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2020 Mille Lacs Lake Fishing Reports


Rick

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Oh No, We've created a monster!!!

Nice fish and good to hear both you and you're wife had a great time. Now go back soon and catch more fish!

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Oh No, We've created a monster!!!

Nice fish and good to hear both you and you're wife had a great time. Now go back soon and catch more fish!

grin
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nice job, now plan on a tradition, just sayin...... grin

yes, have had boat now for 2 years and just wanted to get comfy with it on smaller backyard lakes first and takin the boys out with me a few times. for some dumb reason i just had the itch for mille lacs over the past 3 weeks that i was ready to try & learn there. turns out inner gut instinct was right & im super happy. just need couple more times by myself/with wife b4 taking the boys. need to learn some constant good spots (if thats possible) to keep the boys busy & happy. i do believe a new tradition will arise just like our family camping, hiking, & backyard lake trips. cannot wait & totally enjoying the experiences.

thx everyone!!

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I also will be fishing Mille Lacs for the first time this weekend. I plan to almost exclusively pull lead core to cover some water. Just looking for some generic basic info to get me started. Is any certain corner of the lake more conducive to pulling lead? Would the 20 ft range be a good starting depth to pull plugs in? Thanks for any help!

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I also will be fishing Mille Lacs for the first time this weekend. I plan to almost exclusively pull lead core to cover some water. Just looking for some generic basic info to get me started. Is any certain corner of the lake more conducive to pulling lead? Would the 20 ft range be a good starting depth to pull plugs in? Thanks for any help!

You've got 3-4 days to start searching this forum, where you're going to find answers to those questions and much much more.

People have often said they're trolling over the flats and out in deeper water off the flats or between them. If you have a a map of the lake you'll notice that deeper water between the flats on Mille Lacs is roughly 30 to 35 feet deep. The flats usually top out at roughly 20 to 24 feet deep. So 20 feet is in the ballpark, but not really where the majority of the lead-core trolling is done. Of course the fish may only be 15 feet down in that 35 feet of water, but for that you'll have to rely on your graph.

Again, use the search feature. Scroll around in here and read up as much as you can. The forum here is full of information and you can find it all without waiting for someone to go type a bunch of stuff in response to your specific questions.

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I launched out of Garrison on Saturday with some high expectations..........nice West wind, some clouds, water temp coming down. Fished for over 9 hours on the pond, a 15" walleye and a 14" smallie. Not quite what I was expecting. Fished the flats tops and bottoms, edges.......nothing, fished the rocks til dark (caught the one eye there). Saw maybe 3 boats net fish all day. Gonna try again in 3-4 weeks.

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"high expectations" in August is usually a recipe for disaster... Friday night and saturday morning were very slow for us as well. Didn't get out Sat night becuase of rain/storms rolling through. Sunday morning we caught 7 walleyes. some to big, some to small, and 1 that would have been a keeper but we didn't want to clean one fish.

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Well after five weeks of being unable to fish, I was FINALLY able to get back on a lake. Went out this afternoon and picked up two while trying (fairly unsuccessfully) to learn how to pull planer boards. Went back in, gathered forces, and went out for the night bite.

Ended up getting 10 walleyes. Five were too small to keep, four were beautiful keepers, and one was too big. Fished everywhere and anywhere, and caught fish at each place. Fished the top edge of flats, the bottom edge, some mud/rock transitions, some deep rocks, some mid-depth rocks, and some shallow ones, too. Didn't catch many anywhere, but caught some everywhere. I'm looking forward to the water cooling back down again...tonight we read water temps over 74. I'm ready for fall. smile

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After a decent night on Friday, last night wasn't so hot. Couldn't find anything but TINY walleyes (like, five or six inches long). Maybe we caught all the big ones earlier this year. smile

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My dad and I got out Monday 11:30-2:30 and pulled a 22.5" in from 38 fow on #5 perch with lead core trolling at 2 mph. For the evening we trolled 10-14 ft rocks/weed lines with various #5's and #7's to no avail. Tuesday from 11-3 brought in a 22" on the lead core with the same #5 perch in 34 fow at 2.2 mph. Tuesday evening in shallow again with a large Rock bass and a 20" walleye both on #5 fire tiger. Beautiful days to be out but very little active fish.

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Bite last night wasn't too bad. Well, it wasn't too good, either.

Was out putzing around with planer boards and leadcore. Got a couple, no keepers. Went in shallow and tried to find some slot fish. Found nothing but cigars.

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Fished 8-31 from 3pm-7pm pulling lead and cranks. Got 8 eyes all 20"-25". Jointed #7s and deep little rippers were best. Bright colors worked well for us, as it calmed down we through out a board on the lead, and it worked perfectly picking up the last 2 on the board.

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Picked up two tonight on leadcore, went back and bobbered up the fish that I had marked. Picked up another two. Amazingly, one keeper. Leadcore fish came on jointed shad raps, bobbered fish came on leeches.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Apparently I'm the only guy fishing the Pond. smile Or I'm the only guy catching enough to be proud of...or I'm the only guy who's catching so few that he's willing to share his info! smile

Either way, I only got three tonight, but I didn't try very hard. Too much work and too early of a wake-up this morning to get me much of a late-night trolling bite, so I half-heartedly pulled some leadcore--got one--and bobbered some shallow rock spots--got two--for a total of three walleyes, which, added together, went a total of 67''. All are still swimming, alas. But the night was beautiful, the stars were out, and the wind was light. If I'm not going to catch many fish, it was a good night to do it.

There are still guys out on the lake trolling shallow...I don't know if they're getting any. Hopefully tomorrow night I'll be out there a bit later seeing if I can find some of those hungry fall 'eyes.

Water temps on the lowrance were at 66.

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Went out last night for a few hours. Tried leadcore but didn't catch anything except a few floating weeds. Went into the rocks with the slip bobbers and found a few small ones. Ended up catching five walleyes total. Kept three of them and let the other two go so they could grow up a lot. Also found a few big jumbos, so all in all it was a nice night.

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During the day hours this time of year are guys rigging and getting a few

None of us are set up with leadcore and was wondering our options for during the morning and during the daytime

Any advice would help

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Well Fished most of the day Sat. Went out at 10 from Father hannepin. We didnt ever get too far out from the rocks right out front of the state park. pulled spinners in 10-20 foot transtions and landed 2 (26" & 22"). The bigger one was really skinny and sickly looking. Sores (lice?) on its head as well. We then headed in for lunch. back out around 3 and pulled lead for about an hour and landed another (25"). After dinner we bobber fished from 6-9 and had lots of bites. I missed 4-5. Had one almost to the boat, and it just came off out of nowhere. We ended up putting 2 keepers in the boat, plus a perch and a bluegill.

So no definite pattern for us, but we did land fish with everything we tried.

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We had the same thing bobber fishing on Saturday evening. LOTS of down-up-down-up-down-up bites. When we did catch them, they were usually very nice perch. Even the little tiny walleyes would take it down and (mostly) keep it there.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Went out tonight to work the launch...the boat got 40 with 13 guys. Not sure how many keepers...maybe 20 or so. All in all, fishing was steady but not exceptional.

The trollers were thick on the reefs right at sundown....maybe 40 boats out there. By 11:00 p.m., there were only four or five still trying. I'm guessing fishing was slow, though I haven't heard any reports. There were LOTS AND LOTS of floating weeds in the lake, which might've hindered those pulling plugs.

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More expert information from carmike:

Went out again on the launch tonight. Caught around 60, give or take a fish or three.

After getting in around 11 p.m., I realized that I forgot to pack the hip boots, so I went out wading in shorts. Didn't stick it out that long, but did manage to actually and amazingly catch a real, living, less than 17'' walleye. Legs turned numb, no more fishies hit my homely rattlin' shad rap (easier to cast them into an increasing eastish wind), so I shuffled my way back to the dock. I tried chucking the new Bomber Long A I won at the Fall-Get-Together ealier in the day, but I only managed to catch a really big walleye on it.

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This was my first time fishing this late in the season and Lindy Rig and I got out for a few hours Fri-Sat night. I was surprised at that number of boats out there....it looked like a mini opener. I had no idea fall would be like that on Mille Lacs!!

Friday night we pulled various cranks in 9-15 FOW night in the NE corner for 2-3 hours with limited success (mainly #5-#7 shad raps and HJ's). Finally got a few to hit later Friday evening on #5 jointed shad raps. Decided to change things up a bit around 10pm and pulled out the slip bobbers with leeches. This ended up being the right move as we ended up boating a number of eaters between 10-midnight in 14-15' FOW just off a hump. Ended up catching 10 eye's Fri night between tw of us, and kept 5 around 14" which all the keepers came off slip bobbers.

Saturday around 11:00am I took my daughter out for what ended up being a short 30 min trip, but we were able to get one eye out in 18' FOW on a slipper bobber/leech....just off a hump. I didn't realize I had forgotten the net, so that was interesting trying to grab a 22"+ fish from the water.

We hit up the Friday night spot again on Saturday night for roughly 3 hours with slip bobbers and boated probably 15+....most coming in the last 1.5 hours after we found the spot on the spot (just off a hump). Fished from 7-9:30. We tried on top of the hump in a few different locations with not much success. What really surprised me was that we caught five or six, 6-7" eye's. I had never caught eye's that small, let alone a bunch of them. We picked up 3-4 fish that were 12-14" and kept two, and then had a few slot fish as well.

All in all it was a fun fall weekend! Decent fishing, nice weather, and the fall colors were great!

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Caught a few last night. Got two throwing shad raps and five on bobbers after I anchored up while getting the trolling gear ready. The bigger fish were a little skinny, but the smaller ones (less than 20'') were FAT. Tried trolling for a few hours but didn't get any....pulled rogues, husky jerks, shallow shad raps, deep shad raps, and even some leadcore off the deep breaks. I've got much to learn. smile

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After a very nice bite last night on bobbers, the bite slowed down tonight...only got one nice keeper and one big one while bobbered up.

I'm a very inexperienced troller, so tonight was kind of a surprise. I caught five fish, all too big, while pulling husky jerks....got sick of catching weeds, so I started marking on the gps all the places where there weren't weeds. Eventually, I put together a nice little trolling run, and the fish were there. Five fish might not seem like much, but it's the best I've done trolling ever (not counting leadcore). Wind is now starting to pick up...I'm guessing tomorrow won't be such a nice day/night out on the lake.

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