mille lacs 2020 Mille Lacs Lake Fishing Reports

[wildeyesguy]

What wonderful weather this past 4th weekend!..fished 6pm to 12am Friday and Sat...fished out of Fishermenswharf..I always say this time of year if the wind is down head for the deep gravel or mud..caught a few on a small flat friday night after the rain..27 ft..off the edge..Sat. night was better..fished a med sized flat off the edge 27 ft..caught a couple nice 15-16 slots..a couple small throw backs 12-13 and 3 over 25..slowed down..moved up on top 24 ft..caught 2 more slots..thought the smaller ones would bite more on top..I was wrong..some big girls moved in..another 5 over 25..biggest 27..small jigs heads and plain hooks under bobbers..jigs did better..could see the fireworks out of Garrison about 5 miles away..good show lasted a long time!! good luck!!!

[wildeyesguy]

Try Fishers Resort..just south of Malmo..they have some nice campsites for tents!..and a nice deep launch for your boat!

[TheWarrior]

Thanks wildeyesguy, Went fishing out in the mud didn't catch a thing, Graphed tons of fish but couldn't catch em.. Looking for some advise we used leechs and crawlers with plain red hook.. Pretty windy today on the north side..

[Fredd]

Went out by myself from 3-9PM yest. Caught six in all on lindys with two eaters and the rest from 23 - 25". I was on the windward side of flat in 26-28' of water. Not real fast action but enough to keep my attention. The ones that commited took the bait hard. Many lookers though.

[greg smith]

went up today to windy to get out to gravel, fished crawlers and plain hook got 2 few misses very slow action today

[Hookmaster]

I fished last Friday by myself on the flats. Started riggin' and only hooked 1 (13 incher) out of my first 6 bites. It turned out the hook was bad . Put a good one on and proceeded to get a 17, 25 1/2, 15 1/2 and 22 1/2 inchers. I tried the kerplunkin' or power corkin' and missed 2 fish (one was probably mid twenties) since my bobber rod had mono (I usually fish Power Pro) and the drag was set too light . I moved to another flat and got a 24 and 26 kerplunkin' and a 23 1/2 on the rig. Leeches with plain black hook on the rig and leeches with pink 1/16 oz. jig on the bobber rig.

Went back up on Monday with a buddy and we caught 4, all riggin'. A 11, 17, 15 and a 25. Nothing would hit the bobber rigs even though there were fish around. We were on the flats again. Tried trolling between and on top of some flats and had one hit on a Super Shad Rap but it didn't hook up.

[wildeyesguy]

If its windy hit the rocks..I never head to the mud if its windy..lots of good stuff on the NE side..try Agate reef or Flamingo..Lakeside can be good too..I always use leaches..the nice thing about Mille Lacs..if its windy..you don't have to go far from shore..but if its calm head for the mud..if you see them on your electronics..fish them..if they don't bite move..just have to be at the right place at the right time sometimes..good luck!!

[FishNovice101]

It turned out the hook was bad. I tried the kerplunkin' or power corkin'

Hookmaster - I found it amusing that Hookmaster's hook was bad.

Anyway - what is kerplunkin and power corkin'?

Char

[Troy Smutka]

Power Corkin' or Power Bobbing as I call it is a way of slip-bobber fishing eyes on Mille Lacs without dropping anchor. Use your electronics and look for groups of fish, and mark them with an icon on your GPS. After marking several groups in an area, use your trolling motor to move from group to group, and cast out a slip-bobber rig, usually with a leech. This allows you to move with the fish if they move away from the boat slightly without having to raise and lower an anchor repeatedly. You are less likely to spook fish this way as well. Doesn't work too well if it is windy, but works well when reasonably calm. Good luck!

[Hookmaster]

What he said.

Last Friday was the first time I had tried power corkin'. I heard about it on this message board along with the decent bite reports. Otherwise I would not have gone up last Friday.

[FishNovice101]

just got off the lake. Brother got 1 eater and Son got a 24" we did CPR on. I got skunked. all had fun. wind was a bit much.

[rodmaker]

Fished Fri. 7/11. Fished the mud flats out from the old Lakeside. we fished big flat., and more around that area.(look at a map)

We caught 7 total. 3 slots. Missed 5 hooksets for two of us. The fish came in 21-25 ft of water. Leeches red hook. It was windy, but the Yar Craft handled the chop like a champ!!!

[minnesotatuff]

we fished yesterday from about 1 until 10. it was windy, made for tuff boat control and limited where we fished. we tried to find the mother school before fishing but had a hard time on the south end. tried deep water at and past the end of the underwater indian point. marked some but nothing of quantity. proceeded to shermans reef to see if shermans point would block some of the wind. nobody fishing it, no big schools of walleyes, same with bekkers flat. went to shermans point where a couple of boats were trying. picked up one small one.

there were pretty many boats out at the south tip so we checked it out. well, the mother school was sure there. they were stacked and in bunches. there was tons of them. however, no body was catching any. a few people were anchored and bobbler fishing, the rest were drifting. my fishing buddy got bit off with a brand new leader and i hooked one for about 5 seconds that had a lot of weight, but... thinking about it now, i dont know why we didnt try trolling deep crank baits??? that might of been the ticket!

we went to indian point after that and set up in 13 to 15 fow...two small ones and one barely a keeper on the small side with two pesky rock bass.

for rigging i usually use flourocarbon 6# for stealth, a #4 pink hook and small soft moon glow bead. there has been so much talk about red hooks this year i thought i would try one on a monofiliment leader, tinted maximum 8#. the thinking is if mono line floats, it will make a different presentation with the leech. however, i dont think it makes a difference. i still got stuff on my leech from the bottom. didnt even get a bite on that rig...no confidence. so, i went back to the standard.

i wish i could get up there more so i could hone in on them...

regards,

minnesotatuff

ps, this has been revised. we didnt go to 7 mile, it was the south tip! sheesh! the big A is setting in...

[DoubleLunger]

Don't know about everyone else, but a VERY slow wknd for me. Tried east side rock, gravel, the southend and numerous flats and only managed 4 for the box and caught only a few more.

[GravelBar]

Fished the mud yesterday from 11 am to 5 pm. Between 3 of us we boated 20 and kept 8. Missed 12 and had 3 broken lines. Hammered gold spinner on both crawler harness and single red hook with a leech.

[rodmaker]

Good to hear of a reportd with them hitting spinners. I'll give this a try also when I go back Fri 7/17

[eyewarrior]

This past weekend was simply awsome fishing with spinners & crawlers on the north end flats. We were fishing the Red Door tourney (took 1st day 1 & 3rd day 2)so we didn't watse time putting fish on the clicker(for acurate count) but I'm sure we had 30-40 fish days. Lots of keepers, lots of under 14" & plenty of those worthless 19"-27".

[rodmaker]

Awesome!!!!! What color spinners??

[Iceman73]

Fished on Saturday and got wet and blown around during the day, but had pretty good luck with the evening bite. In a little over 2 hours, caught 3 keepers and 2 that were over the slot. Fished the north flats just out from Red Door with a slip bobber, pink angle jig and a leech. Wish we had known about the crawler bite.

[eyewarrior]

Awesome!!!!! What color spinners??

Silver with orange, green & yellow beads. Pretty standard Mille Lacs Lake colors

[walleyeguy250]

I,m planning on a trip to Mille Lacs the week of 7/27. Will be coming from Michigan. I'd like to camp in the area - any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Also and Bait & Tackle shops located near the lake would be appreciated. Also what general areas to concentrate on. Any assistance would be great - have never fished the lake.

Thanks

[rodmaker]

Snell length - 7 ft?? with the spinners

[eyewarrior]

Snell length - 7 ft?? with the spinners

We used bottom bouncers with around 8' snells trolled at about 1.0 mph

[GravelBar]

Spinners with single hook and leech the snell was 7 feet. Spinners with crawler harness 3 feet. Most important to keep bottom bouncer up out of the mud. Drifting at .9 mph.

[jmm888]

I,m planning on a trip to Mille Lacs the week of 7/27. Will be coming from Michigan. I'd like to camp in the area - any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Also and Bait & Tackle shops located near the lake would be appreciated. Also what general areas to concentrate on. Any assistance would be great - have never fished the lake.

Thanks

I'm fishing Mille Lacs for the first time this weekend. Staying at Father Hennepin State Park. Not sure how nice it is, but it's only $20/night. You can check it out on the MN DNR website.

[deerwoody]

I would also recomend Kathio on the West side.

[rodmaker]

What size blades???

[GravelBar]

I've been using #2

[rodmaker]

I have plenty #2's. I'm covered then. Thanks

[eyewarrior]

What size blades???

I've been using #3 blades