BAUDETTE, Minn. – The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is taking input on the draft of a new master plan that will guide fisheries management on Lake of the Woods for the next 10 years.
The Lake of the Woods Fisheries Management Plan was last updated in 2018, and the update is necessary “to reflect current public values and attitudes about how the lake should be managed,” according to a news release the DNR issued Monday, Jan. 13.
The updated plan includes goals, objectives and strategies for managing fish populations in Minnesota’s portion of the big lake, an area of more than 300,000 acres. The comment opportunity differs from a scoping survey the DNR released in February 2024. The scoping survey guided the Lake of the Woods management planning process, the DNR said, while this is an opportunity to comment on the actual draft plan.
According to Matt Skoog, area fisheries supervisor for the DNR in Baudette, there are no proposed regulation changes in the updated draft plan. Anglers on Lake of the Woods can keep an aggregate limit of six walleyes and saugers, of which no more than four can be walleyes; all walleyes from 19½ to 28 inches must be released, but anglers can keep one trophy fish longer than 28 inches.
One change outlined in the draft involves sauger management goals. Instead of a “poundage threshold,” the new plan recommends a sauger “exploitation threshold,” the percentage of the population that can be harvested in a given year, Skoog says.
The exploitation rate accounts for changes in population abundance, he said. In other words, if the number of fish in the population increases, harvesting the same number of fish will result in a lower exploitation rate – and vice versa.
Lake of the Woods Draft Management Plan by Brad Dokken on Scribd
The DNR in its current plan manages saugers on Lake of the Woods with a “target harvest” of 250,000 pounds annually, averaged over a six-year period.
“We have been consistently harvesting over our harvest poundage threshold and not seeing any negative (biological) effects,” Skoog said. “In fact, I’ve seen the catch rate of sauger increase over time during fall population assessments. This exploitation threshold is sensitive to changes in sauger abundance, and so if the number of sauger in the lake goes up, you can harvest more pounds of sauger” without affecting the exploitation rate.
As with the previous plan, the draft calls for a walleye target harvest of 540,000 pounds on a six-year moving average.
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The DNR developed the draft plan with input from the Lake of the Woods Fisheries Input Group, a panel of stakeholders representing various interests, including resorts and other businesses, anglers and representatives from Roseau and Lake of the Woods counties.
The group has met a number of times over the past year, Skoog said.
“They all have provided input on this plan and have helped us work through this planning process,” he said. “Now we’ve gotten to the point where we’ve went through everything with them, and we're ready for this to go out for the broader public and broader group of stakeholders to review.”
DNR staff will host a joint in-person and virtual public meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5, in the Baudette Ambulance Garage Conference Room, 113 First Ave. SW, to provide an overview of the plan and its purpose, answer questions and collect public input. A link to join the meeting virtually is available on the Lake of the Woods page of the DNR website at mndnr.gov/lakeofthewoods ; registration is not required.
A digital copy of the draft is also available on the
Lake of the Woods page
of the DNR website. The DNR is accepting comments on the draft master plan through Sunday, Feb. 16. To comment on the plan:
- Use the online form available on the Lake of the Woods webpage at mndnr.gov/lakeofthewoods .
- Email baudette.fisheries@state.mn.us.
- Call Baudette area fisheries staff at (218) 395-6040.
- Mail comments to 204 Main St. E, Baudette, MN 56623.
- Provide verbal and written comments at the Feb. 5 joint in-person and virtual meeting.
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