Jeremy Smith and Nick Rydell target big bluegills in the Alexandria area and dive a little deeper into the Quality Sunfish Initiative.
Quality Sunfish Initiative (Alexandria Area)
If you were to ask any old timer how was the bluegill fishing was in the 1970’s and 1980’s the common response is that the fishing was amazing, and that huge bluegills in the 10-inch to 11-inch range were everywhere.
Fast forward to today and that’s not the case, but the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources(DNR) is looking to change that on a number of lakes thanks to the Quality Sunfish Initiative.
Over the past few decades the average size of bluegills has declined in the state of Minnesota and an increasing number of anglers have become concerned about catching so many small sunfish.
With the advancements of technology and increased angling pressure the concern has heightened.
The Minnesota DNR fisheries managers responded with a Quality Sunfish Initiative that uses proven daily limits of five or ten sunfish to protect and improve sunfish quality and size on select lakes with both biological potential to produce large sunfish and strong public support.
This initiative and it’s limits affect bluegill, pumpkinseed, green sunfish, orange-spotted sunfish, longear, warmouth and their hybrids.
The Minnesota DNR increased the number of lakes with reduced bag limits from 60 (as of 2020) to 225 (as of 2022) and are looking to increase that number in the future.
The Quality Sunfish Initiative aims to increase the average size of bluegills in the state of Minnesota.
So far the results have been good and overall we are seeing an average size increase in the lakes with these special regulations.
These regulations will continued to be monitored during the next decade to determine their impact and effectiveness on increasing the average size of our sunfish.
Hopefully with selective harvest and the Quality Sunfish Initiative we will be able to see a lot more bluegills exceeding the eight and nine inch mark in the future.
