Heading to the lake this week and looking for some tips on where the fish are located and if the basin is the master plan. Gravel? Mud? where are people seeing fish…..? Planning on shallow early and late and deep mid day. Any advise would be SUPER Appreciated! Cranks!!
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trophy, i’m headed there thursday, this is my first time on mille lacs. my plan is also to spend most of my time around the mud flats during the day. it sounds like the basin bite has gotten better the past few weeks, but i really have no idea what to expect. i plan to run taildancers and thundersticks 20-30′ feet down in 30-35 feet of water. i may also try to pull lead over the edges of the flats or over the top.
plan b is to do the same thing around the gravel. plan c is to troll shallower on the weedlines and rocks.
if plan a through c don’t produce i’ll probably just be drinking.
Unfortunately I haven’t made it back home in several weeks… But If I were heading up there this weekend the gameplan I would use would actually be to run smaller baits such as #5 shad raps or #4 Salmo Hornets along the sand/gravel to mud transition line using S-curves back and forth from 24-30′ of water and once in a while even venturing out 1/4-1/2 mile into the basin. Typically as we near September the fish in the basin and flats will start to transition towards the shoreline structure again. I’m not saying that the flats won’t be good, but that’s not where I would start.
Also, as we are getting later into the summer the smaller baits to mimic the young of the year baitfish which are now becoming the primary food source… Specifically this time of year I love hot perch colored #5 shad raps and fire tiger Salmos with 3 colors of Suffix 832 Leadcore (4 colors of traditional leadcore) over the edge of the gravel/sand to mud transition (typically around 25-27′ but use your graph to see where the hardness change occurs) Also orange crawfish colors can be dynamite anywhere near rocks/gravel in late summer so those are the two colors I would start with but keep changing frequently if you’re not getting bit.
This pattern can work anywhere on the lake, but my favorite run will be to start straight out from Hunter’s Point and head North past Malmo and all the way up to the Red Door at 1.8-2.0 mph. Keep a close eye on your electronics for bait with arcs near it and mark those spots to come back and hit with a slower presentation.
If you plan on running live bait I would start with trying minnows either fished a bit faster with a spinner or rigged super slow but I would also make sure bring a handful of Rapala jigging raps and give those a try as well… If you’re not sure about the technique a quick search of the weekly reports that Tony Roach does will give you a great idea of how well it can work on Mille Lacs.
I just got back from 4 days up there. We primarily trolled everyday. There are fish in the rocks, gravel, transitions, flats, and basin. I was never able to locate a big school in the basin, but we did find some areas with fish. The key to our bite was wind. Even in the basin in 32-34′ we couldn’t get a bite each day when the wind died. Big baits, small baits, trolling motor, planer boards, speed, and color really didn’t seem to matter when the lake laid down. Transitions around 30′ seemed to hold the most fish from what we saw. Shad raps and hornets caught most of the fish. I wish I could get up there and try some night fishing soon. Good luck and have fun.
Thanks guys, great info!
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