Closure lifted on winter sauger fishery

After a six-year closure, the popular winter fishery for walleyes and saugers will resume Dec. 1 below the Mississippi River dams at Dubuque, Bellevue and Clinton.

The experimental closure, from Dec. 1 through March 15, was intended to improve the sauger fishery, according to Department of Natural Resources fisheries research biologist Mike Steuck.

“We didn't see an increase in sauger populations, so there is no reason to keep people from fishing there,” Steuck said.

The tasty saugers, which congregate below the dams in late fall and winter, often attracted as many as 100 boats to a given tail water area on a pleasant winter weekend day, Steuck said.

After comparing data from Bellevue, where the winter fishery was closed, and data from Guttenberg, where it was not closed, DNR researchers concluded that the closure had not improved the population, size structure, growth rate or harvest and catch rates of Mississippi River sauger.

Biologists had theorized that heavy angling pressure in the winter, combined with injuries inflicted through catch-and-release practices, were contributing to sauger mortality rates ranging from 70 percent to 90 percent a year.

Even though many saugers are released, those pulled from water deeper than 30 feet are especially vulnerable to injury or death because of the rapid pressure change.

At Dubuque, both Iowa and Wisconsin waters below Lock and Dam 11 will be open to winter fishing this year.

Farther downstream at Bellevue and Clinton, fishing will be permitted only on the Iowa side of the river.

The Iowa and Illinois departments of natural resources jointly implemented the closure in an effort to mimic a hard winter in which ice cover would limit tail-water fishing.

Though Illinois is in accordance with the plan to reopen the fishery, its regulations could not be amended in time for the upcoming opening. Illinois portions of the affected waters will be open to anglers next year, Steuck said.

Steuck said anglers should be aware that the channel below the dam at Bellevue runs on the Iowa side of the river and that much of the tail waters there are under Illinois' jurisdiction and will remain closed this winter.

At Clinton, the channel runs near the center of the tail waters, making about half the below-dam area available to anglers this winter.

Though sauger fishing in the three affected tail waters has declined during the past 15 years, “I'd say it is still really good – some of the best sauger fishing in the country,” Steuck said.

Steuck said the DNR is conducting sauger research that could suggest the need for a size limit on sauger or a protected slot limit.

A 20- to 27-inch release slot for walleye in Pools 12 to 20 (Dubuque to the Missouri border) was implemented along with the winter closure and remains in effect.

“That slot limit has protected the prime spawning stock of walleye, which results in more walleyes available to catch,” Steuck said.