With anglers back on the water for the fishing season that opened May 9, some may wonder about the availability of bait this summer after recent shortages.
Fishing is a $4 billion industry in the state, and up to 70% of Minnesota anglers report using live bait.
KAXE contributor, Early Bird Fishing Guide Jeff Sundin, said minnow availability, at least for now, looks good.
“For once in about a blue moon, there's actually going to be plenty of shiners to go around for everybody for the opener,” he explained. “That's usually the big thing that everybody is concerned about ... early in the season.”
Minnesota does not allow imports of live bait, and without many commercial minnow raising operations, the state’s live bait supply largely relies on wild harvest.
Harvesting minnows in the wild has plenty of variables. Winterkills and other massive die-offs are common. The state requires additional permitting for bait harvested from infested waters, a list that grows longer every year.
People involved in trapping and selling live bait, like Robert Jares in Motley, say they’re also competing for water with Minnesota Department of Natural Resources fisheries.
He said when walleyes are introduced to what were once minnow and leech lakes or ponds, that water body won’t be able to support that live bait again because the walleye are formidable predators.
“You know we've got some golden shiners now, but we're going to run out,” Jares said. “And then we're not going to be able to get them and people, you know, they complain, and it is what it is, but it would just be nice if the DNR would pass the bill and we could import them.”
In a 2024 legislative report, the DNR made several recommendations to amend some of its rulemaking, such as minimizing zebra mussel transfer risk and working through some of its permitting rules. The DNR also said it is exploring the viability of raising golden shiner minnows in artificial indoor ponds for year-round minnow raising.
Farther up north in Turtle River at Trappers Famous Bait, Tracy Asper traps the minnows and leeches he sells in his shop off Highway 71.
Being in the business for 25 years, self-taught, Asper isn’t as concerned about a shortage, explaining the different minnows in the shop spawn fairly reliably around his traps.
"These are the spot tails, which all the ‘jockeys’ haven't got yet,” Asper said while pointing out some of his offerings. “I call them jockeys, the ones that sell minnows.”
At Northwoods Bait and Tackle in Bemidji, while preparing for a busy weekend, owner Aaron Schmitz shared his concern is the bait industry is overly regulated.
“Bait trapping, fishing, has a lot of income that generates for the state of Minnesota, so it's one of those things where a lot of people's families are depending on it.”
Jares expressed concern that without change, the way Minnesotans fish could change forever, and that begins with Minnesota’s youth anglers.
"You take away nightcrawlers and leeches, what are kids going to fish with? They're not going to be interested in casting and casting and casting with a stupid lure," Jares said. "You know, I'm not against lures or anything. But you know what I'm saying? The kids lose interest and then, I mean, what is this world coming to? It's just sad.”
Schmitz said a lot of bait has been moving through the store ahead of the opener and believes bait availability through the rest of the season will largely depend on water conditions. Minnows are quite reproductively resilient, typically spawning with rainfall within a certain temperature range.
Schmitz thinks there is some common ground that can be found to keep the angling business in the state going.
“We all care about our resources, especially our bodies of water and all that, but it makes it difficult when a lot of people's jobs, businesses, families, depend on the revenue that our whole state makes, from trapping licenses all the way to the anglers.”
Sundin remains doubtful that the state would change direction on importing minnows.
“Too many concerns about dragging in the different parasites," Sundin said. "We know about a few of the things that they don't want to have come rolling in here, but there's dozens of things that we don't even hear about because it hasn't been an issue yet for anybody.
“But knowing the way the state of Minnesota protects that, I don't think we're ever going to see any kind of realization on importation of live minnows.”
