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2020 Mille Lacs Lake Fishing Reports


Rick

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95% of the fish we caught last weekend were caught after dark with a slip bobber.

You must have been on a good spot to catch 20 fish. Mind if I ask if you were on the north or south end?

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I was staying at the same resort in fish house #8! Sure had a great time over the weekend as well, even though we never made it on the water before 7am both mornings lol...

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Most of our bites last weekend came after the sun went down. Boated 13 fish from 9 pm until 2 am on Saturday night. With many fish that bit that weren't hooked. All came on leaches. Besides the bugs the night fishing was alot of fun.

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Fished opener and Monday.

Saturday we kept 8 for four of us 2 kids and 2 adults. Size structure was nice for eaters but no real big girls. Bite was interesting. One of our best areas from the past held nothing zippo zilch nadda. Our best area was the size of a school bus off from the normal crowds. This is a normal early June area for us. Fun to get out. Seemed to be less people on the big lake but more at the public accesses go figure?

Monday was a bit better but got going a bit earlier. Kept 16 for 5 of us and some huge 12"+ perch. Fished our school bus rock pile again and caught all our fish off it. Some of the perch had milk in them.

Best depth was about 11'-13' for us. Wanted more biters and eaters for the kids and guys fished with so didn't mind the smaller fish. Some years the box fish have been few and far in between. Nice to catch all the big girls but a few eaters is nice to see like the last two years.

We souly bobbered it with some younger and inexperienced guys with. The evening bite was odd. Not bad just a bit off on Saturday. The big perch were a welcome surprise. Leeches and plain hooks from a natural color to a very small red hook with a few odd ball combos of beads mixed in. Jigs and minnows did nothing for us.

I like the size structure of the fish right now. Seems to be a good supply of 10"-21"ers in the lake right now. A few years back we caught more 25" plus fish than box fish so that's nice to see those younger year classes of fish in the lake and showing up.

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Fished Friday Night, Saturday, and Sun morning.

Overall many similar experiences to Basseyes.

Our boat's weekend total fish landed was approximately 26 fish (3 guys) and kept 16.

Size structure was a lot of eaters (many in the 15.5-16.5" range).

Spent most of the time in 20-30' FOW. Landed a lot of eaters, 15-17.9987 and the occasional 23-27.

When we went shallow the size structure decreased, but we did hit a few monster perch.

Saturday weather: Morning had perfect walleye chop. Fog made it difficult to see shore and boats, so GPS was essential.

Fishing was steady with good walleye chop, until about 10:45am when a nasty fast flowing cell rolled in. Rain followed by 20-30mph winds, which created 5+' foot swells and it was a sprint to safety.

Let the winds blow through until about 5-6pm and then ventured out for round two in ideal conditions, cloud cover and 2-3 ft swells.

Sat night report from two different launches:

1) one crew was taking a lot of pictures of good eaters

2) another caught nearly nothing.

Overall review, the seasonably warm temps raised the water temp nearly to 60 and pushed the fish a little deeper. The fish were all fat and healthy. The bites were consistent but you do have to work for them. Marked plenty of large bait fish clouds which is a good sign, but made fishing challenging.

If your heading there, track the weather closely (recommend using a weather application on your cell phone) as we've seen it change quite quickly, and lead to some very dangerous circumstances.

Good luck and god bless.

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We were out on Sherman Flat when that bad boy hit Saturday morning..talk about high tailing it for the weeds..Fishing report - outstanding day..we got ours up in the shallow rocks in the wind..good mix from 13 inches to 25 inches and a few jumbo's mixed in..all on leeches..Definately keep an eye on the sky while out there though.

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We got out Saturday night for a few hours. Boated 4 fish a nice 27, 24, 21, and a small 12, all released. We had a good time. Boy the bugs were out in full force when that sun went down.

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Good bite Friday and Sunday morning.Plenty of fish in all sizes.Deeper hard bottom areas with long snells did the most damage with a dozen slip bobber fish too.Fished mainly the West side.Tons of fish on the North end mud but we couldt get them to go.I was never on the lake for sunrise or sunset:)

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Did very good on the west side sunday morning. Caught 30 eyes and kept our limit for the 2 of us all from 16-17 7/8. Too bad we wernt fishing the tourney on sunday

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Just got back from the lake today. SLOW SLOW SLOW. No wind no waves and all sun. Got 6 total and all were do big. smallest 20 and the largest 23. I pulled lindy's on the gravel and slip bobbered near sloppys. Lot of bugs out there when the wind is down.

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we fished the south side today, even went to sloppys to check it out and saw the boats bobber fishing in about 24 fow. no one caught any while we circled the group. we tried it a bit and went back south of spirit island. two of us fished part of the day and my significant other met us about 4 to finish the day with us. we caught 25 walleyes. the biggest was 26", but we ended up with 7 keepers. it was a great day to fish for the last day of using my boat. the buyer is coming tomorrow to pick it up. i thought the two best days of a boat owner were the day he gets it and the day he sells it...not true here.

regards,

minnesotatuff

ps, it was a pink hook and long leader that worked best in 20-21 fow.

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Hey "Minnesotatuff" I was in a white Alumacraft and I also fished south of Spirit. I bet i saw you there around 7pm or so. I would have stayed longer but my anchor rope broke off.

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Summer arrived on the fishing opener! We caught all of our eyes in 16 to 27 feet of water. One shoreline reef, and one offshore reef, both spots at the transition line from hard to soft bottom. Live bait rigs with leeches outfished rigs with minnows. Mostly larger fish, from 19 to 25, on Saturday, and mostly smaller fish, 14 to 16.5, on Sunday? Go figure! First opener I remember fishing deep in heat and bright sunshine, with insects hatching! Good luck and stay safe out there!

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flyboy, i think i remember your boat. you might of been on the west side or northwest corner of the structure? sorry about your anchor.

i dont know when the next time will be for me to get up there again. the next time i do the walleyes will have thinned out at that spot, moving to deeper water.

one thing that i thought about but didnt try was trolling deep diving crank baits. i marked what seemed like huge fish crusing 10 to 15 feet deep. maybe they were muskies?

good luck fishing!

regards,

minnesotatuff

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  • 2 weeks later...

Went up for an all-day trip on Monday. We started drifting out on 3-mile flat & my Brother-in-Law CPR'ed a nice 17" Smallie, cool jumps! We keep 2 13.25" walleyes that were deep-hooked & released a few other small ones. I seemed to attract several rock bass also. We were mostly using jigs of various kinds and weights along with mostly leeches and a few minnows. Towards evening, we settled near Hunter's Point in about 24 feet of water where we caught a couple nice walleyes, a 20" & 22" that we released, along with several smaller ones we also released. All and all, a good day on the water.

We saw something I've never witnessed while on the water, a dead deer came floating between a bunch of boats & right underneath the launch out of Hunter's! I can only imagine how it's demise came to be.

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We fished yesterday evening on a rock pile right next to Father Hennepin State Park. Got a few keeper Eyes on a jig and minnow.

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Stuck the weather out on Tuesday and we did prett well... 6 keepers for the box bunch over and under and my pb 20" 4.5 lb smallie. Also we saw a albino deer right before we got to the landing pretty cool to see!

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was out by big point this weekend on shaws flat and just killed them they haven't movede from the opener

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621vs, were you getting fish on Shaws during the day as well, or was it the night bite?

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Fished Sun fishing was great top edges of the flats and even many coming out of 31 feet or deeper on the bottom.

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they bit great in the morning and sloweed a little in the afternoon and got hot again in the evening. going back up sat open seat if anyone want to come along

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Are they on the flats yet, or are they still on the rocks? Lindy or bobber or both?

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Went out yesterday for a little bit on the SE side. In shallow fishing the rocks, picked up one 22" and a decent pike. Slower than I thought it would be with the wind blowing in there.

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Just got back from the pond, what a beautiful day. Caught about 20 pulling spinners on the flats. Were even able to keep 5 for the frying pan.

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  • The title was changed to 2020 Mille Lacs Lake Fishing Reports

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