Walleye Crisis at Lake Mille Lacs: A PR Case Study in Government Communications

Updated June 21, 2026.

Lake Mille Lacs started losing walleye in the summer of 2013. The population kept falling. By March 2016, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources panicked — banning residents from keeping walleye, then banning live bait. After public backlash and pressure from its own advisory committee, the DNR reversed the live-bait ban.

That reversal is the story. And it's a textbook PR case study in what government agencies still get wrong.

The Reversal

The Mille Lacs Fisheries Advisory Committee pushed back hard. Fishermen didn't know how to use artificial bait. The ban alienated the constituency it was trying to protect.

Advisory Co-Chair Dean Hanson put it plainly: "We're alienating a very large group of fishermen who may never come back."

DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr walked it back: "The DNR is hearing that anglers are accepting of the catch-and-release aspect of the walleye season, but members of the Mille Lacs Fisheries Advisory Committee heard clear concerns about the live bait restriction, as did the DNR."

Translation — the agency moved without listening, then had to retreat publicly.

What the DNR Got Wrong

• No constituent listening. A regulator that actually tracked its base would have known a live-bait ban was unworkable before announcing it.
• Broken internal communications. The Advisory Committee found out alongside the public. That fractured the relationship and made the reversal louder than the original decision.
• Reactive posture. The DNR ran damage control instead of running policy. By the time it apologized, the headlines were already written.

The Lesson

Government PR is mostly studied in election cycles. Politics gets the attention. But the harder work happens in agencies — DNRs, health departments, transit authorities — that touch the public every day and rarely think about communications until something breaks.

Proactive beats reactive. Every time. Listen first, decide second, communicate third. The DNR did it backward — and a regional fishing community remembers.