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Great Lakes: Lake Trout Harvest Limits

A large lake trout being held up by a person in a boat on the lake

Great Lakes: Lake Trout Harvest Limits

Lake trout harvest limits

Lake trout is the top native predatory fish species in the Great Lakes, supporting important fisheries throughout the region. Lake trout are managed to promote long term sustainability of these fisheries as well as to support the overall stability of the Great Lakes ecology.

Establishing safe harvest levels for lake trout is crucial for meeting long-term management and rehabilitation goals. Information collected from monitoring sport and commercial fisheries, along with cooperative surveys conducted by state, tribal and federal resource agencies in the 1836 Treaty waters of lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior, is used to assess the status of lake trout populations, or stocks, in each management area.

These assessments help determine the appropriate overall harvest limit for each management area. Harvest limits vary from unit to unit based on the status of the population and how the safe harvest limit is divided between the state and tribes.

2023 harvest limits

The following are the harvest limits for lake trout in the 1836 Treaty waters. Please refer to the management unit maps for details on the location of each unit.

Management unit 2023 state harvest limit (lbs) 2023 tribal harvest limit (lbs)
Lake Superior: MI-5 113,759 5,987
Lake Superior: MI-6 116,586 166,586
Lake Superior: MI-7 40,045 93,440
Lake Michigan: MM-123 (MM-1, MM-2 and MM-3 combined) 71,836 646,526
Lake Michigan: MM-4 107,298 173,482
Lake Michigan: MM-5 78,379 52,251
Lake Michigan: MM-67 (MM-6 and MM-7 combined) 392,811 43,648
Lake Huron: MH-1 44,383 325,477
Lake Huron: MH-2 274,883 14,468

Contact

For more information, please contact Steve Lenart.