Where to start?

Leaving for Mille Lacs right after work tonight. Where would ba a good place to start in the morning. How is the mud this time of year? I don’t like to troll, so I will either be rigging, jigging, or slip bobbers. I have never fished the pond this early in the year, so any advice would be great. Thanks!!

walleye1274,

Sounds like things have been a little tough for the rigging bite last weekend. One thought I would throw your way is the fact that there was quite a bite in the weeds over the past weekend in the lowlight conditions. You know these fish have not gone far. One idea might be to long line lighter rigs over the tops of the weeds early in the am and once the sun gets higher slip out to the outside edge. I like to rig with a bullet sinker in these conditions to pull the lighter rig through and over top of the weeds. I did this early on Saturday morning and got a positive response. I was rigging with a light 1/16th oz and 1/8th oz bullet sinker with about a 3 foot lead and slowly moved over the tops and edges of the weeds keeping the rig way off the bottom for the active fish and start going deeper if you get no response. There is a good population of perch right now in the weeds and the walleyes seem to feed more consistent here early in the season.

Something to think about….
Good luck, I will be up there this weekend as well!

Thanks Steve, good luck this weekend!! I hope the weather holds out for us. Any body else have any info to share? Thanks again!!

If you have some overcast and wind, hit the shallow rock reefs with bobbers and minnows. If there is some sun, search the deeper breaks in the 15-20 foot range with snells and leeches or minnows. Last Sat the fish we targeted with leeches wouldn’t bite, we fished the same fish on Sun with snells and small shiners and they bit. Hopefully the warmer weather this week has made them more predictable.

There are some fish on the mud right now but theres no sense in running over thousands of fish to get to the mud.

Good Luck.