Any ideas

My boat had a slow night last night. No big deal, thats fishing. However, I am very concerned about the big fish in the lake. I caught a 28 inch fish last night that was literally as skinny as a broom handle. The bigger fish I have caught this fall look terrible and I know others have reported the same.
These fish were fat as hell in June and even into July when I was fishing every weekend.

The only thing that I can think of that would have an impact so fast would be the tulibe die off.

Your thoughts?

I hope the forage base recovers soon if that is the issue.

I dont have a clue or any insight for on this for you, but..

Happy Birthday

Evolving to slip thru the gill nets?

I have been very bummed about the shape of the walleyes up there this fall.Most look sickly.A 27 incher that weighs 4.7 when it should be 7 to 9 this time of year doesn’t bode well for wintering over.

All the fish we caught last night were in pretty decent shape. First fish of the night puked up what appeared to be 3 perch into the boat so he was eating something.

Most of the fish we caught last night appeared to be healthy. We caught a 28″ fish that weighed 7 pounds on my digital scale. That seems a little light but not terrible. A couple of the shorter fish were very chunky.

The fish I’ve been catching have all seemed OK, especially the shorter (like, less than 23” fish). Some of them are downright pigs. A few of the long ones have been pretty skinny, but I haven’t seen anything that makes me overly concerned….yet.

I wonder if this has to do with where on the lake we’re all fishing. Could forage differ so significantly on the lake that where I fish (northwest side) has substantially fatter fish than elsewhere?

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The only thing that I can think of that would have an impact so fast would be the tulibe die off.

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The only time I was on Mille Lacs after the die off started., there were only large tullibees floating. Almost literally any tullibee we saw would not really be possible to put down a walleyes throat. Or I could be wrong about that, but seems impossible.
Jack

it’s not the tullibee dieoff, there is a dieoff every year. some years worse than others. the walleyes focous on the 2in to 8in tullibees, not the 12in to 18in fish that died off. i am not seeing the small perch in the shallows as i did 5-6 years ago. the inshore perch bite that occurs this time of year has not happened for the past 2-3 years. is this a natural cycle, or has the mass netting that occurs every spring have something to do with it??? has the apple cart been upset??? i think so.