Lake Trout Population Reach Strong Levels in Minnesota Lakes

There’s good news for anglers in Minnesota; Lake Trout are back. The Star Tribune reports that an effort to revive the quantity of lake trout back in Minnesota lakes after the years of really low numbers is starting to payoff. 

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So, what has led to the resurgence? Officials have taken lake trout that were caught in nets in Lake Superior, harvesting any eggs they had, and then releasing the trout back into the water. 

The report also says that Department of Natural Resources staff have been traveling to Mountain Lake near the Canadian border and using nets to find juvenile lake trout from the deep-water lake and use them to restock other lakes in the state.  

Their efforts have been very fruitful in recent years, last year seeing the 4th best catch tally in the last ten years.  

Those efforts are now starting to pay off as the yearly sport fishing season has opened on Lake Superior. That season runs until next October. The daily limit of lake trout in the waters of Lake Superior is three of any size. 

The annual inland lake sport fishing season opens on December 30th for lakes inside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and all other inland lakes, lake trout fishing season opens January 13th. March 31st is the end of trout fishing for Minnesota’s Inland Lakes. 

The Department of Natural Resources says that 98% of Lake Trout population is naturally produced. That’s a dramatic increase from 1980, when only 6% of lake trout came from the natural process.   

Officials also believe an increased population of ciscoes in the last few years will provide enough stable nutrition for lake trout for at least the next 20 years or so.