Minnesota · Walleye and sauger
Can you keep a walleye and sauger in Minnesota?
Yes, with limits
statewide inland (includes Lake Minnetonka)
Open todaySize
No size limit stated
total length
Daily bag
6
per person per day, walleye and sauger combined, of which only 1 walleye may be over 20 inches
Possession
6
total you may hold
Closes each year Closed late February through the fishing opener in early-to-mid May (the exact date is the Saturday nearest May 11 and shifts by a few days each year)
No minimum size, six a day combined, only one walleye over 20 inches. The spring closure protects the spawn.
Rainy Lake (Canada–Minnesota border water)
Open todaySize
No size limit stated
total length
Daily bag
8
per person per day, walleye and sauger combined, of which no more than 4 may be walleye; walleye from 18–26 inches must be released immediately, only 1 walleye over 26 inches allowed
Possession
8
total you may hold
Closes each year Closed mid-April through the fishing opener in early-to-mid May — a much shorter spring closure than inland waters
A higher combined bag than inland Minnesota (8 instead of 6), but with a protective 18-to-26-inch release slot baked in — only fish under 18 inches or the single fish over 26 inches may actually be kept.
What we left out on purpose
- Minnesota's own bass table words the largemouth and smallmouth rows slightly inconsistently — the smallmouth row clearly closes the combined-harvest window on September 7 (catch-and-release only afterward), while the largemouth row describes a longer window 'when smallmouth season is open' that reads as extending further. We modelled the combined harvest window as the clearly stated May 24 – September 7 range; if Minnesota intends something more permissive for largemouth specifically, our figure is conservative rather than wrong in the risky direction.
- Season open/close dates tied to 'the Saturday nearest May 11' or similar floating rules are set to the 2026 calendar date and will drift by a few days in other years — flagged in each affected region's notes.
- Minnesota's northern pike, muskellunge and walleye zone and named-lake exceptions run for dozens of pages beyond Rainy Lake and Lake Minnetonka, the two waters this site actually reports on — the same restraint used for Colorado's, Kansas's and Michigan's named-water exceptions.
- Lake sturgeon, burbot, whitefish/cisco (both under separate netting-season rules), bullhead, gar, smelt and rough fish (bowfin, buffalo, carp, suckers — no limit) are not modelled here; none are the finfish this silo focuses on for either Rainy Lake or Lake Minnetonka.
Other species in Minnesota
Where to try today
- Lake Minnetonka 7/10 · Good
- Rainy Lake 6/10 · Decent