Largemouth and smallmouth bass size limit in Michigan

Closes each year Possession opens the Saturday before Memorial Day and runs through December 31; catch-and-immediate-release is allowed year-round outside that window

14 inches, five a day combined. Catch-and-release fishing is legal all year everywhere in Michigan — this window only governs when bass may actually be kept. The opening date floats with the calendar (tied to Memorial Day, the last Monday of May); the date above matches the 2026 calendar and should be re-checked each year.

DNR source page

Closes each year Possession opens the third Saturday of June and runs through December 31 — about a month later than the rest of the state; catch-and-immediate-release is allowed year-round outside that window

Same 14-inch, 5-fish rule as everywhere else, but the possession season opens roughly a month later than the statewide default. The opening date floats with the calendar the same way as the statewide rule above.

DNR source page

What we left out on purpose

• Lake sturgeon runs its own separate regulations table (harvest tags, very limited season, in most waters catch-and-release only) that eRegulations references but does not print inline on the general regulations page. Not modelled here rather than guessed.
• Smelt (2 gallons per person per day statewide) is dip-netted or seined rather than rod-and-reel targeted, and is left out for the same reason baitfish species are excluded elsewhere in this silo.
• Michigan's dozens of named-lake exceptions for northern pike (protected slots, relaxed size rules) and muskellunge (46-to-50-inch broodstock lakes) are not modelled beyond the two waters this site actually reports on — the same restraint used for Colorado's Gold Medal waters and Kansas's named-reservoir exceptions.
• The Walleye possession limit specific to Lake Erie/Detroit River/Lake St. Clair/St. Clair River is carried as unsettled because the source's own text shows a limit that should have already been updated for the current season (see reviewNote) — check DNR directly rather than trust a number here.
• No Saginaw-Bay-specific bass regulation was found in the 2026 digest - the only Saginaw County note found concerns a March-April gear restriction on rivers upstream of the West Center Street Bridge, outside the bay itself. Saginaw Bay bass is therefore modelled under the general statewide rule.