Heading up to the mille lacs this weekend hopefully getting my old man on a couple walleyes. Any of you “Big Ponders” have any advise. I’m going to start out hitting the edges and top of mud flats rigging leeches and probably spinners and leeches. Anything else working? Lead core? Any advice would be helpful. Thanks
Well your thought strategy is a great start! I was out most all last week and found some success rigging leeches, but make sure to bring crawlers as they may be starting to prefer those? My neighbor up there did real well trolling leadcore off and all around the flat edges midday and early evening. I would have been on that but didn’t have any leadcore setups. I’m going to pick up a couple tomorrow! If you get it dialed in, you should do well with both numbers and size. Do your best to get them back in the water as quick as you can. Good luck. 
I think you’ll do well with what you’ve got planned. It seemed to me that leeches were taking bigger fish. I’d recommend pulling spinners with leeches and crawlers. I think you’ll get good numbers pulling slow death rig the too.
I have heard some success trolling cranks but that was some pretty limited info.
We found lots of walleyes in 10 to 14′ trolling gravel on the shoreline. Middle of the day flat calm. Pulled #6 flicker shads about a cast behind the boat. Im guessing there are lots of fish in the lake or they are very hungry. Or both.
We also got a few eyes casting ripping raps to the edges of a reef. Even had one walleyes here follow a hooked one up to the boat.
Thanks for all the advice. I’m rigged up ready to go. My dad wants to go out of isle because he is a smallmouth guy and that would play nice with the SE Wind tomorrow, but I’m thinking of going NW and hitting the mud. Have never tried smallmouth on the west side but I’m sure I can find a few rocks to cast to. I guess that will be the fall back plan if the eyes are uncooperative. Rippin rap bite sounds very enticing though. I will report back tomorrow night.
Well I can say it was a very interesting Saturday 7/9 on mille lacs. This was my second time ever fishing mille lacs. I brought my dad and father in law and told them to expect a great walleye bite. Weather was great with a slight chop out of the SE. We got out on the water at 7am from the Garrison landing and fished mud flats till 1pm and only boated 4 walleyes all caught by myself rigging a leech. We tried spinners with crawlers and leeches with no luck. Was marking fish on the top and deep side of the flats with most fished marked in the 26-30 foot range. By 1pm I was really eating my words and felt bad for there skunked day. Switched up and casted for smallmouth for a couple hours and my father in law boated 2 smallies on the small side and my dad hooked up but lost his at the boat. Both bass were caught on yellow craw wiggle wart. So by 3pm we went back to pulling rigs and leeches a little defeated. The wind pick up slightly and I hit the wind blown edge of a mud flats started marking lots fish in that same 26-30 foot range. All of a sudden we had a double. To say the least I totally redeemed my self cause from 3-7pm we caught 30+ walleyes on that same 100 yard stretch. 10 were over the 20 inch Mark. My father in law caught 8 or so walleyes plus a PB 24″ and my dad caught 5 walleyes with a nice 23 1/2″ plus 2 bonus jumbo perch. I had the hot hand and caught 20 walleyes with 22″ being my biggest. Water Temps were 71 degrees in the morning, and warming to 74 degrees by the afternoon. Only seen 2 floaters that were both over the 25″ Mark. Overall it was a successful day with lots of great memories. The great afternoon bite was just the icing on the cake.
20160709_171510.jpg
20160709_182421.jpg
Great day! Mille Lacs is currently the hottest walleye destination in the state. But ssshhh…nobody else can know about this!
So far this year I’ve had more success over mud instead of gravel. Which sucks for me because I’m fishing out of Wahkon. Tried Otto’s, 4 Mile, and Sloppy with little success. Was up all last week and saw quite a few 20+ fish off the mud using bottom bouncers and crawlers on a plain hook. Biggest we boated was 26.5″. What gives me the most hope is that there were 12-14″ fish mixed in. That gives me hope for another year class.
Saturday morning, 7/9, I counted 15 boats, plus me, fishing around Sherman’s flat. It was a good sight to see after having the lake to myself all week.
This was the story on Mille Lacs for me on Saturday. Fish were obviously feeding on bugs and not feeding. We had to work for our fish pulling spinners around the mud flats. Fun to see the graph looking like that….frustrating not to catch as many.
lowrance-screen-shot.jpg
We hit the deep gravel at about 9 a.m. Saturday pulling lead and #5 shads. We boated 12 fish from 9-11, so one every 10 minutes which was encouraging.
Pulled boards with TD-11’s with some limited success, but the fish were out there.
Saturday I started on 7 mile and it was slow. Marked a lot of fish and what looked like plenty of bugs. Saw a couple of fish caught was all. I moved to Center flat, Gregs, and Fishers. Marked very few fish and saw 2 caught. Then went to Seguchie and got a double, and that was it there. That was 11AM. I went back to 7 mile and got one more. At 2pm I stopped on a small rock area on my way back and that was better with 6 fish in an hour and a half. I wished I would have switched to the rocks earlier in the day, but that is fishing.
Was out Sunday, on that reef just outside Garrison Bay. Pulled spinners behind bottom bouncers and did very well. The bigger fish came on leaches and the numbers came in crawlers. After lunch we pulled cranks off Sherman’s point and got a few more (biggest was 25″). Great day on the water.
We were up on Saturday & Sunday not quite as good of numbers as last weekend but the storm early Sunday am kept us off the water til 10 or so and we had to head home about 3pm. Covered several flats looking for big marks, when we would find some we would work that area for some time. Still had best luck on copper or gold variations of spinners w/natural color beads and crawlers over leeches. Had 9 22-26.5in and 15-20 in the 13-17in range Saturday. Sunday we landed 5 between 20-24in and 13 smaller mid teens eyes. Had to work pretty hard for them but still had a good time. Be back on Friday to try again!
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
