Rainy Lake can be a complicated place to fish walleye.

Just consider what an angler must know before they even wet a line (and this is just for fishing the Minnesota side of this huge lake): the measured length for walleye that may be kept and the length of walleye that must be thrown back; the number of walleye that may be kept; and the location of the Minnesota-Ontario boundary.

Citations and fines handed out recently to two Wisconsin men for having walleye within Rainy Lake’s protected slot, drives home just how important it is to know the rules.

Minnesota’s Fishing Regulations 2009 booklet should be required reading for every angler. According to the booklet, on Minnesota’s Rainy Lake, the possession limit is eight, no more than four of which can be walleye; all caught walleye of 17 to 28 inches in length must be immediately returned to the water; one walleye over 28 inches may be included in the limit.

Those rules apply to Rainy River above the dam at International Falls, all of Rainy Lake to the dam at Kettle Falls, Black Bay including Gold Portage below the rapids, all of the Rat Root River, and Rat Root Lake, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

These rules were put in place for good reason — to protect and improve Rainy Lake’s walleye population. And the rules have produced results. As few as 20 years ago it was difficult to catch a couple of walleye and even tougher to catch a trophy. Now, what was considered a trophy-sized fish back then is a run of the mill walleye for Rainy Lake. And the loudest complaints are about not being able to catch a limit of smaller keepers — it’s a good problem for a lake that was once referred to by walleye anglers as the “Dead Sea.”

Fishing Rainy Lake’s Ontario side, and returning to Minnesota by boat, also brings complications because Ontario’s protected slot begins at a slightly larger size than Minnesota’s rules allow. Conservation Officer Darrin Kittelson offers suggestions and explains the rules about that issue in today’s Outdoors Page.

Regardless of where people fish, it’s in their own best interests — and the interests of protecting this precious resource — to know and apply the rules.