds of was already set much higher than the harvest rate totals since 2012 in which no single year surpassed 7,000 pounds harvested annually. Now, as of Feb. 23, 2025 the state harvest surpassed that total six times over with over 43,000 pounds of yellow perch harvested and counting.
As stewards of the lake, we are often faced with difficult decisions to ensure the future of this incredible fishery. Decisions that affect local business and tourism, local and state anglers, tribal anglers, and ultimately the well-being of the in credible biomass and ecosystem that is Mille Lacs Lake do not come lightly. The GLIFWC, State biology, and large lake area fisheries management teams will continue to look at the future that boasts multiple-year classes of strong hatch rates. Is this a sign to come for the boom of fish that was once plentiful in the lake, or have we done enough damage already to alter that trajectory? Who knows really, only historical data collection will tell, and by then it might already be too late. Then again, maybe we are setting things up to become one of the most incredible fishing booms this generation has ever seen.
But, in my opinion, it's time to take a good, long, hard look at ourselves and ask — do I need this many fish? If the answer is yes and it’s within your legal boundaries of harvest, I hope you keep the grease hot and your tongs at the ready. If the answer is no, then let’s all do our part to make sure Mille Lacs is not only a great fishery next year but continues to be the golden goose fish factory that offers trophy potential and table fare populations but also supports an economy that allows resorts, guides, tribal businesses and the like to thrive for generations to come. When the lake is healthy, balanced, and bringing in fishermen from far and wide, we all do better together. Let’s do our part to help keep it that way.
