Dead Sea AKA: Lake Mille Lacs

Got the honor of filling in an empty seat to The Pond after my softball tourney in crystal was cut short. But, WOW; I cannot believe all the Tulibee and Walleye floating around in the lake. I’m absolutely stunned, and quite saddened as well. We went out late afternoon Saturday and drifted lindy’s and jigs in the deep mud flats. Managed to catch a very unhealthy looking 26.5″ wally and quickly snapped a pic and let her dive back down to the depths. But that was about it; one wally, and a fat perch. After that tough day we went ahead and fished at my buddy’s cabin on Clear Lake and caught a bunch of LM bass. Overall, I was completely heartbroken on what I saw on Mille Lacs. Just out of curiosity, because of all the zebra muscles; do they consume a lot of the algae/plants therefore potentially eliminating a lot of oxygen? could that be one factor contributing to the kill? or is it just the heat? I’ve also heard that the invasive species gives the lakes more water clarity. Sun + more sun penetration = warmer water and fish kill? just wondering.

Thanks for reading:
-@Matty_X_Ice

too many days in the 90’s has brought the water temps up into the low 80’s. when the wind blows and mixes up the water it only drops down to about 78. you have to remember that mille lacs is at the lower end of the tulibee range, so there will be bigger kill offs because the water warms up more, for a longer period of time. i havent seen as many walleyes as of late, but have herd of a number of dead muskies floating as well. with the nw winds last week, the south shore has piles of dead fish. in some of the areas that i have been to, i have counted between 75 to 100 fish in 100 feet of shoreline. talked to a neighbor and he buried 106 from his 100 feet of shoreline. i don’t think that the zebs have anything to do with it. i was talking to eddie lyback and he said that about 40 years ago there was another bad kill and to go water skiing, you had to go out at least 3 miles to find clean water.

Normal for the pond. You missed it by about 2 weeks… Clear by Glen ? Found out 2 weeks ago, it is full of small sunfish

I have to agree that sure is an unhealthy looking fish…The SMB we caught last weekend on the big pond sure looked plump and well fed.

Fished Sat and Sun and I also saw a lot of dead floating tullibees. Almost all of these were big – 1-2 lbs. It’s hard to judge a 130,000 acre lake by catching only one walleye. We caught around 40 and almost all them looked very healthy. There’s been numerous tullibee die offs throughout the years and there will be more in the future. Mille Lacs is an amazing fishery that has historically survived all kinds of fishing pressure, invasive species, fish die offs and even gill netting.

I have been here since Thurs and have caught several fish Life is good on the pond. YES lots of dead tullibees but I am not seeing the numbers of dead walleyes everyone is talking about Spent 12 hours on the water today. Still 6 more days to go

Any muskies yet?

Quote:

---

Normal for the pond. You missed it by about 2 weeks… Clear by Glen ? Found out 2 weeks ago, it is full of small sunfish

---

G…The bigins are in a hole between the two islands

The white fish are dying on Winnie also. Mother Nature at work. I’ve seen this before on Winnie, about 8 years ago. The Walleye population continues to thrive.

I agree it sucks to see the tullies floating, but over an extremely hot period last summer (or possibly 2 years ago) I actually think it looked worse and I can assure you that there was still a very healthy population last winter. As for walleyes what I’ve been seeing are mostly very healthy fish and no more floating than a normal year. I’m looking forward to another very good fall and winter of fishing again this year

hey Will doesn’t Clear Lake have some of those highly sought after red eye roughy?

Quote:

---

hey Will doesn’t Clear Lake have some of those highly sought after red eye roughy?

---

It’s a world class roughie fishery

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Normal for the pond. You missed it by about 2 weeks… Clear by Glen ? Found out 2 weeks ago, it is full of small sunfish

---

G…The bigins are in a hole between the two islands

---

Thanks for the heads up I asked a buddy up there last time and he says… there in 12 fow… turns out, you can find 12 fow all the way around it Had a good swim though

I still think fishing is pretty good: I did 10 fish by myself on Thursday in less than 4 hours, 11 fish on Friday in 2 hours with 5 in the boat and managed 3 Saturday in just over an hour before we were forced off the water…

I will take those results any day of the week

-ted

Caught 50 plus last weekend.All were fat and healthy. Lots of dead tulies but they float for day’s even weeks out there. The lake will be fine as long as we do our part and get them back in the water as soon as possible.