mille lacs 2020 Mille Lacs Lake Fishing Reports

[Juan Grande]

On beds or getting close as of last weekend.

[monstermoose78]

Getting ready to spawn my cousin said they are super fat!!! 

[BlackArrow1]

Ran the mud flats a few days ago. Mid lake flats. Saw fish holding on the points and side breaks to deeper just off em. Got some nicer fish out there 22-28inchers. But it was kinda tough. They were not super positive. Lindy n leeches. Hit a rock reef shallow at dark with bobber. Smallies to start. Got kind of worried at around  8 pm. It was dead. At around 8:30 the bobber kept going down steady. Was anchored in 5ft and drop was to 8-10ft where I was fishin bobber. Got a 28 inch big gal and a handful of em from 18-24inch. The fish were all full guts fat! Even the smallies/Rock bass I got there were fat. Funny thing was by 9:30 all the eyes got were small. Like 9-12 inchers and they were abundant. Could not keep em off the line. Not many reports here. It was real windy and tough fishing. I talked with several other anglers and they did similar. Heard the rock reefs by shore were full of fish still. The reports of the lake being in a state of emergency are up-played for media popularity in my mind. Stayed next to a couple fine guys from Iowa that came 10 hours to fish smallmouth out of Hunters Point. Mille Lacs is still a phenomenal fishery. People wanna be on it still regardless of bad press. All species of fish are still abundant. I've stayed at 2 different resorts the last 2 weeks and the service was great for lodging/landing. (Agate Bay/Hunters Point). I had great angling and had great services. Even last winter the Red Door was premium. Mille Lacs outfits do what they can to point you to fish and make your stay nice. It's just great. 

[aanderud]

My son and I went out this morning.  Woke up and was ready to hit the NW side at 6 am, but it was too windy so we drove to the east side and launched at liberty beach.  Couldn't find fish on the east side where we scanned, so we hauled out to the mud anyway.  But at least he first half of the drive was dry  Found fish there.  On the mud they were grouped up big time.  We scanned an entire flat and found fish only in a few locations.  Fished the pod that we could hit best drifting with the wind direction we had, and we were getting a fish every pass until the wind got strong enough to where Adam started worrying about the waves a bit too much to concentrate on fishing.  So, we made a wet ride back to the east side...  Well, would have been wet if we didn't have a full windshield and rain gear.  Got a bit closer to the east shore, where we tried our luck on a rocky reef.  Ended up with my son's personal best at 24 inches (twice) plus he got his first-ever smallies.  Headed down toward the south end of the lake, fished some gravel and then some rocks, then called it quits around 2 pm.  

We'll be back when the water warms up (we were seeing 58-60 degrees everywhere).  He's only 7, so we didn't get to do the evening bite, but the half day we put in was productive.  Not monster-productive, but productive nonetheless.  I was proud of the fella for sticking it out in 1.5-2 foot rollers.  Not bad for his first time on the pond.  Hopefully next time the wind is just a WEE bit less.  I'm not a whiner, but until I can run the big motor pulling spinners (need warmer water), I prefer a bit calmer so that I can use the electric to stay on them with the lindy rigs run really slow.  It was too windy for the bow mount today (even with a 60 inch shaft the bow mount was coming out of the water between waves  ).  Drifting Lindy rigs with leeches worked with the drift sock to slow us down, but it's less effective than being able to tool around there slowly with the electric motor.  If I had a sweet backtrolling setup like the guys in the white boat next to us, we'd have put probably a couple more in the boat before being pushed to the east side.

 

[Juan Grande]

Great report aanderud!

[ole]

Any perch showing up?

[Captain24]

Fished the mud and rocks today in the 5-10mph winds....(N 10-15mph gusts to 20 with 3 foot rollers) what a joke, nice forecast for a 3 hour drive! ANYWAY.....didn't do real great, 1 22" in the mud and lost another. Red spinner and leech. Tried power corking with one take down but notta when I set the hook. Marked a couple good pods  of fish in the deep mud (28-31') but couldn't get them to go. Boat control was a spectacular nightmare!

Moved to the south end rocks (16' to 3') with tubes and cranks for smallmouth....3 in the boat lost 1. A lot of windshield time for little results. Still beats work! Gonna go back next Wednesday, I'll let you know. 

Edited June 11, 2015 by Captain24

[BlackArrow1]

Not much talk going on here. Was out on the mud last Monday. Did fair. Graphed pockets of nice fish. They were kind of finicky at times. Seemed they hung side breaks or deeper. Long lindy and leeches did ok. I got frustrated and did some slow death rigging through them with crawlers and no takers. At some point they turned on for no reason. Got active for like an hour at a time. Some of my best action came from a blown up whole crawler on 8ft leader below the boat with a 1/2 oz weight. They hammered and ran with the crawler. When the leeches aren't going give the crawlers a shot. I use a #4 red hook, hook once above the knuckle and back through just below it. Inflate and fish it slow like a leech rig. They really seemed to like that presentation. The fish that hit that set up pounded it. My rock bite at dark was plagued by small eyes a plenty. 

[Wanderer]

Spent a little time on the south side last night just looking around and taking a spin around Spirit Island for my first time.

Kept my 200+ foot distance but that was to protect me from cormorant poop!

Nice night but knew it could end quickly so I got to fishin the shallows.

I was surprised to see very little life in 10 fow and less.  Lots of casts between fish in the 66 degree water.  I picked up one 17 inch smallie on a mojo rig and one mid 20 inch pike on a small spinner bait in the reeds.

First night on Mille Lacs this season and first time the Lund got wet too.  Strang thing since I look at the lake every day.  

Closed out the night with a feel good sight which made today at work easier to handle. 

Oh, plenty of mayflies making slicks on the water too.

Edited June 19, 2015 by Wanderer
Mayfly update

[aanderud]

Nice report, and nice pics too!  Thanks Wanderer.

[1eyeReD]

Was up Sat. Caught some fish. Wasn't a totally hot bite. But some bit. Yes, they're out on the flats.

 

 

Edited June 22, 2015 by 1eyeReD

[aanderud]

Went out today with my 7 year old son Adam.  We started at 6:15 a.m. and found active fish on the first mud flat we stopped at.  Lindy rig with leeches was working right off the bat.  Long snells as usual, and around 0.4 to 0.6 mph.  Had about 10 fish in the boat by 8:00 when the sun came out and the first other boat arrived.  After maybe 20 or 30 minutes of passing each other, they asked how they were biting, I said "it was great until the sun came out!".  We changed to crawlers/spinners and upped the speed between 0.8 and 1.1 mph to cover more ground and find active fish.  Over next hour and a half, caught 2 smalls and had 2 come off (one big one), but it was way slow.  At 10:15, decided to switch flats.  Spinners and crawlers were working here, but all we got were small fish over the next hour and a half, so we decided to make another move after a half dozen of the smaller eyes.  Nothing doing at the new location, so made a move back to where we started.  The flat was once again empty, but this time no people OR fish to be found.  Made 2 short passes, marking very few fish deep or shallow, and then decided to pack it in.  In total, we ended up getting 18 fish, of which the size was all over the board -- 10 inches to my son's personal best at 26 inches.  The largest 2 came on leeches, but we also had a 24 and a 21 incher on crawlers.  I'd say right now they're eating anything that moves.  Overall, a reat day on the pond!  Glad he's old enough to handle the ride and the waves and the longer fishing periods, making a drive up there worthwhile.

[1eyeReD]

Awesome trip. Awesome photo. Hope to get my kiddo up there one day.

[elusivecrappiecatcher]

Fished both Friday and Saturday for a tournament... Tough fishing a flat calm sunny lake for 2 days, but the fish were biting!

Seemed like Friday it was a live rigging day. My dad ran a 6ft snell red hook with a leech which seemed to work well for him. I was using slow death and that work fine as well. It was the first time I had used it and I am hooked.  In the morning the fish were running the top edge of the flats. speed was SLOOOWWW! .3MPH would work fine.

 

Saturday was tourney time and we managed 2 nice fish right away on long snells again with a leech in 24ft of water.  Picked up another off the edge of the flat that was 22.5" but we were fishing more like .08-1 mph.

Judging by the weight in though, DEEP was the ticket with live bait rigs. 30-34ft of water off a flat all day put up a 28lb 5 fish bag which was awesome!

LOTS of little dink walleyes that will keep you busy out there. Didn't matter how you fished you will catch them. Heck even pulled leadcore on Friday for a little while and the little guys still would go after the bigger stick baits.

 

Smallmouth action is still hot! I have read that they have moved out to deeper water. Seemed like all fish caught were up along shore in rocks with tops waters and shallow running cranks and drop shot rigs.

 

[aanderud]

Thanks for the report, elusivecrappiecacher.  I think we would have had more luck later in the day further off the flats, when that water flattened out and the sun was out.  They slowed down bigtime on top and near the edges.  I might give those slow death hooks a try too.  And there's some wobbly floaters (Lindy 'Lil Guy) that a guy can get that are supposed to be all the rage too.  Might try them next time.

I really prefer fishing for flathead catfish better than walleyes, but for enough action to keep the 7 year old interested, I'll compromise on Mille Lacs walleyes!   I might be back in 2 weeks, we'll see.

Edited June 30, 2015 by aanderud

[elusivecrappiecatcher]

I actually tried the Lindy Lil' Guy with no luck on Saturday during the tournament. No luck with it. I won't give up on it though as I never had a chance to give it a real shot. I just had to drop it down and see. The live bait had turned off for a bit so I was throwing the tackle box at them trying to get something going again. I needed more fish for the card! haha

[DLD24]

The weather threw us a curveball yesterday, left cloquet after work at 2 with no wind and drove right into a T-storm when we got to Mille lacs....Ended up holed up in the bar until 7pm (crazy how windy it got at the end of the front) we fished from 730 till dark and got 9 eyes all on jig n leech

[DLD24]

Hit the pond again yesterday got 20 some eyes and 8 smallies...Got the majority of the eyes on slip bobbers and leaches, they were stacked on the bottom edge of a hump....23ft was our best depth...They were sure off on the wind forecast...

[Kettle]

Sitting on the shore currently in father Hennepin state park and their are clouds of mayflies......

[Kettle]

Picked up around 20 eyes this morning, all relatively small 12-17 inches. All on the mud and on lindys and leeches. Tried different baits and different areas to try and get a bigger fish but I just ended up picking up smallmouth.

[DLD24]

Me and a buddy were out for 9 hours , we got 37 eyes from 14-24"...Most came pulling spinners and dragging jigs w/leeches in 22-32ft....

[DLD24]

Hit the pond yesterday, from 10-7 ended up with 32 eyes, biggest was a fat 25"er....pulling spinners was the ticket, purple blade.

[Bass Thumb]

Good walleye fishing in the north-end flats a few days ago when the lake was like glass. Pulling spinners at 1.3-1.5 mph, hammered-metal #3-4 blades, 22-32 FOW, crawlers during the day and leeches in the evening.

Probably 50 walleyes total, with the smallest 10" and the biggest a 9-lb 29" beauty of a fish. Most were 13-15", which would be 2012-2013 class. Handful of fish 6 lbs and up.

Most striking was the fact that NOT ONE walleye was an "eater"-class fish. Not a single fish in the 17-21" range that I ordinarily would keep on a lake that allows harvest.

[tfin]

went out to 30 fow on gravel yesterday and caught 7 or 8 between noon and 4:30 pm.  A few 7 inchers, 12, 14, 17.5 and a 25.5.  Probably would of hammered them on top of the gravel after that but had to work last night.  They were hitting hard on a spoon at 3:30.  No pictures as I was by myself and just wanted to get good releases on them.

 

[STMA_I_HUNTER]

Was out Saturday too on the deep gravel and the bite was way better than the previous week/weekend as one could imagine.

I hit -22F on the way up from the south and when I go to the lake it was -12F.

Hit Sloppy Joe's for a bit, lots of traffic and stayed in 30ft to keep away and found a few fish and they were actually a bit aggressive. Moved to 4 mile and found some more, again away from the communities, saw quite a few nice fish on the camera but they would not bite.

I caught all mine jigging and a buddy who stayed overnight caught all theirs on plain hook/shiner.

I saw 14"+ of ice everywhere I went.

[JBMasterAngler]

Any updates on lake travel, particularly on the north end? Am heading up tomorrow, and am hoping to drive to my destination spot(s).

[monstermoose78]

1 hour ago, JBMasterAngler said:

Any updates on lake travel, particularly on the north end? Am heading up tomorrow, and am hoping to drive to my destination spot(s).

Bring chains and a shovel there is huge drifts and no plowed roads out to the flats that I have heard of. A snowmobile is the best option

[Sculpin]

Not much going on out there. It does not appear anyone is even maintaining resort access points.  Barnacle's is closed until April, nothing going on at Garrison Sports, or Red Door, or Myr Mar.

Lyback's may still have roads on the South side. Or perhaps Hunters Point..

Call ahead

[JBMasterAngler]

I decided to skip Mille Lacs today. With the poor fishing reports and even poorer travel options out there, I’m hoping next week might be better. So bring on the sun for the next 7 days!

[Smokercraft161]

really? No one must use this site. Latest comment is March 16??? Bummer