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i don't get to ice fish mille lacs often


addictedjerry

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but this past weekend a few of us headed up to the big pond. drove out of hunters and fished off Flamingo. two of the guys with us picked up a few nice perch on saturday. the 3 of us fishing out of my wheel house saw thousands of little perch and only one nice one on the camera.

sunday morning in the same area was the same. two of the guys went home and left me alone on the lake. i moved a few miles and started fishing, if no big ones were seen in 45 minutes i packed up and tried a new spot.

finally after moving 3 times i caught a nice 10" perch. a few more minutes, one more move and i started seeing nice ones coming in every so often. i started with minnows, then tried minnow heads, and finally waxies. i failed to catch 7 nice perch, they wanted nothing to do with minnows. finally caught 2 more on waxies. only went home with 3, but hey, that's fishing.

perch.jpg

the one closest to the auger is 13"

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I made it up there yesterday (Sunday) for my first time on the big pond in the winter. Our first spot yielded only tiny fish so we moved near where a few other groups were set up...didn't get a bite and they weren't catching anything either. Drove back toward the access and I made the executive decision to stop right in the middle of the bay and punch a few holes. We started catching 'em right away and ended up with 7 nice ones (and many just a little too small) before heading for another lake about an hour later.

Lots of fun catching perch and I'm looking forward to getting back up there later in the month, when I'm told the action heats up a bit.

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Two friends and I tried the Flamigo area on Sunday. We fished for about two hours and moved to the Two-Mile Reef area were there seemed to be more people. After three hours and fifty holes we had caught a handfull of three inch perch. We tried spoons, genz worms, ants baited with larva, minnow heads and fresh water shrimps. Nothing seemed to work. We marked alot of fish but I am sure they were all three inchers.

Pretty bad morning of fishing so we tried a smaller lake for some sunnies. We didn't do much better. By the end of the day we had enough fish for a one person meal.

The gal that sold us the road pass at Hunters said the day before they had a thirty person contest with only ten fish to show for the day. I don't think I will head back to Mille Lacs this year unless I start hearing some real good reports. I have made four trips this year without one fish to show for the whole winter. NOT GOOD.

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I fished the pond hard all of last week from sunup to sundown every day. HoleHopping in search of........with camera in tow..... Most days, I ended up catching 8-10 jumboes, but you needed a camera to see the light bites and to see what was what, small or big. I found no honey hole and found that the big ones were more spread out.

One thing I did notice is that when the weather was bad (snow and wind) last Thursday, the big ones were more aggressive than when it was nice blue bird weather. I did manage to squeak out a limit.

I ran into this (Bad wheather) four weeks ago when I limited in two hours. So they are there! It is going to be interesting how the rest of this month turns out. I have been haveing better luck fishing NO STRUCTURE arias away from everybody else. If peaple move in around me even though it may be a good spot........I move! Not far, just far enough! It does seem to shut em down or push them out. I am not sure why, but it does from what I have noticed.

When you put your camera down and all you see are the little ones, dont move, stick it out for an hour, becouse they are spread out. Wait and see if the jumboes are moveing through once in awhile. If they are, you are in a good spot. Now you just got to get em to bite. When the little ones are driveing you crazy, let them suck it in and dont set the hook. Most of the time they will spit it out. Let them do this, or you will be waisting your time rebaiting all day. if all of a sudden the little ones dissappear, be ready, becouse when the jumboes move in the little ones seem to just vanish.

Most of the jumboes I have seen are just passing through, and wont even look at a bait. Early morning and late afternoon they will LOOK........ thats when you got to get em to bite. Dont jig too hard, or they will be gone. Jig very subtle to get there attention, then when you got it, dont move your bait at all and they may suck it in.

This has been a tough year on the pond. The fish are not jumping on the hook. In spite of that, it sure has been fun trying to get em to go. I have learned a ton about negative fish, and made some new freinds. That my freind......is invaluable!!!!

See you on the pond my next day off!!!

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Good post HoleHopper! When we were out there on Sunday the sky off to the west was very dark and it looked like we were going to get snow...it never materialized but that little front might have been what turned them on. To me it seemed like hole hopping was the best strategy because if we sat over one hole more than a couple minutes we weren't going to get anything to bite.

We were on a structure-less spot as well when we managed to get in on some jumbos.

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 Originally Posted By: HoleHopper
When you put your camera down and all you see are the little ones, dont move, stick it out for an hour, becouse they are spread out.

if all of a sudden the little ones dissappear, be ready, becouse when the jumboes move in the little ones seem to just vanish.

Dont jig too hard, or they will be gone. Jig very subtle to get there attention, then when you got it, dont move your bait at all and they may suck it in.

great post. were you looking in my fish house window? that's exactly what i found on sunday. everytime the little ones disappeared, either a walleye or big perch came through. i actually watched that 13" come in, followed by a decent walleye. the walleye pushed the perch nearly out of site but he turned to investigate my jig. i jigged until he moved closer then let it sit. if the jig moved, they'd leave.

the ones i did catch were just sucking it in, not even twitching the bobber..

i stripped the bellies on one of the smaller ones, it puked out 5 or 6 little critters that i used for bait (i needed that, one of the other guys ran off with all the waxies).

i'm seriously considering running back up for the day on saturday. big perch are addicting..

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I sure hope this weekend is cloudy at least. If is is sunny I may go and scout for deer trails in the snow if there is any left by this weekend. Got to do my homework for them too..... I dont like going in blind....

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I had a different experience. I was up the last Saturday of walleye season and found some great perch action just off some deep rocks in 25 FOW or so. They were just hammering a big jigging spoon tipped with euro's. If I got a fish to start rising to my bait I would raise it about 3 feet as fast as I could and they would just drill it!! I mean drill it!! No question they were agressive, hungry etc. They were completely gorged and everyone I caught was over 10". Not sure if it was the right place at the right time or what, but it was fun. Like has been said, "Big perch are addicting." Don't be afraid to get away from the crowds, drill lots of holes and fish big baits. The day I was out I am sure a small bait would have worked fine, but I think the big baits helped keep some of the pesky little ones at bay. Like you can see here, a lot of methods/strategies will work. You just have to work hard to find them and make them bite!

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well, the addiction got the best of me and i headed up to mille lacs again on sunday. this daylight savings [PoorWordUsage] really takes a toll. i didn't get on the ice until 9:00.

found a spot and got set up. in the first 10 minutes i get a fat 12". the rest of the morning produced 4 more nice ones. i'd try a spot for 30-45 minutes, then move if it didn't produce. each move at least produced a sighting of a nice perch, but they seemed to be done biting about 12:30ish.

i decided to sit and hang around until evening. a few perch (and 5 or 6 nice walleyes) were moving in, but i couldn't get them to bite.

here's a pic of sundays catch

perch2.jpg

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nice! the left one looks like a hog. Got a few of those last sunday and plan to get up to the big pond again Friday if possible.

It is addicting! Since going it is all I'm thinking about (besides snow geese next weekend and corona sippin' in cancun the week after)

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Me and the better half hit the pond on Saterday and did fairly well to a spot that had produced for us in the past and got about 20 or so throughout the day.

On sunday we changed locations to a spot that is traditionaly good for the late ice and they were thick in there, got a few, but for the most part, could not get them to bite. They were just lookers for the most part. I think that it was becouse of the bluebird skys. Cant wait to hit that spot with cloudcover or a snow. We should hammer em then! Good luck

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 Originally Posted By: Sartell Angler
nice! the left one looks like a hog.
she was huge, i was very surprised to find out she was only 12", looked much larger than the 13" i got the weekend before.

i'm hoping to try it again this sunday. weather forecast is claiming 30+ and cloudy, not that they'd know that far in advance but it gives hope.

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so they shut off after mornin' im thinking about going up wednesday... forcast says 42 and sunny.... i think that would get em going wouldnt it.... im going to try the gravel....

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I sure hope the nice weather gets em going. It has'nt yet, for me. Im hopeing for a nasty snow and wind. I'll be calling in sick, and be up there within an hour for sure. With or without the betterhalf's permition.

p2280019ej7.jpg

Here is some of those bad weather perch we got into. (The lines on the board are inches), if you can see the board? By the looks of the forcast the next couple of days should be killer!

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i decided to try it again this sunday. hope to be on the ice by 6:30/7:00..

good luck this weekend and be safe.

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well we made another trip on sunday and hunted for the big perch. I finally found them in 30+ FOW. caught 4 nice ones in about 5 minutes and called my buddies, 3 miles away, to join me. after the initial 4 it was slow, they'd come in, look and then swim away. we ended the day with 8.

sitting at work monday thinking about how many big fish i had seen on sunday, i decided tuesday would be a good day to take a 'mental health' day and try mille lacs one last time.

so, i headed up yesterday morning to the same spot i was at on sunday. just as it started to get light out i started seeing big perch, they were hitting hard. would catch one every 20-30 minutes. it's fun watching the little ones swimming around, then make a mad dash out of the area. sort of like an alarm clock telling me to get ready. sure enough, the little ones would bolt, and a BIG one would come in.

highlight of the day was watching a big perch ready to strike, then it made a dash for safety. i waited for a walleye to swim into view, but it turned out to be a much larger (13") perch..

saw well over 50 jumbos and 4 lkarge tullibees on the camera. i did realize something, a tullibee must have ADHD. those things never stop moving slower than mach 1 and don't seem to be able to concentrate.

anyway, ended the day with 11 nice perch.

perch2-1.jpg

these were the 3 biggest

perch-1.jpg

yesterday might be the last time i'll be able to make it out to that area. the ice is getting soft in spots and there appeared to be quite a bit of flooding a mile or two out.

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Nice looking catch Jerry! I need a mental health day too, come to think of it!!! I need to get out again before it is all done... as much as I like to see the grass showing up from the snow being gone, I'm not quite ready to let go of the ice yet. What side of the lake were you on? Were you near any kind of structure? Thanks

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Nice fish, and those look like some nice jumbos in comparison to that pop can.

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 Originally Posted By: Coach1310
What side of the lake were you on? Were you near any kind of structure? Thanks

i went out of the east side. there's an access to the lake north of Isle, straight across from Co.RD. 18.

no structure, i was sitting about 75 yards from where the rocks end. i could see a slight rise on my camera. tuesday i tried 2 other places about 30 yards from 'the spot' and saw nothing.. if i remember correctly i was around 2 miles out..

i probably won't be back up this year, i could sell the GPS coordinates? ;\)

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