2021 Open water thoughts

I did not fish Mille Lacs this winter. I heard the bite was tough.

Any idea why this was? Any evidence of a baitfish or perch hatch? And any guesses if it will carry over into open water season?

lindyrig79 wrote:

Any idea why this was? Any evidence of a baitfish or perch hatch? And any guesses if it will carry over into open water season?

I wasn’t out there either but heard the same both from people I know and on forums. Supposedly due to an abundance of bait fish, which is a good thing. Generally, when the winter bite is tough, so is the following open water season. Doesn’t mean you still can’t try though.

First year in a decade plus I didn’t ice fish Mille Lacs, but from what I’ve heard lots of young perch were the “problem”. Hopefully it does carry over as usually these warm springs are lower recruitment years for the eye’s and it will probably be an extended netting season too.

I only got out a couple of times, the bite was slower, but all the fish we caught were much thicker. I would agree that their had to be a large perch hatch or something, because the skinny walleye didn’t exist this winter.

Most fish we caught were puking up little perch

Would love it if there would get to be a decent jumbo perch population again

Would be great. Would be hard in my opinion. There are a lot of mouths to feed out there.
Winter was average for me. Not great but not horrible. The bite slowed down last fall usually indicator of winter bite.
I scanned some large areas of perch then.

I expect it to be average to above for this spring summer. But we will see.

If slow winter bite was due to YOY perch. Would those same perch still be “bait”? Or would the perch be to big by opener? Just wondering? Don’t know growth rates of perch.

Still can be bait. Just more work to catch and digest. Yoy are like walking around with a bag of skittles. Before you know it they are gone from the bag. These perch are more like starburst. Still tasty more work to open them and chew them.

Fished Mille lacs open water last fall for the first time. Went on a Wednesday after work. From 5 to 7:30 I caught 63 walleye. Nothing under 14″. All with a jig and minnow. Was quite pleased with the results. I only fished 2 spots too. Made a drift with a jig over a flat picked up 4 or 5 on about a 100 yard drift. Then thought I could do better than that so I moved further down the flat and found a second spot. Made a cast, caught a fish. Over and over. Record was 5 casts in a row 5 fish. I’d say it’s an extremely healthy fishery and I’m sure fishing will be great this spring. I’m looking forward to fishing out there more!