Is Mille Lacs Headed for a Disaster?

I feel like I am about to jump into a ring of lions here but I read every post before I spoke.I spen alot of time on Mille Lacs and really enjoy it as a guide,sportsman and tourney angler.As a guide can`t beat it for happy clients taking lots of pictures and being able to learn just about any walleye technique they want.Tourney`s are tough but we all have the same rules when they are followed ha ha LOL.Slot fish are there my last guide trip we had 9 in the slot for around 100 fish total and I did not target them by any means.I have also caught only 3 perch to date so no dought the numbers are down for whatever reason I do not know for sure.Here comes my point mother nature will equalize somehow.Is it a food shortage or just huge numbers of walleyes available.I have seen mostly healthy fish and have had 28″ fish right on for weight to inches scales.Yes I have caught some skinnier fish but nothing alarming to me.One thing that was metioned once in all this that I will bring to attention is the crayfish boom and the eyes are chowing them so get out your craw colored baits.I have felt hundreds of crawfish pinching at my rigs as I drift.It feels like the ultimate lite bite.It just seems like when one food chain hurts another booms and the predator fish adapt.I think that the crayfish boom will fill a void and be an equalizer for the perch.Many healthy walleye lakes survive without a big perch population.Again I ask is it a food shortage we are experiencing or are the numbers way better then we know and we can just enjoy some awsome walleye fishing??????????????Just my opinions and we all know what opinoins are like.Brett

First off, Brett shouldn’t you be pre-fishing in Devil’s??? Good Luck up there!!!!!!

I also want to say I’ve enjoyed this “conversation” very much. Most importantly, the lack of venom, which is a standard for FTR/FTL.

As for the big pond, I’m going to fish it as much as possible for the rest of the summer. What other body of water can you go to and consistently feel confident you’re going to catch a wall hanger?? I love giving the digital cam a workout while up there. I don’t go there to catch slot fish, I go there to catch memories. It does worry me that the primary forage is down, but the walleye is a great predator, they’ll adapt. If not, mother nature will take care of us. I get little paranoid, I saw what happened to Oahe first hand. She’s finally starting to come back now. Mille Lacs seems to be the opposite, huge numbers of large fish vs. small fish.

I’ve caught the 4 biggest fish of my life on this body of water in the past two summers(maybe MN isn’t so bad I can’t wait until the next trip!!! So let’s all enjoy the lake while it’s hot, maybe it will stay this way for years to come. I hope so.

after reading waterfowlers last post i want to clarify something – i was not infering that the people on this board had the negative attitudes toward native americans – but it is something i hear quite frequently whenever the subject of mille lacs comes up. i don’t always get what’s in my head down clearly on paper.

i apologize if i offended any of the members of this board.

I certainly didn’t take your post that way Todd. I just wanted to say how much I enjoy the conversations here on FTR/FTL in general. I just plagiarized(sp?) part of your statement, since it seemed to fit very well in the context of my feelings. This is an emotional subject for us all, that could get “out of hand” very easily. We all want what’s best for the fishery, and we all have our opinions.

Have a great 4th!!!

John

Last night while out on the lake I noticed the most dead fish floating so far this summer. The water temp has made it up to the lower 70’s on the surface and is as high as 78 along side the dock in the shallows!
It was a sad site to see……..many fish in the 20 inches and above.
We all need to take the proper time and handle our released fish vary carefully. I have heard of the circle hooks working well. And have read of the sores that some have noticed on the fish, of which I think are from the handling of them? Catch the fish and CPR as quick as possible.

Jon J in an earlier post said the restrictive slot 14-16 or 14-18 is only 14 months old and started at the beginning of the 2001 season. Someone correct me if im wrong but i know it has been in place longer than that. I know in 2000 there was a 14-18″ slot.
Just got done reading an interesting article in the “Outdoor News”. One of the most interesting things in the article was the fact that the lake is filled with an abundance of smaller young fish. And as pointed out by H2O up above….its those smaller fish that will keep the baitfish population from coming back…not the bigger eyes.

I like the bantor going on here! It is like a tennis match! 15-love Jordan, 30-15 Holst! You guys are both right! I still have more questions than answers. Drawing on personal observations on other bodies of water, when you remove predators or prey, you end up with a lopsided food chain. Mother nature will correct that, an the inch-worm effect will go on over a period of years. Many MANY fish over the slot right now in the lake, right? Very few baitfish, ie; perch, shiners, tulibee, etc., right? YOY walleye are going to be on the menu for these larger walleye. I still don’t believe that a 23+ inch walleye can sustain it’s body weight on bugs alone. The adult walleye population will be doing what we can’t. They MAY eliminate or badly decimate this year class of walleye. Like James said, opening up the slot on the larger fish may not have an impact on this. Because, no one knows how many is too many….how many is too few…etc. The data will be coming in within the next two years in my opinion. I think a very valuable lesson will be learned and may help in the direction all of us are led in regards to Mille Lacs in the future. At Red Lake, you removed a majority of the predators from the lake, ie; the walleye. Bait fish, and in this case crappie populations exploded! In Mille Lacs case we have the opposite thing happening. The gamble here is, will the baitfish populations regain their footholds with the populations of larger walleye in the lake right now. Stay tuned, the book is being written chapter by chapter. We all has ideas on what may happen. There is/are no right or wrong answers yet. But, I AM having the time of my life catching these pigs now!….And when the pendulum switches back the other direction, we will be again calling it the “Dead Sea”, and bragging about all the perch and tulibee we are getting through the ice!!!
Tuck