The Natural Resources Board on Feb. 25 approved the first step toward a rule to allow anglers on the Winnebago System to keep an unlimited number of round gobies provided the fish are dead.
The regulation is intended to allow sport fishers to kill the invasive aquatic species and potentially help with managing the newly-discovered population of gobies in Lake Winnebago.
Specifically the rule would allow anglers to keep an unlimited number of gobies if the fish are “eviscerated or decapitated or their gills removed.”
The action approved by the NRB clears the way for the Department of Natural Resources to hold public hearings on the proposal. The DNR would like to get the new regulation in place for the 2026 fishing season.
The current regulation limits anglers to possession of one round goby and only if the fish was dead and intended to be brought to a DNR office. The measure was part of a plan to prevent movement of gobies and to notify the DNR of findings of the unwanted species.
However after an angler on June 2, 2025 found a round goby in Lake Winnebago while fishing near the Bowen Street Fishing Pier in Oshkosh, several dozen more were found in the area, including through DNR sampling efforts and angler reports, according to data from the DNR’s Winnebago Fisheries team.
With clear evidence of the fish in the area, the rule change would not only permit anglers to keep and kill as many gobies as they wish but also makes clear anglers are not required to return any gobies to the water, according to the DNR.
The round goby is a small, aggressive, prolific, bottom-dwelling fish, according to the DNR. It is classified as an aquatic invasive species in Wisconsin.
Where it has become established, it has displaced small-bodied native fish, changed the invertebrate communities through predation and preyed on game fish eggs, according to the DNR. Gobies have also been documented to carry botulism and are suspected in contributing to deaths of other fish, including lake sturgeon, as well as birds during botulism outbreaks.
The species is native to Eurasia and is believed to have have been transported to North America in the ballast tanks of transoceanic ships.
It has been in the Great Lakes region since at least 1990, according to a paper in the Journal of Great Lakes Research. Gobies have been commonly caught by anglers in Lake Michigan and Green Bay for the last 25 years.
However the Menasha and Neenah dams and the 2015 closure of the Menasha Lock helped stop or slow the spread of round gobies up the Lower Fox River and into Lake Winnebago.
Last year’s findings of gobies in Lake Winnebago in Oshkosh compelled the DNR to change its regulations.
Round gobies are typically from 3 to 6 inches in length, have a blotchy gray appearance with a black spot on the front dorsal fin and feature frog-like raised eyes and thick lips. In addition, they have a single, scallop-shaped pelvic fin on the belly of the fish.
No native Great Lakes fish has such a pelvic fin.
Results thus far do not indicate round gobies are widespread in Winnebago System waters, according to the DNR.
“Protecting this valuable ecosystem and the fisheries it supports is a high priority and the department would like to take immediate steps to help control their spread within this system,” the DNR wrote in support of the regulation change. “If round goby become established in the Lake Winnebago system there will be impacts and implications for the watershed, however, to what degree and how specifically they will impact other fish populations and the ecosystem remains unknown.”
Anglers will be an integral part of the control measures to counter the spread of round goby into the Winnebago System, according to the DNR.
The new rule would allow anglers to keep in their possession any harvested round gobies provided the fish are eviscerated or decapitated or their gills were removed. Since a round goby population has not been established in these waters, angler harvest and reporting of all gobies taken will serve as a critical tool for the tracking of the round goby invasion into the Winnebago System, according to the DNR.
The new rule would align with management goals to control the spread of gobies and allow the department to provide a logical and consistent message to the public about those goals.
Additional permanent rules may be promulgated to allow for the increase in possession of detrimental fish on other waters of the state, according to the DNR.
Prevention remains the best way to help protect Wisconsin’s waters, according to the DNR. It reminded anglers to never use round gobies as bait, never transfer fish from one lake to another, always drain all water from live wells and never throw unwanted bait into the water.
A statement of scope meeting, the next step in the process to change the goby rule, will be held virtually at 1 p.m. March 10.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Rule would encourage anglers to help limit round goby spread on Lake Winnebago
Reporting by Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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