How Frustrating

i went out for a few hours monday 6/22 looking for some of the piggies i see on here all the time. we must have seen 15-20 smallies but they would not bite. we literally threw everything at them. from tubes,to worms,to spinners,cranks,rapalas,crappie jigs,plugs, even the as seen on tv lures like the flying lure,and the banjo minnow. what do you think i was doing wrong? by the way never got a single one to even bite

Try your bow next time.

Could be that if you saw them, they saw you and got spooked. Most of the smallies I’ve caught on Mille Lacs are not fish that I can see.

What color of tubes and worms were you using? Did you use senkos or similar stick worms? How did you fish the plastics?

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Try your bow next time.

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I thought those were for catfish only!

Try using leeches under a slip bobber

long casts and a wacky rigged 4″ senko might do the trick.

Timing is everything.
I’ve run into this many times around the spawn. And it means most likely those fish moved onto beds the next day.
I’ve had 30-40 fish days, gone back the next day and can’t hardly buy a bite with fish swimming everywhere. Then the next day those fish will be on beds.
On those dreaded days we went ultra small with our presentations. Very small doll flies and threw them as far as we could. Tough fishing but it caught us a few.
The other solution is to be on the water before the sun comes up if you know the fish are close to moving up. For some weird reason it seems they can’t resist a floating rapala lying motionless. You need to fish the edges of .
known spawning areas. This action will last an hour or two right at sunrise.
OR
Those fish just finished spawning and it will take them a few weeks to get back at it.
For those as mentioned a weightless senko is the trick.
Good luck

live bait and cork, get them all the time corkin the rocks during the day for eyes.

I have had those days to. I think it is the high pressure, blue bird days. I don’t think there is anything you can do. They just don’t want to bite on days like that.

In my experiences if it is so calm you can see them swimming everywhere they won’t be interested in biting.

yah did everything i could, from black to white to red, even pink and purple they were not eating anything. just have to try it again one of these days. i didnt try live bait but i wouldnt on these fish either, i would hate for a big 20 incher to swallow a hook and not survive

Was out yesterday mid afternoon when it was dead calm. We only had walleye gear and got about 8 in an hr or so . Some real pigs. We used a leech with a bullet wieght. We only caught fish we saw.