Walleye, pike, bass, muskie and panfish: Michigan's everyday fish

2026 rules. The numbers below are the statewide defaults — Michigan’s rulebook adds lake-specific exceptions, so the pattern is always: learn the default, check your water in the county list.

Walleye

Michigan’s favorite dinner fish. Opens the last Saturday in April on Lower Peninsula inland waters, May 15 in the U.P. Default: 15-inch minimum, 5 a day. The famous exceptions:

• Saginaw Bay and the lower Saginaw River: 8 a day at a 13-inch minimum — the most generous walleye rule in the state, thanks to a booming population.
• Lake Erie, the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair, and the St. Clair River: open all year; the Lake Erie limit is set each spring with Ohio and Ontario and updates May 1.
• A growing family of protected slot limits on individual lakes — new for 2026 on Lake Independence and Teal Lake in Marquette County, where every walleye between 18 and 23 inches goes back.

Northern pike

Opens with walleye. Default: 24-inch minimum, 2 a day. Pike is where Michigan experiments most — dozens of U.P. and northern lakes have no minimum size and a 5-fish limit for population control, while others run a protected slot. Pike is the single best example of “check your lake.”

Largemouth and smallmouth bass

Two seasons in one: catch-and-immediate-release is open all year on nearly all waters, and the possession season (keeping fish) opens the third Saturday in May statewide — except Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair and Detroit rivers, which wait until the third Saturday in June. Default: 14-inch minimum, 5 a day combined. Lake St. Clair is routinely ranked among the best smallmouth fisheries on earth; treat it gently.

Muskellunge

The fish of 10,000 casts gets the strictest rules in the book: possession opens the first Saturday in June; the limit is one muskie per angler per year; the minimum is 42 inches (50 on designated trophy waters); and every harvested muskie must be registered within 24 hours — online, in the app, or at 888-636-7778. Catch-and-release is open all year, which is what nearly every muskie angler practices anyway.

Panfish, perch, and catfish

Open all year, no default size minimums. Bluegill, sunfish, and crappie: 25 a day. Yellow perch: 25 inland, 50 on most Great Lakes waters (Saginaw Bay differs — check). Catfish: 10. These are the fish of childhood and the February shanty — and the reason a $26 license is the best entertainment value in the state.

The signpost

Rules change every year. The statewide tables and the county exceptions list live in the official Michigan Fishing Regulations at Michigan.gov/Fishing.

New to fishing here? Start with Fishing in Michigan, explained.