Area lakes north of Mille Lacs

Looking for guidance please. My buddies and I are fishing Mille Lacs 6/20 to 6/27. One of the days we would like to try another lake for walleye, pike or some pannies to keep for a fish fry. We have fished farm island the last couple of years but wanted to try something different. Any help would be appreciated. You can private message me also. Thanks

Honestly you probably won’t receive much if any information. You seem like a regular contributor, so PM me if you want more info..

Borden, little pine, partridge, turtle, round.

Thanks

You can keep pike out of Mille lacs. Bag limit is 3 under 30 inches.

I’ve never fished or been on Mille Lacs. What’s the draw too this lake? I’ve fished the Brainerd area summer and winter and always enjoyed keeping fish, panfish.

Are there no populations of panfish on ML?

There are sunnies and crappies in Mille Lacs but they are tough to come by.

riverruns wrote:

I’ve never fished or been on Mille Lacs. What’s the draw too this lake? I’ve fished the Brainerd area summer and winter and always enjoyed keeping fish, panfish.

Are there no populations of panfish on ML?

I don’t know what draws everyone else there, but I’ll tell you what draws me, as I was out there on Saturday for about 6 hours. I go there because of the trophy potential that other lakes simply do not have. I have targeted walleye, smallmouth, and muskies there for many years now. Right now you can fairly easily catch an amount of walleyes that are in the mid 20 inch length without much difficulty. Additionally, there is also likely a state record smallmouth and muskie currently swimming in this lake. These are harder to catch at the moment in my opinion. There are also bigger than average northern pike too. It has more and bigger fish than any other body of water that is within reasonable distance of my home than any other lake does (I live in the west metro so I’m about 90 mins from the south shore).

I’m not a meat hunter; I do not fish with the intention of keeping them. I fish because I enjoy it. It has never been about harvesting fish for me, ever. In over 20 years of fishing here. I got to liberty beach access at 7am on Saturday and it was already full with people parking on the highway, so based on this I will say that there were hundreds of other anglers attempting to pursue their outdoor passion just like I was.

As for the panfish…there used to be good numbers of jumbo perch. Not so much anymore. I can’t comment on bluegill or crappie populations or fishing there as I have never targeted them there.

Tough to pick a bad lake in that area. Plenty of pike and panfish on most. Walleyes to but hard to beat mille lacs for those. Wonder if the sunfish will still be on the beds at that time. Fun to sight fish them. We found them last summer on Rabbit lake off 47. Ripple or Elm Island are good lakes to.

My neighbor here is getting plenty of nice sunfish out of Hanging Kettle. North of Farm Island but still south of Aitkin.

Easy access right off 169.

thanks guys. i believe we will give Ripple a try. a Brainerd guide gave me a tip on a 600 acre body of water in that area also. probably do a half a day at each. all reports says the fishing is lights out on Mille Lacs again. only place where awesome fishing is bad news. we will get in before they shut down the targeting of walleye so that is a plus.