Statewide
Open year-round| Size limit | 15 inches and up | total length |
|---|---|---|
| Daily bag | 5 | per person per day |
| Possession | 5 | total you may hold |
Lower Peninsula Great Lakes, Lake St. Clair, St. Clair River and Detroit River are open all year; Upper Peninsula Great Lakes, inland waters and the St. Marys River run May 15 through March 15; Lower Peninsula inland waters run the last Saturday of April through March 15.
15 inches, five a day statewide — except the special possession limit that applies specifically at Lake Erie, the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River (see the next region).
Lake Erie, Detroit River, Lake St. Clair, St. Clair River
Status unclearDNR sets a specific daily possession limit for these connected waters that resets every year around May 1 — the source text itself says the limit was 6 fish 'through April 30, 2026' and would be 'updated by May 1 annually,' but as of this retrieval in August 2026 no updated number is showing. Publishing the stale pre-May figure here would misstate the current rule. Check the DNR fishing website or the recorded hotline (888-367-7060) for today's number.
This is the one number on this page we will not state, because the source's own text confirms it should already have changed and hasn't been refreshed.
Saginaw Bay and lower Saginaw River (Bay and Saginaw counties, mouth to the West Center Street/Douglas G. Schenk Bridge)
Open year-round| Size limit | 13 inches and up | total length |
|---|---|---|
| Daily bag | 8 | per person per day |
| Possession | 8 | total you may hold |
Michigan's most generous walleye water by far - 8 a day at a 13-inch minimum, against the 15-inch/5-fish statewide default this site already tracks. Saginaw Bay's population rebounded hard enough that MDNR has kept a large bag here for years; as with the Lake Erie/Detroit River/Lake St. Clair connecting waters already in this entry, the regulations book itself flags this number for annual review, announced at Michigan.gov/Fishing.
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.
Other species limits in Michigan
Where to try today
- Detroit River 6/10 · Biting
- Lake Michigan 5/10 · Picky
- Lake St. Clair 6/10 · Biting
- Saginaw Bay 4/10 · Picky