Did anyone have success last weekend?

Had a friend do a three generation trip with a sleeper for friday and saturday night. 3 kids, 2 dads, one grandfather, and myself. Setup a small spread of tip-ups on saturday to get more lines in the water as well.

Thankfully they cleaned up the language with kids around. There wasn’t much pretty to say about the fishing. We had a couple of flashers and marked very, very few fish. I think I marked three or four fish in ten hours. Got one to trigger and that’s when I took an hour for hole hopping in the afternoon. The next door house didn’t have a single bite from friday through 8pm saturday.

Still a good weekend for me. Playing cards and hearing old military stories was completely worth it. However I fish regularly. A bit tough for the kids and for grandpa who is getting on a bit in years.

Anyone do better?

Just got back this morning, about an hour in front of the storm. We arrived at Mille Lacs Friday morning, and had our lines wet by 10 am in the sleeper. Five guys and only two rattles the entire weekend, and still pulled up nothing. The guy working the resort, coming around to check in, said that between 28 rentals, there were only 3 fish caught. Believe what you will, but it was the dead sea where we were.

Got up to the pond late Thursday night. Fished Friday and Saturday with my portable out of Castaways. The wife and I managed to scratch out 5 keeper walleyes and 1 jumbo with 3 overs. First light and last light are definantly the best times. Worked a breakline away from the other houses. This is my 3rd trip this year and have not been disappointed yet. Artic Blast is just that, a Blast!

Took a day trip on Saturday with the fiance and a few other couples.

Fishing was very slow for us and we only managed 4 fish all day, which all came on the same tip up. I hole hopped for the majority of the day and must have drilled close to 100 holes without any success. Fish were present in the 32 to 34 foot depths, but nothing would trigger a bite mid-day.

We went up Friday. I came back sat nite. My buddies headed Sunday afternoon. We got 8 walleyes. Two pouts. Multiple misses and one break off. Smallest 16″ largest 26″. All were caught sat between 3 and 7pm. 4 walleyes and one pout came on the same tip up with the same giant shiner. Lol. It wouldn’t die and kept working. The rest were on rattle reels. Jigging would attract them but they would not touch anything moving. Very frustrating. All the bait taken were raised 2 ft off bottom. We had baits at all different depths. all the eyes we saw on the camera were belly to the bottom when they would come through but would not touch the bait unless it was raised at least 2ft. Figured this out with the tipup the 3rd time it was hit. We then raised two rattle reels. Then they both got hit. Tough weekend.

The bite in the house was a little slower then previous weekends for us. The active fish that came through showed up mostly after dark. Shiners on rattle reels were the most productive. Here is a pic of our big fish of the weekend.

If I dont hear any better than this I’ll be taking my sleds to the perch extravahanza for sure and riding instead of trying to catch fish.

The middle of the night bite has slowed a bit now with more snowcover, but the morning/evening primetime bite has been picking up. I didn’t make it out but for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights in our shack out of Castaways I think they had around a dozen ‘Eyes with a couple bonus perch that came through Saturday evening. We’re using all shiners at night with best results on plain hooks in red, gold, or chartruese and running a couple fatheads now during morning/evening hoping the perch are starting to show up. We’ve been starting to see mostly 17-20″ fish now whereas earlier in the year almost everthing was 20-26″ so it’s nice to see that there seem to be pretty decent numbers of multiple year classes.

Also, lately the fish that we’ve been getting have been really gulping the bait down in a hurry. Letting them take it for more than a few seconds often results in hooking them too deeply so we’ve going with a quick set almost immediately after the bobber goes down. I’m not saying others need to set immediatly right off the bat, if you do happen to go out and your first fish or two are hooked deeply please just cut the line and then consider setting more quickly on the next fish

We stayed at Lybacks for the weekend and fishing was very slow. From the guy coming in and checking on us it seemed everyone was slow for catching fish. I was surprised with the fishing being slow even with the storm front moving in. We did manage a 21 inch walleye Saturday night on a tip up but other than that just a few perch. Still a fun trip but wish we could have pulled up a few walleyes.

Thanks for all the feedback! Sounds like our experience was not alone.

I know catching is never guaranteed. However it’s a real tough question on whether to come back. For those that don’t fish often and are doing it as a family experience they were questioning whether it’s worth it. For the money involved they could do something completely different or maybe Red Lake.

I had fun but it’s doubtful this group will come back to Mille Lacs.

Maybe pick the time of year better. Think early or late season might offer better action.

I’m surprised to hear about all the slow bites for people. I’m a lazy, lazy ice fisherman 95% of the time, and we had another very solid weekend. If it’s a “secret” or not, our bite last weekend–and all year–has been best in shallow. As in, 6 ft. We picked up one at sunset on Friday, one overnight, and seven between 6 and 9 on Saturday morning. Nothing all day Saturday (we almost NEVER catch them during the day that shallow), and then another lights-out overnight and morning bite.

We have two fishhouses on the lake, and the “deep” house got outfished by the shallow house about five to one.