The latest from EFN Pro-Staff’er James Holst points to an improving bite and some suggestions on how to put some more fish in your boat this weekend if you’re coming up to do so night bite trolling on Mille Lacs Lake.
http://www.fishthelake.com/fishing_reports/index.asp?id=423
Good fishin’,
EFN Webstaff
Great report James,
Are you still finding the gravel/weed mix to hold the “small pods” of fish right now? Are the weeds pretty high yet up there? Just wondering if some of them have started to drop down?
Looks to be a serious cool down approaching for the weekend. Lows in the high 30’s in the Mille Lacs area, with highs in the upper 50’s. This will definately bring cooler waters!!
Good Luck to everyone thats makes it up there this weekend!
Very interesting. I’ll be on the big pond tonight, tomorrow night, and Saturday night. I have a feeling the water temp will just get to the right range as we will be heading back. Oh well, if we don’t do well – it won’t be for a lack of effort.
I had a tough outing on Saturday and pretty much anything will be better than that. One note: with the water so high, it took some getting used to seeing 7-8′ depths over the places I was catching fish last year in 6-7′.
I’ll be camping at Father Hennipen Sunday and monday. I was hoping somebody would be willing to share a little personal knowledge involving “the night bite”. Are your productive areas off-shore? Rocks, gravel, weeds,??? Key depths to target? Do the fish move shallower over the course of the evening? One last question anybody catching the occasional night muskie? Thanks guys, maybe I’ll see some of you on the water.
I’m seeing more and more fish moving shallow now with the bite improving a little each night. Last night was pretty darn good until the storm and lightning moved into the area… after the first distant flashes of lightning the bite completely stopped and within 30 minutes the lightning chased us from the lake for the night.
Our best bite has moved from the gravel-weed spots I had been working to in-shore rock reefs and rocky points on the south west corner of the lake. Primary depths have been centered around the 8′ depth range but our better fish did come slightly deeper. The bite kicked in pretty good about an hour after dark and was consistent right up to the storm front’s arrival. Water temps had dropped to 66 degrees at launch time last night and should continue to fall quickly with todays windy and cooler conditions. No muskie for my boat yet but good numbers of 5 – 8 pound pike to bother a guy. I’ve been talking to the creel survey guy working the lake as well as the other anglers I’m running across and it sounds like the muskie fish has been “off” considerably… but that’s second hand info. Our largest fish last night ran in the 27″ range with good numbers of 24″ – 26″ fish. Plus two slots that looked so dinky compared to the rest of our catch that their appearance in the boat brought quite a chuckle. If you think a 14″ fish looks small anyway, you should see it hanging off the rear treble of a 6″ stickbait!
My perception of the bite is that its improved markedly over the last couple days and just about all the traditional fall trolling spots should begin to produce fish… if they haven’t already. I’ll be interested to trade some info with folks after the weekend to see how the rest of the lake is fairing… I can only fish so much of it ya’ know and there’s just so few anglers out after dark right now that I feel like the only guy fishing it.
I included a attached pic frm last nigh to this post…. not our biggest fish… but a good picture for sharing.
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