Green Bay’s yellow perch season reopens next Wednesday (May 20), and the bay’s muskie hunt begins May 23.

Many area anglers are focusing on walleyes, northern pike, brown trout, catfish and panfish (other than perch) if they’re looking for a fish fry, and smallmouth bass if they’re looking for catch-and-release fun.

New this year, smallmouths are off limits to harvest until July 1 in Green Bay waters, and in all Lake Michigan waters within five miles of the Door County shoreline.

There are some different regulations for Wisconsin-Michigan boundary waters like the Menominee River. There, the bass season is closed until June 20, while muskies are off limits until June 1. Perch is open all year in the Menominee.

Elsewhere, the white bass run is going strong on the Wolf River, and bluegills, crappies and perch are in the shallows of Winnebago system backwaters and area inland lakes. A few leftover steelhead are in Lake Michigan tributaries, but most have headed back to the lake.

Nearshore trollers along the lakeshore at Two Rivers, Kewaunee, Algoma and Sturgeon Bay are picking up some brown trout and occasionally a laker, coho, rainbow or Chinook. This spring has produced more browns than in many years.

Bass tournaments

The 5th annual Adrians Memorial Team Open, an event sponsored by Wisco BASS, was a catch, measure and release event for the first time last weekend in Door County due to the new catch-and-release-only rules.

Using a formula, a verification committee converted length to estimated weight. The winning team had 10 fish estimated to be 64.64 pounds, including 33.66 pounds on their five fish the first day.

This weekend, the Sturgeon Bay Open Bass Tournament (SBOBT) will use the same type of format. With the help of computer software, photos will be verified to make sure all of a team’s fish are different.

Finally, the Sturgeon Bay Bass Tournament (SBBT) committee, after a decade-long run (minus no event in 2020 due to COVID restrictions), made the decision to not have a contest this year.

Organizer Gary Nault, who also founded the Sturgeon Bay Open in 1991 with his late wife, Cheryl, said it was a tough decision.

“One of the factors was the age of the committee members,” Nault said. “All have reached retirement age, and efforts to recruit new, younger members have not been successful.”

Nault said even after they switched to an immediate release, weigh-on-the-water format five years ago, the year-round effort was still extensive.

The first SBOBT in ’91 saw a mere 24 boats entered. Ten years later, a record 243 teams competed in the largest bass tournament in the Midwest. Nault also had a hand in Door County Invitational tournaments for local anglers, Neighborhood Pub Tournaments, Angler and Young Angler (AYA) tournaments, and finally the SBBT.
“All of those were not to make a personal profit, but to help the sponsors get their year started by tapping into our great fishery, and putting Sturgeon Bay and Door County on anglers’ radar as one of the best fishing spots in the country,” Nault said.

Free fun weekend

Wisconsin’s annual free fun weekend — with no fishing licenses or stamps required, and no admission stickers or trail passes needed for state parks and state trails — is June 6-7.

Fishing is always free for those age 15 and under. On Free Fishing Weekend, both residents and nonresidents age 16 and up won’t need licenses or stamps to fish.

Wisconsin is home to 50 state parks, 15 state forests, 44 state trails, about 84,000 miles of rivers and streams, and roughly 15,000 lakes.

All other regulations apply. Check out https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/fishing/regulations for all the rules. For information on state parks and trails, visit https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/Parks.

Weekly water levels

As of May 8, Lake Michigan water levels were up 11 inches from early April, and were six inches higher than last year. Lake levels were down 33 inches below the record May high, set in 2020, but 31 inches above record 1964 low.