For many years the thinking with sunfish was you could never take too many to hurt the fishery. But as many of you who fish for sunfish on Garfield Lake have seen in the last few years there are not the large (8-9”) sunfish that we used to catch. Looking at the data from Lake Finder the fish survey results confirm what most people who fish for sunfish are seeing.
2010 and 2015 DNR Fish Survey
The DNR did another fish survey of Lake Garfield in 2020 and we hope the results will be available sometime in May 2021.
Garfield Lake is not the only lake seeing results like 68% of our bluegill fish being in the under 5-inch range. And because of this the DNR has been testing a sunfish program (the term sunfish includes 6 different species including bluegills but does not include Crappies). The program has been around for about ten years. The results have been very positive for these lakes. Some lakes change their limit to 10 fish, and some went to 5. Those that went to 5 had a significant improvement in the size and number of pan fish in the lake.
The DNR is now rolling the program out to more lakes. The Garfield Lake Association has been working on having Garfield included in the next round of lakes to test this program. Initially, Hubbard County was granted three lakes which are part of the Crow Wing chain. The DNR has now added two more lakes in Hubbard County which could become part of the program. Garfield and 1st Crow Wing are now being recommended. The DNR program manager is now reviewing these recommended lakes and will make a decision in 2021 to be implemented in 2022.
In summary, the studies of the lakes that have reduced their sunfish catch to 5 have shown very good results. Small sunfish bred small sunfish and will continue to reduce the size and quantity of our sunfish on the lake. However, big fish bred big fish which is why we are requesting a limit of 5. I think it is time we bite the bullet and move to 5 sunfish a day or forever have under 5-inch sunfish.
Mark Warisch