Fishing with live bait will be allowed on Lake Mille Lacs this summer, state officials said Thursday in a reversal of a previously announced ban.

Apparently, the unprecedented ban ticked off too many folks.

“This year’s Mille Lacs regulation will not include a live bait restriction due to feedback from anglers and stakeholders,” said Don Pereira, fisheries section chief for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “The DNR is hearing that anglers are accepting of the catch-and-release aspect of the walleye season, but members of the Mille Lacs Fisheries Advisory Committee heard clear concerns about the live bait restriction, as did the DNR.”

The ban on keeping walleyes remains in place. The season opens May 14.

The DNR said it decided to lift the live-bait ban after meeting Wednesday with committee members for “a productive discussion about the pros and cons of the live-bait ban.”

The DNR initially pushed for the live bait ban as a way to reduce the number of fish unintentionally killed by anglers. Studies show that fish are more likely to swallow live bait — minnows, leeches or worms — than artificial lures and become fatally “gut-hooked.” Other options that can reduce “hooking mortality” include the use of circle hooks, a tool widely adopted in angling elsewhere but rarely used by Upper Midwest walleye anglers.

The live-bait ban was endorsed by a number of businesses on the lake via the advisory committee, but anglers wanted none of it, according to a statement from the committee.

“In earlier meetings with the DNR, the Mille Lacs Fisheries Advisory Committee worked to find ways to extend the walleye fishing season as long as possible on Mille Lacs Lake,” according to a statement from the committee, which includes guides, resort owners and tourism officials. “We discussed a variety of options, one of which was a live-bait ban. While the goal of a longer season was worthwhile, Minnesota anglers found this option very objectionable and let us know that.”

Some background:

The famed walleye population of the massive central Minnesota lake has been on the decline for years for reasons scientists don’t fully understand.

This has led to increasingly restrictive rules on the lake, which is co-managed by the state and Chippewa Indian bands with treaty rights to the fish.

In an effort to reduce the number of walleyes killed, at least two Indian bands have decided to forgo their controversial netting of the walleyes en masse during spring spawning, and the DNR in March announced all walleyes caught by non-tribal members would have to be returned to the lake — and that no live bait would be allowed.

On Thursday, the DNR reversed itself, undoing the ban.

“Our discussion showed the DNR and the committee are determined to work together to protect the resource while still providing the best recreational opportunities on Mille Lacs for a wide range of users,” Dean Hanson, who operates Agate Bay Resort in Isle and co-chairs the advisory committee, said in a news release.

Other special regulations for the 2016 season on Mille Lacs include: