Burbot

Where they live: Most northern Minnesota lakes and rivers, including Lake Superior. A few in the prairie and the lower Mississippi. Cold water — under 70 degrees when they can get it.

When folks chase them: Rare in summer. Wide awake in winter, especially in low light, on a minnow near a deep mud bottom.

Burbot are the fish people apologize for catching. One whisker under the chin. Smooth skin. A body that wraps your forearm while you try to remember which hand has the pliers.

The DNR calls them the “ish” of fish and then, in the next breath, a remarkable predator — a cousin of the saltwater cod that looks like an eel had a meeting with a catfish. Eelpout is the name on the ice. Lawyer, ling, cusk, and poor man’s lobster show up on the lesson too. I have cut one off and acted like the line broke. The lesson says folks who do that miss a fish that bakes, and they also miss a fish that tells you the watershed is in decent shape. (Minnesota DNR — burbot, MinnAqua — burbot)

What to throw

Most burbot are an accident on a walleye line. They wake up in the winter, especially in low light. The gear the lesson names is a tip-up or walleye-style jigging equipment, with 4 to 8 lb line. The bait is a minnow, set within inches of a deep muddy bottom. The example they give is the mud flats on Mille Lacs. The bite is soft. Wait too long and you are in the gullet, or you are cutting the line to let the fish go clean. (MinnAqua — burbot)

That is a tip-up we sell, a jig we sell, and a minnow we do not pretend to ship. The boat kit has the Blue Ice flag and the Fire-Ball. The trays are the MN ice tray and Minnesota walleye classics. The jigging sticks are Walleye spinning & jigging setups.

They eat small fish — yellow perch and walleyes are the examples — plus eggs, clams, crayfish, mayfly larvae, and other aquatic insects. Summer, they are a rare catch. They want water under 70 degrees. (MinnAqua — burbot)

Rod & reel

4–8 lb, because that is the line they printed. A walleye jigging rod covers the “walleye-style” half. A tip-up covers the other half, which is a flag and a thermos and somebody yelling from three holes away. Teeth are sandpaper, more largemouth than pike. Grip just behind the head. The wrap is harmless. The little grunt is the fish saying hello in the only language it has. (MinnAqua — burbot)

The state record on that page is 19 pounds, 3 ounces, from Lake of the Woods. Typical fish are under 8 pounds and under 28 inches. They can live to about 15.

Where in Minnesota

Most northern lakes and rivers, Lake Superior included, plus small numbers in the prairie and parts of the lower Mississippi. Good indicators of a healthy watershed, which is a strange sentence to hang on a fish this slippery, and it is the sentence they wrote. (MinnAqua — burbot)

Mille Lacs is the mud-flat example. Lake of the Woods is the record. LakeFinder will show you the rest, including a pile of lakes whose surveys list burbot while the postcard does not. They spawn in mid-winter into early spring, before the ice is off, in the shallows over sand or gravel. Pairs, or dozens, or hundreds. No nest. A big female can lay as many as a million eggs. The larvae hatch tiny after 4 to 5 weeks. (MinnAqua — burbot)

Young ones feed smallmouth, perch, smelt, lake trout, and muskie. Adults feed the story you tell when the walleye rod loads and the thing that comes up is not a walleye.

There is a real tenderness in a fish that only gets busy when the lake is locked, in water cold enough to make the rest of the food chain sleepy. People flinch at the slime. The watershed flinches when the pout are gone. Both of those can be true on the same hole.

Seasons, including the ice

Winter is the season. Low light. Deep mud. A minnow almost on the bottom. Summer is when you might meet one by accident and should not build a trip around it. The DNR’s ice guide is the safety half: no ice is a guarantee, and early and late ice are when people get brave and wet. (Learn to ice fish)

Some lakes — Mille Lacs is one the surveys mention — tell you to release every burbot. That is a special reg, not a statewide mood. Look up the lake.

The rules

• Fishing seasons
• Fishing regulations
• Inland seasons and limits
• Special regulations, by water
• MinnAqua — burbot