FAIRMONT – Verbal confirmation has been sent out by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) that the yellow bass daily bag limit will officially be raised from 30 to 100.

Windom Area Fisheries Supervisor for the DNR Ryan Doorenbos said with this confirmation, fishing regulations are already being printed with the change, and only a written and signed copy from the Commissioner’s Office is left to be done before the change goes into effect March 1.

The initial discussions for making the bag limit 30 last year, when it had previously been unlimited, were to match it with a similar fish.

“Yellow bass are similar in appearance to white bass, and white bass had a statewide bag limit of 30,” Doorenbos said. “The thinking was at the time that if anglers can’t tell the difference between yellow bass and white bass, maybe it worked best to have a 30 bag for yellow bass as well.”

In the time following that change, Doorenbos said the DNR started seeing signs from states with more experience in yellow bass that a higher limit would be a better path.

“Iowa’s message that we received from them is you cannot harvest enough yellow bass to make a significant difference to the population as a whole,” he said. “Our job is to manage fish populations. Not individual fish, but the populations as a whole. The message from them is they don’t believe that we can manage by just harvest alone.”

On top of expert feedback, Doorenbos said public comment was a major factor in their decision.

“It was everything actually,” he said. “Well over 90 percent of the people were in favor. It was essentially a no-brainer, and public buy-in at the local level is important. I think it was a logical way to go.”

As for why 100 specifically, Doorenbos said they matched it with their most liberal bag limit fish, Black Bullheads, which are very similar in reproductive capacity.

With the change from unlimited to 30, Sommer Outdoors Owner Justin Sommers said he saw an immediate impact in the Fairmont Chain of Lakes.

“There was a lot of people that were not traveling to Fairmont from all over due to the drop in limits,” he said. “If they’re going to travel over three, four hours, they wanted to make sure they could capitalize on as many fish as they could.”

Even though there is still a limit, Sommers said he has inklings that this change will do well to fix this issue.

“Talking to people out of town, it sounds like they will return now that it’s lifted to 100,” he said. “They just felt that 30 was too low, but hundreds would be sufficient.”

How can one even catch 100 fish in a single day? Sommers said regarding yellow bass, it’s their temperament and grouping that make it possible.

“Yellow bass school in large groups, and they are very aggressive fish,” he said. “As soon as you find one of these big schools of fish, as long as you provide them food, they’re going to stay there and go after it, hence why it’s easier to catch the large quantities of fish. Their aggressiveness is also going to be the reason that more of them are caught than a crappie or sunfish.”

While March 1 may be a very busy day for yellow bass anglers, Sommers said other factors will balance this rush out.

“March 1, walleye season would be closed, and northern and bass,” he said. “Basically, the only anglers out there would be either people going for yellow bass or pan fish. A lot of it’s also going to depend on the ice on the lakes. Sometimes the ice is dang near gone, or sometimes they can fish all the way through March.”

As for where to go when the limit increases, Sommers said yellow bass are in all five lakes, but Hall and Budd are the two most commonly used to fish yellow bass.