There’s no way I’m going to be the first guy to bump Rob – Lip Ripper’s report from the top of the heap so sharing it here will just have to do… lol
I fished with Tom “Blue Fleck” Donaldson last week – Sunday and we had good, but not great, action on smallies on Mille Lacs. Water clarity was fair to very poor in some of the bays following the heavy rains a few days prior to our arrival. The main lake or reefs off-shore more than a quarter mile or so were completely unaffected. A few small bug hatches were taking place in the evening but I doubt they were strong enough to be an affect on the fishing. The pressure from the tournament the weekend prior was VERY evident as many, some days approaching a vast majority, of the fish caught showed signs of being caught recently.
When we first arrived on Wednesday last week we had a pretty good topwater bite. This was not to last with the bite switching heavily towards fishing tubes and stick worms (senkos, dingers, etc.) very slowly. Personally I go to mille lacs to catch mega-smallies on topwater so losing out topwater bite was a major bummer. Not that catching a smallie on a senko is a bad thing… a 3.5 lb smallie is a fun fish on light tackle no matter how it gets itself caught. However, fishing a senko correctly is such a mind-numbing affair that if I ever meet someone that claims to enjoy fishing these baits I will go into a sputtering, arm-waving fit on the spot. 
We caught our best fish in a fairly particular situation… small patches of isolated reeds over a rocky bottom. When we found this type of structure we found fat and heavy bass that were much more aggressive than fish we found elsewhere. In fact, we did run across some HUGE schools of big smallies on sand that we simply could NOT tempt into feeding. At one point I can honestly say we had dozens of 3.5 lb + smallies around our boat… with one particular pair that were 6 Lbs or better or I’ll eat my hat. Could we get them to bite? Not a chance. At one point I was watching one of Tom’s baits work back through the school only to see each and every smallie that came within 6′ of the bait…. move off slowly to the side away from the bait. 
Anything fished quickly through or over these fish would cause the fish to scatter quickly. We never did figure out for certain why these fish were where they were but we did come to the conclusion that if they were going to get caught, it was going to be on a different day or by better anglers than us. A short move to different structure (large rock near a sharp drop to deeper water) and we were into fish within minutes.
On our best day on mille lacs we might have hit 25 fish. On our poorest maybe 8 – 10. Nearly everything we caught was 18 – 19 inches or better with almost no small fish coming to the boat unless we threw small mepps spinners…. then the sizes caught ranged wildly from 19.5″ all the way down to palm sized.
We had our best topwater action on the east side while our best numbers came from the west. 5 – 8 feet of water was best for us and we frequently caught numbers of fish by positioning the boat on top of a reef and casting our tubes out over deeper water and allowing them to slowly sink. Nearly all fish came on the drop. The key areas to try this technique on a given reef were always were the reef dropped the sharpest into deeper water. A slow taper to the deeper water held few fish.
What’s the status of the spawn? That answer depends on who you ask. Tom and I felt the spawn was nearly completed. The beds we found were largely abandoned. The few nests we found with males nearby were not being aggressively guarded… we tormented a few lingering males with various baits but they would neither pick up our offerings of even acknowledge their presence. At one point Tom literally “parked” a sweet beaver on top of a large male on a bed. He seemed to appreciate the shade more than anything and I’m quite certain I saw this bass throw Tom a rather disgusted look once or twice… lol
Other anglers said they felt the spawn was in full swing while others proclaimed the spawn had yet to even start.
We had a good time but we still need to scratch that topwater itch so we’ll be back right after 4th of July. With a little luck the bass will be back to looking over their heads for their next meal and we’ll get to enjoy some big smallies on chuggers!
