Guide for fall Panfish trip

Like to catch some crappies or perch this fall on ML-Any guide reccomendations?
Thanks

Sorry, but my suggestion is pick a different lake. The smaller lakes in the general area of ML will produce better. But if your mind is made up, start looking in the southeast corner of the lake

smackemup wrote:

Sorry, but my suggestion is pick a different lake. The smaller lakes in the general area of ML will produce better. But if your mind is made up, start looking in the southeast corner of the lake

Agree…not that there aren’t any, just not many. Mille Lacs never was much of a panfish lake except for perch and their numbers are as far as jumbos are down.
As far as a guide though, I highly recommend Tom Neustrom based out of Grand Rapids. A bit farther north but he’s a great all around guide and does quite a bit of panfish/crappie. He’ll work a number of lakes in the area and will put you on fish!
mnfishingconnections.com

There is no perch fishing anymore on Mille Lacs. You may get a few going after walleye but the population is basically too low to target. It’s really sad….

Contact Tony Roach. He is on Mille Lacs and other local lakes every day. If there is a pan fish bite on Milly, he will find it. If not, he guides on other local lakes up there too.

http://www.roachsguideservice.com/

-J.

tim hurley wrote:

Like to catch some crappies or perch this fall on ML-Any guide reccomendations?
Thanks

If its a fall Crappie / Perch trip your looking for. I’d skip Mille Lacs and head to Leech lake. The Jumbo Perch #’s are down a little on Leech but still plenty to be caught. There ate also some monster Slab crappies in there. If you can locate them the bull sunfish in there are huge as well.

Actually, I’d skip Leech too. A good guide might get you on some crappies but I’m not even sure about that. They know the crappies are nice but not “a lot” of them. Not sure they would guide you to them?
From my own experience, the perch quality has gone down in the last couple years too. Lots of dinks with a few nice ones mixed in.
So, unless you’re set on a Minny trip, there are better places for perch and crappies…but both…I’d like to find that place too !
Good luck!

@Phil Bauerly out of the Leech Lake area did a show w/ IDO on small lake crappies last winter. He is on here frequently and I’d contact him to set something up. Whether it be on Leech or a smaller area lake, he’d be my first call.

Don’t forget about the glacial lakes region of South Dakota, lots of potential for all panfish.

Would like to get some ideas for ice fishing (yep already thinking about it) Saw that IDO show but they took sleds out and I do not have one(Or an atv) so I would like to find a lake with good roads out-or a smaller lake so we could walk to spots-also Mill Lacs can be a day trip.
Thanks