BLUEGILL ANGLERS PLEASE READ!

[nixmkt]

Here's the deal on leaving fish on the ice......it's illegal.  If you get caught by the warden, they invoke the same regulation as cleaning fish on the lake and throwing the scraps back into the water.

What specific reg or regs are you referring to?  The no cleaning fish while on or at a body of water reg was changed for 2012-2013 and reworded after that and the intent is to deal with poaching/overlimiting walleye fillets on Erie.  It has nothing to do with leaving fish on the ice.  DNR recommends dumping leftover minnows onto the ground or ice to die to prevent other problems and notes various things will eat them.  So how is it illegal?

[Rumi]

Let me add to the discussion this question: regarding Nimi, how will the ODNR's stocking of catfish equal in numbers to its stocking of walleye affect the overall bluegill populations individual size?

Won't that factor alone also contribute to an average larger size of surviving bluegill? [hopefully]

[slabslayer]

It should. The catfish eat everything in sight, but the number of small bluegill is astounding.  There's also a ton of pencil perch, which the eyes will gobble up.  Hopefully the bluegill population will rebound. I still catch some really big ones, but not like I have the last few years.

[snowcone]

I just cleaned a cat from nimi  and there was a small gill in its stomach.     now in my opinion if nimi had the wally population equal to the cats I catch from there then it would be a hot , hot ,wally lake.....