New Minnesota panfish regulations are in place on a number of lakes for 2021 so anglers should closely check regulations for new daily limits on specific lakes by:

• Searching for the lake you’re fishing in LakeFinder and scrolling down to view any special regulations.
• Finding the lake’s listing in the special regulations section of the 2021 regulations booklet.

Although sunfish are the focus of these changes, the DNR also reduced daily crappie daily limits on some lakes.

Signs will be posted at water accesses for lakes that have new sunfish and crappie daily limits.

These regulations lower daily limits on specific waters as part of the DNR’s initiative to protect and improve panfish sizes. The changes are in response to angler-driven concerns over the declining sizes of sunfish.

The limits will be daily limits as opposed to possession limits, which means anglers can only keep the prescribed number of fish per day from the water but they could return the next day for another limit as long as they don’t exceed the statewide inland water possession limit of 20 sunfish or 10 crappie per angler.

New regulations impact only inland waters and include:

• 44 waters that have a new daily limit of five sunfish;
• 31 that have a limit of 10 sunfish;
• 17 that have a limit of five for sunfish and five for crappie; and
• Two that have a limit of 10 sunfish and five crappies.

In addition to the new waters, there are 57 waters that previously had reduced limits for sunfish and these regulations remain in effect

www.dnr.state.mn.us