All walleyes caught on Lake Mille Lacs this spring and summer will have to be released, and no live bait will be allowed to fish for them, Minnesota officials announced Monday.

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The rules are the strictest ever imposed on the massive central Minnesota lake, but are designed to avoid what happened last summer: shutting down all walleye fishing in mid-season, officials with the Department of Natural Resources said.

For years, the lake’s famed walleye population has been declining. Scientists aren’t sure why, but they believe it’s the result of a host of changes to the lake’s ecology resulting from increased water clarity. For the past several years, increasingly strict rules have been designed to protect several key generations of fish in the lake to ensure the population doesn’t actually crash.

The lake’s popular “launch” boats — large charter boats that historically target walleye — will be exempt from the live bait ban if they participate in a yet-to-be-designed scientific study examining hooking mortality, the phenomenon of fish that are caught and released but still die. Related Articles Lake Mille Lacs is a huge walleye factory. Here’s how to get a sense of it.

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What’s best for Mille Lacs walleyes? No fishing.

Walleye fishing opens May 14.

“A catch-and-release walleye season allows us to protect future spawners yet acknowledges the desire that fishing remain open,” said Don Pereira, fisheries chief for the Department of Natural Resources. “Not allowing harvest is a difficult decision, but it provides our best option.”

Walleye management on the lake is controversial, especially since Chippewa Indian bands began netting spawning walleye en masse more than a decade ago under court-approved treaty rights. Over the summer, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe announced it would forgo netting, and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is also expected to decline, but it’s unclear whether the six other Native American bands that are signatories to the 1837 treaty will follow suit.

“Those discussions are happening now,” said Charlie Rasmussen, spokesman for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, which represents the bands.

While Pereira said he expects blowback on the rules, the DNR’s decision is being taken in stride, if not supported, by at least some leaders in the fishing and resort community.

“I’m happy the DNR is focused on keeping the fishing open,” said Tony Roach, a guide on the lake. “As a fisherman, we saw how great the fishing was this winter. The fishing was out of this world.”

Tina Chapman, president of the Mille Lacs Area Tourism Council and co-owner of a resort in Isle, said: “The regulations are what they are, and we’ll work with them. Everyone needs to understand the walleye fishing hasn’t crashed, and there will be good fishing.”

Over the winter, Chapman and Roach sat on a newly formed advisory committee that consulted with the DNR. Well aware that catch-and-release was an option, the group recommended the DNR do everything it could to avoid closing down fishing.

Taking part in a DNR conference call with reporters Monday morning, Chapman was asked how the new ban on keeping walleyes would affect business.

“There’s people who aren’t going to come because of that regulation, but there are people who will come, I think,” she responded.

Walleyes will still die after being caught and released. As the season progresses, the DNR estimates how many die from such “hooking mortality,” using factors like fishing pressure and water temperature. There’s still a chance the state will exceed its kill limit agreed to with Native American bands, but Pereira wouldn’t say what those odds are.

“It would be too speculative … like trying to predict the weather,” he said. He did say the artificial-bait-only decision should reduce the number of walleye that die after being released “by about half.”

The DNR will define live bait as “any bait that at one time was alive,” Pereira said. Manufactured products that contain organic matter, such as Gulp, will be allowed, he said. The ban on live bait will also affect anglers targeting perch, bass and pike, but pike and muskies can be targeted with live bait — if it’s large enough.

According to the new regulations: “From May 14 to Thursday, Dec. 1, anglers targeting walleye must use artificial bait and immediately release all walleye caught. Anglers targeting northern pike and muskellunge may possess and use sucker minnows longer than 8 inches, but all other anglers must not possess any other bait that is live, dead, frozen or processed.”

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