Michigan · Lake whitefish, cisco (lake herring) and round whitefish
Can you keep a lake whitefish, cisco (lake herring) and round whitefish in Michigan?
Yes, with limits
Great Lakes, connecting waters and Type F inland lakes
Open year-roundSize
No size limit stated
total length
Daily bag
10
per person per day, any combination
Possession
10
total you may hold
No minimum size, ten a day combined — includes Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River as Great Lakes connecting waters. Lake Superior allows ten additional round whitefish on top of this.
other inland waters
Open year-roundSize
No size limit stated
total length
Daily bag
5
per person per day, any combination
Possession
5
total you may hold
No minimum size, half the Great Lakes bag — five a day combined on other inland waters.
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.
Other species in Michigan
Where to try today
- Detroit River 5/10 · Decent
- Lake St. Clair 6/10 · Decent