mille lacs 2020 Mille Lacs Lake Fishing Reports

[jabug]

was up there this morning tough bite didn't see many caught by other boats either

[eyewarrior]

You could tell the bite was slowing down last weekend already. At least for me we caught 1/3 as many as 2 weeks earlier.

[tfin]

was out yesterday morning with a tough bite as well. I saw all kinds of activity on the graph as i approached one of the farth north flats just east of the wealthwood landing. It looked like a massive number of fish and bugs on the east side of a flat that had a strait down drop from about 22 to 32 ft. Everything was below the top edge of the flat.

I did catch 6 fish with 4 keepers off a flat out there lindy rigging but I had to let line out for just about anything I felt and I had to let them have it for about 15 seconds as compared to 5 a week ago.

Bite seems to pick up at 9 am.

[Where's Walter?]

Last weekend was definitely slower than the weekend before but the weather was crazy as well. The fish are still biting, you just need to get the right bait in front of them. Seemed like the boats that were covering water did better than those going real slow with lindys or bobbering. I had two 10 year old in my boat so we were one of the slow ones! Good luck.

[Pat Burch]

Allot of bugs floating in the water but it has not been bad yet with mayflies in the air, I am sure it will happen over the holiday weekend and ruin all the family fun. Fishing has been tougher over the last 4-5 days for allot of us. Of course there is always someone who finds the right school at the right time with the right bait to have a good day but overall the bite is a little tougher. Still catching fish but nothing like the crazy numbers we were boating over the last couple of weeks.

[T.O.W]

I agree there are some fish to be had but it's taking more work to get them. Sunset last night was pretty fun on the edge of the flats.

[tfin]

Went up this morning and fished shermans. 3 keepers and 4 slots. The bite is definately lighter than it was 2 weeks ago as they didn't seem to tug on the lindy. caught 5 fish with lindy and 2 with spinners up on the top edges.

water temp was 73 to 76 degrees and I marked clouds of bugs in the deeper water off the flats

[isojam]

Fished sat. pretty stiff wind, did pretty well imho. 11 fish 2 people. 4 keepers. The rest were to large. BTW 3 of those were in the 18-19.5" range. Fished edges of flats leeward side. Plain red hook and a crawler with a puff of air. .6-.8 MPH. Good luck Folks.

[Lipriper84]

Fished Sunday 9am to 1pm. Launched our of Wealthwood. Went out about 3-4 miles. Marked tons of fish, but also lots of bugs. Tried leadcore and cranks and also tried leaches with long leads with a red hook. Only got 1 walleye on the leach and one on the leadcore. Both 15-16 inch keepers. We talked to the DNR Officer at the launch and he said that wan't too bad of a catch from what he had been seeing come in???. Hope the bugs go away both fish that I cleaned were full of bugs.

[Troy Smutka]

Fished the south end on Friday and Saturday. Bugs are starting to dissipate. The crayfish molt and hatch is starting on the rocks. Caught lots of walleyes from 11" to 25.5", as well as a few nice smallies, a couple of jumbo perch, and one pike over shallow rocks in the mornings. Casted crankbaits and jerkbaits (crayfish, perch, and minnow colors all worked about the same)over rocky flats from 6 to 10 feet deep. In the evenings, we slip-bobbered with leeches over a rock hump 18 feet deep on a south side reef. Caught walleyes from 10" to 22" and a few perch from 9.5" to 12". We had wind blowing a good chop over the rocks which helps. The fish we kept spit up crayfish pieces all over the livewell. This rock/crayfish bite will be going for a while--give it a try. Good luck and stay safe out there.

[HAppnhook]

Fished Seguchi and Myr mar on Saturday, Slow with 3 fish, 2 overs using crawlers/leeches and hooks, red and blue. One nice Smallie near Hunters in 20'. Marked boatloads on the flats and some guys were doing well on the edges. Wish I had some Creek chubs as one fish smacked a perch on the line. Sunday slow again with 1 small eye.

[isojam]

Fished sat. before the rain 6.30am till 12.20 pm. alot slower for me and the partner. 2 fish both 22" plus. Another one up to boat and lost. May be time to change tactics. Tried plain crawler and also pulled blades for a couple hours, on edges and on top of various flats. Anybody been doing any good lately? Good luck all.

[Rigger1]

Tough for my boat also on Sat. Fished from 7:30 to 2:30 and only boated 4 fish. 26" 24 19.75 and a 19. Seems like the fish were really scattered. Tried lead core, spinners and caught our 4 fish on rigs with leeches. We mainly fished mud, but did try some deep gravel also. Any good reports?

[Wishin4Walleyes]

Same for me Saturday. Fished Sat from 5 AM till 12:30. Caught (2) 23", (1) 16", (1) 13", and had a hog break me off before I could loosen the drag. Would pick up a fish each time I moved but would only catch 1 fish in each spot. Fished a lot of NW flats. Also went out Sunday. Should have skipped yesterday since Saturdays weather had them completely shut off. Fished from 5 AM till 11:30 AM and 2 of us got blanked. Anyone else out yesterday? We pulled rigs with leeches and gold spinners with crawlers and nothing would go.

[Riverratpete]

Was out with the fleet Sat AM before the weather moved in. Best fish so far this year caught..27 1/4 piggy..she swimming still. Other than that fish nothing else, dragged rigs, blades and leadcore trolled with cranks. Lots of folks out on the flats Sat AM..coulda been opener lol

[John Mickish]

Best fish so far this year caught..27 1/4 piggy..she swimming still.

I hope she's still swimming, Mille Lacs is a 28" lake. Nice fish however.

[Riverratpete]

Yeah, trust me, I'm well aware of that fact..thought for sure when she came up I was going to break my record but no such luck, crackin that 27 is tough business.

[Troy Smutka]

Fished the south end the past two days. Calm with a lot of gnats! Trolled small cranks (#5 jointed shad raps) in the 7 to 9 foot range along rock reefs in the evenings. Caught tons of perch from 9 to 12.5 inches, and a few walleyes from 15 to 17 inches. Never trolled up so many big perch on cranks before. Also hit a couple of big smallies. The perch and the walleyes on the rocks were full of crayfish. Trolled 3-way rigs with small cranks (#5 jointed shad raps and #9 flat raps) along deep gravel transition lines in the mornings. Caught some more nice-sized perch and a few big walleyes (22 to 26 inches) doing this, but it was a little slow with no wind. Good luck and stay safe out there.

[bassmann77]

Was out on Saturday before the storms came in. When the storms came in, there were 22 boats waiting at the landing at Garrison. I have to give props to everyone that was there because the loading went really smoothly. Everyone gave people the opportunity to let someone off at the dock and then motored back to wait their turn. I was really impressed for I figured it was going to be a mess with all of the boats.

[Pat Burch]

Been pulling cranks for the last week or so as well as mixing in some live bait rigging with leeches to put fish in the boat. My best cranks have been the #5 and the best colors have been the blue shadling, the purple shadling and the typical firetiger. Windy days the shallow rock bite has been good. Also did a couple of smallie trips this week and the bite was real good. Senkos, swim baits and crawlers have been good for the smallies in 6-8 feet of water.

[MidCoast]

Our boat was pulling cranks yesterday on the South side of the lake. We got a few keeper walleyes and some perches.

[Pat Burch]

Really had an up and down weekend on walleyes this weekend. Friday the bite was good got our limit rigging. Saturday a little slower got more fish rigging then pulling cranks but overall what I would consider a slow day did have to put up with some storms and hard rains mixing in throughout the day. Sunday dead flat and calm and very hot. The cranks went good in the real early morning time then shut down, we got some fish later with the rigging then went smallie fishing. The smallies are biting well in 7-8 feet of water just of the tops of the rock piles. Got most walleyes over the weekend on the top edges just before the breaks 23-26 feet of water. Marking tons of fish but also tons of clouds on the graph which I am guessing to be very small perch as my livewell is full of 1 inch perch that got spit up.

[Wishin4Walleyes]

Was out on Saturday from 5 AM till 2 PM. What a slow day!! Got blanked (except for a couple small perch). Fished approx. 10 different flats. Tried lindy w/ leech (different length snells), slow death rigs, and spinners. Fished both the tops (in the early AM) and edges of several flats.

Pat B., how did you manage to put some fish in the boat? Were you still pulling leeches on the rigs and what length snell were you using? I have been blanked the last 2 times out (both were days following really stormy nights unfortunately). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[fishuhalik]

Any new smallie reports? Heading up that way to do a smallie/eye trip on Thursday after work, should be there around 5-530. New to the lake myself, any pointers on where to start? It's a big lake and I could waste alot of time & gas finding spots to fish!

[fishuhalik]

Ended up not doing too well yesterday. No smallies in a couple of hours, one decent one followed, a small pike, a couple of rockbass, some small perch, and one walleye. Started out for smallies on the point on the east side that comes out from isle, nothing, went for walleyes at banana, saw a couple caught but not much, went out to hennepin, caught one nice 19", that was about it. Was a great night to be out w/ good company though!

[Foreverfish1]

Threw muskie baits all day yesturday and didn't even see a single fish! We mostly tried rock areas in the SW corner of the lake but maybe we should've been trying weed areas...

Went out to a mud flat for a half hour and caught one 9 inch perch and I was marking lots of fish on the bottom but no more biters.

Beautiful day on the water (other than getting a mean sunburn) with hardly any wind!

[eurolarva]

Launched out by the casino and caught three Small mouth and 6 jumbos. Decided to go out to where all the boats were in the mud and only found dink perch out there. Stayed till about 10 and left. Should have stayed on the rocks. One small mouth was 19 inches and the other two were around 17. We lost two more due to crappy fishing line. Beautiful day out. Wish that lake was closer to home.

[flyboy10]

Fished from 11 to 7 yesterday. Started out with some smallie action and did really well in the deeper rocks in the sw side of the lake. 10 to 15 fow with a slip bobber and leach or worm. Wound up with a dozen in a few hours. Decided to try my luck with the eyes and was really sick of the mud game so I tried out the less fished gravel. managed 6 eyes all between 15 to 19 on a lindy set up. Did not mark many but when we did we caught them.

[ozzie]

went out on the west side and did some northern fishing with bobbers and suckers and had quite a few runs but only hooked into 4 northerns and 1 smallie......the biggest northern was a fat 41" pig and the smallie was a 20" football on a sucker!!! both fish jumped out of the water and they were both personal best for the 2 anglers that caught them....even though the fish weren't jumping in the boat it was a good trip when 2 personal bests are made!!!

[Champs]

We went to the mud flats all day Saturday. Wow we did terrible. Managed a few perch totally not worth mentioning and no walleyes. Marked a lot of big fish but couldn't get any bites. Kind of embarrassing but we talked to one guide around 7:00 or later that caught a nice walleye in front of us and he said it was the first fish of the day! That made me feel a little better but not really. I guess we'll call it bad timing for our first ever trip to Mille Lacs.