Brutal Fishing Reports from the Weekend

I have caught up with a few friends and family that went out hard water fishing this last weekend, and all I can say is that it must have been brutal all over. Have first hand reports from Mille Lacs, Vermillion, Red and Lake of the Woods, and none of them were what I would consider good. Lots of skunk days actually. LOW was not skunked, but very, very slow, which is like a skunk on LOW. And reading online reports this morning, I didn’t read of any good bites anywhere either.

Anyone have good luck fishing anywhere?

I passed on this weekend, and decided to make a run up to LOW next week for my last hard water outing. Mid to upper 40’s starting on Sunday, not sure if that is good or bad?!? Hopefully the slow fishing this weekend means for good fishing next week!!!!

Mille Lacs was a bust for us yesterday….one fish in 8 hours and we hole hopped and battled the wind. I only fish ML about once a year…..it can be tough but holy hanna. I think we marked 4 fish all day.

Other than yesterday my hard water season has been really good so oh well.

No idea what next weekend will be like but you don’t know unless you get out there!

Mille Lacs wasn’t gang busters, but we caught quality fish. We never moved off the first break. Stayed shallow. We had at least 10 tip ups go off and only caught 1. The big ones were all done by jigging.

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Vermilion we caught 3 walleye on Saturday, two keepers, in about 6 hours. Wasn’t good but better than people around us we talked to who caught either nothing at all or like one 9″ fish.

On Sunday it was too cold to sit outside so we put out two finicky foolers and two tipups to watch from car for a few hours. I wasn’t keeping up with the freezing though and missed fish. One of the finicky foolers popped the flag and I could see the rod bouncing but the line was frozen in the eyelet and didn’t pull through. Second finicky fooler line had no minnow when I pulled it up and there is no way that could come off without popping the flag unless it happened when the line was frozen somewhere. I was pretty annoyed at that waste of time

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I did good in NW Wis. This was one morning with my buddy. We decided to “limit out” for a change. Caught some other nice gills at a couple other lakes as well.

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suzuki wrote:

I did good in NW Wis. This was one morning with my buddy. We decided to “limit out” for a change. Caught some other nice gills at a couple other lakes as well.

nice!!!!!!! just fried up a batch of them last nite, they were out of the freezer though…….

heading north in 2 weeks to chase perch.

glenn57 wrote:

heading north in 2 weeks to chase perch.

Bring your swim suit and a beach towel Glenn. It might be 60 degrees by then!

Every year its crazy how quick the weather changes in Midwest spring. Just 2 weeks ago it was brutal cold, and now near 60’s in the forecast.

Looking at fish forecaster, not really sure why fishing was so finicky this past weekend?! Should be good next weekend with gradually warming, stable weather into the weekend. But who knows? At least with those temps, hole hopping is a lot more enjoyable.

Alex Fox wrote:

Mille Lacs wasn’t gang busters, but we caught quality fish. We never moved off the first break. Stayed shallow. We had at least 10 tip ups go off and only caught 1. The big ones were all done by jigging.

We were out deeper and caught some fish as I reported in the other walleye thread, but overall it was slow. Obviously this intel is too late to help anyone (myself included), but we had an acquaintance set up in 12′ of water all weekend on Mille Lacs. He caught 16 fish on Saturday and another dozen on Sunday just himself and his son. He said suckers were worthless but small shiners on set lines well off the bottom 3′ or so were their best bet. I think the resorts and most anglers are trained to push deeper toward the gravel and mud and overlook spots where fish have either moved shallower to the first break or perhaps never leave it and are less pressured through the last half of the season.

Buckybadger,

Your report actually concerns me a bit. The guide we are going with on LOW is out 16-18 miles depending on what house he puts us in. And from what I heard on LOW, and now your report, it sounds like fish have started the move to shallow water, readying for spawn. Wonder if I can talk the guide into pulling a house in closer to Pine Island, more shallow?!?

Trust your guide, some of my best fishing on LOW has been in 30ft of water. Mille Lacs is and was different this year.

We were out of Red Door on the drop side of a large flat, Friday night through Saturday afternoon where bad, the group picked up a couple fish. Then Saturday night for my house was better, we ended up with 3 caught in my shack and finally I got a slot fish!

glenn57 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>suzuki wrote:</div>
I did good in NW Wis. This was one morning with my buddy. We decided to “limit out” for a change. Caught some other nice gills at a couple other lakes as well.

nice!!!!!!! just fried up a batch of them last nite, they were out of the freezer though…….

heading north in 2 weeks to chase perch.

We had an impromptu fish fry Sat night with two other couples including my fishing partner and his wife. I cooked up all my fish and it was just enough so my buddy could keep his. 6 people 32 fish. Good luck on the perch. Those are my #1 favorite eating fish.

Perch are my second favorite after them sunfish. Skin on of course.
.thanks looking forward to it.

It took some work.but Saturday was good for us.

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gim wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>glenn57 wrote:</div>
heading north in 2 weeks to chase perch.

Bring your swim suit and a beach towel Glenn. It might be 60 degrees by then!

i wanna fish, not beat back the women that’s why we changed the date, was planned for the 27 of March

We had a OK weekend. As usual, I spent the final weekend of the Pike season with a buddy. We normally end the season with a weekend of chasing Pike to try and get enough to do a batch of Pickled Pike. The Pike didn’t show up on Sat. but the bass did. We ended up keeping several of them on Sat. for pickling and a few smaller ones for baking. The funny thing is almost all the bass were caught on the panfish jigs even though we had 3 tip – ups out. Sunday we managed a few more bass for pickling along with 4 Pike and 12 Sunfish and 2 crappies. All the bass on Sunday came on the Tip-ups. My buddy was rather happy and thinks he should have enough Bass and Pike for about 8 – 10 Jars of pickled fish. and ended up with a meal of baked bass and several meals of panfish. Overall it was a successful weekend of fishing.

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fishthumper wrote:

We had a OK weekend. As usual, I spent the final weekend of the Pike season with a buddy. We normally end the season with a weekend of chasing <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>Pike to try and get enough to do a batch of Pickled Pike. The <em class=”ido-tag-em”>Pike didn’t show up on Sat. but the bass did. We ended up keeping several of them on Sat. for pickling and a few smaller ones for baking. The funny thing is almost all the <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>bass were caught on the panfish jigs even though we had 3 tip – ups out. Sunday we managed a few more <em class=”ido-tag-em”>bass for pickling along with 4 Pike and 12 Sunfish and 2 crappies. All the bass on Sunday came on the Tip-ups. My buddy was rather happy and thinks he should have enough Bass and Pike for about 8 – 10 Jars of pickled fish. and ended up with a meal of baked bass and several meals of panfish. Overall it was a successful weekend of fishing.

What do you do with the bass?

Oh you eat them ! Lol

Not that I’ve done this often but smaller bass are not bad at all to eat in the winter. I’ve also pickled them and they taste just like a northern would when you pickle them.

I’m going to call the glass half full for the weekend. 4 walleyes and 2 jumbo perch on URL to show for it. On the surface you might wonder why I’m happy.

First full weekend and out of town trip with the wheel house. Nothing broke, no drama, everything worked great. Wife did her first weekend on ice and said she would do it again!

Fishing wise it was slow but it wasn’t. ex. saturday from 4pm-8pm I really gave it an effort. Flasher on my jig and another watching a deadstick. I marked 40 fish easy with zero hooked up. All but two where the same story. slowly slide up, take a look, and slowly slide down. Had two that actually chased and came up in the column after my jig, however still wouldn’t actually hit

picked up most of our fish between midnight and 7am saturday night. Also had about 8 other hits on the rattle wheels that couldn’t convert for whatever reason. Really only needed to convert a couple more to say it was really good. Late season doldrums I guess but heck, wasn’t -30 and had a good time

Gino wrote:

What do you do with the bass?

I think it was in the 1980s, a friend showed me an Outdoor News’ recipe for largemouth bass. The first ingredient was one 5 # largemouth.
I don’t think I could catch two. We still laugh about it.

Tried the evening bite fore eyes on Forest but struck out. Were lucky to find a nice crappie bite though.

Gino wrote:

Oh you eat them ! Lol

The only problem I have with eating bass out of cold water is if I have guest over to eat them they all love them so much they want me to take them out in Fall or winter and help them catch them, or want me to keep some to bring to them. People need to get over that bass are not good eating. To be honest I’d rather eat a baked bass than a walleye any day ( But only if out of cold water and if bleed prior to cleaning ) Then again I bleed almost all fish that I keep to eat these days. The larger ones in my picture are larger than I normally keep to bake – These were keep to pickle. The ideal size to keep for baking is around 1.5-2 Lbs.. The smaller 1 lb. fish fry up just as good if not better than any other fish. We have a Ton of lakes around my area that are way over populated with small bass. I have no problem with taking a few dozen each year out of those clear cold water lakes for a few meals.

I was on Upper Red with a buddy. We did very well on Friday evening. Caught 27 fish. Most walleye in the 14-20 inch range. Some of the best action on the ice in a long time.

Saturday was much slower with the cold front rolling through. We still managed to scratch out 12 more throughout the day and evening.

Good times…

patk wrote:

I’m going to call the glass half full for the weekend. 4 walleyes and 2 jumbo perch I marked 40 fish easy with zero hooked up. All but two where the same story. slowly slide up, take a look, and slowly slide down.

That’s a tough bite but keep things in perspective. Even during the best bite windows of the year – during the open water season – I commonly have 8 or 9 walleyes follow without biting before one actually strikes. This is during a ‘good bite’ and is confirmed on Livescope time and time again. They seem to be a curious creature and many seem to have no intentions of biting – but just want to look at the lure you are using. Perhaps our lures are simply interesting to them. After all, it’s got to be pretty boring down there under the ice all winter. The other possibility is they are capable of tasting/smelling the lure without the risk of actually biting something that might be potentially harmful to them? Who knows why they sniff without biting but they do it a lot – both summer and winter.

We were on Mille Lacs and caught around 25 between two fish houses. All fish were caught between 5:30 PM and 9:00 AM. It’s been a night bite for us all year long. Only 3 were in the current slot limit. What I have been mainly targeting all Ice season out there were transition areas between bars or rock piles. Its worked out for us pretty good this year.

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Gino wrote:</div>
Oh you eat them ! Lol

The only problem I have with eating bass out of cold water is if I have guest over to eat them they all love them so much they want me to take them out in Fall or winter and help them catch them, or want me to keep some to bring to them. People need to get over that bass are not good eating. To be honest I’d rather eat a baked bass than a <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleye any day ( But only if out of cold water and if bleed prior to cleaning ) Then again I bleed almost all fish that I keep to eat these days. The larger ones in my picture are larger than I normally keep to bake – These were keep to pickle. The ideal size to keep for baking is around 1.5-2 Lbs.. The smaller 1 lb. fish fry up just as good if not better than any other fish. We have a Ton of lakes around my area that are way over populated with small bass. I have no problem with taking a few dozen each year out of those clear cold water lakes for a few meals.

Small bass out of cold water are also one of my favorites. Absolutely delicious. So many people doubt it , and talk about how gross they are , but thats just not true. Now warm water bass is no good. Very mushy