The thing I think is interesting about the size limits, is that even when we fished the flowage back in the early .'80's, our guide told us that a 22"-24" was a very large fish for this body of water. I don't believe that we ever saw a fish larger than that and that was 3-4 boats averaging 8 guys per trip of very serious fishing. My youngest brother who fished with a guide in the early .'90's managed to catch a 9# fish and I was shocked!!! When I first refished the flowage again a couple of years back I was surprised to understand that the size limit was nothing...

As for Don's comment on the 1 over 14" limit, I don't struggle with it as bad as I do the over 18" size limit that has been placed on the Minocqua Chain and has been in place on the Flambeau Chain for years now. It just seems to me that you just get that fish to adult/spawning size and then we allow it to be harvested??? That's the one I don't understand...

I have talked to WI biologists over the years and because of our population numbers, they don't believe in certain slot sizes similar to the Canadian ones. I don't get it, we can play arm-chair biologists... but I defer to the biologists.

Another piece of food for thought... Playing arm chair biologist... Last year we were told that the population of the flowage was 4 fish per acre. Rounding 14,000-plus acres up to 15,000 acres gives us a population of 60,000 fish. The Natives declared 5000, took 4800. Let assume that the safe harvest number is 50% of the total population. So 60,000 by 50% is 30,000. The Native take was 5000 for continued easy math. That leaves 25,000 fish for us to play with... and yet the State made it a 2 fish bag limit last year.

If all the numbers indicated are to give us a 3 fish limit and we were given a 2 fish limit... I beg to ask the question, how many are we taking??? Looking forward to my first trip yet this spring and I hope its soon!!! Be safe out there gang!!!

This has been a great level headed post about a great body of water!!!

Mark