Well finally got all the dust off the ice fishing equipment and made a weekend out of it!! 
Well saturday wasn’t much fun with the wind! 
I found many of times sitting in my fish trap day dreaming of the warm days sitting in the boat with no wind. Holy wind batman. I am very surprised that I didn’t go sailing across the ice. I was fishing in the same spot that I did really well late in the fall trolling. 
Well to my amazement I found out why those fish were there. Holy small perch! They are everywhere. At times the Aqua View was full of these tiny perch!! No walleyes for the day just a lot of those perch.
On to sunday, I decided to go to my other go to fall trolling spot. What a difference a day makes weather wise. Beautiful day. I found my breakline I was looking for and almost immediatley the perch bite was on!! I continued to catch a decent amount of perch throughout the day. (50ish) All in the 8-12″ range!!! I also kept a good meal as well. I wanted to find the walleyes though! As it got darker I moved closer to the break and the walleyes started to move in. The biggest of the day was a fat 19.5″. I think I ended up catching 6 or 7 fish in the peak sunset bite. Then it was time to go!
I assume the perch are biting on any sharp shoreline break on the lake. I talked with a few other fisherman who also reported great perch action with the occaisonal walleye mixed in. The lake ice is in great shape right now. 7″-9″ of solid ice everywhere I went this weekend, however I did not make it out any farther than about 1/2 of a mile! Its kinda weird feeling walking on crystal clear ice and seeing rock piles beneath you!
Its shaping up to be a great perch year on Mille Lacs, along with a good walleye year!
Sorry no pics to show, tough to snap those pics when fishing by yourself!!!
Good luck to all, and BE CAREFUL!!!!
December 12, 2005 at 5:01 pm
#1297277
for a hole in the ICE 