Mille Lacs Bassmaster AOY Updates

I did notice that also captain musky. He was the only one that did not thank his sponsers. From my understanding they were not allowed to pre fish the lake for the last month until Monday or tuesday of last week. I think I heard Seth fished it real hard last year around this same time which was totally legal. I also became riveted to the weigh ins and watched all of the second and third weigh ins. I be leave Linders said he was surprised how one of the pros figured out the red door run a 4 mile stretch. I thought oh someone has told him about that. It was also cool to see a couple thank you’s go out to twin pines. They mentioned A Linda that fed them well. It will be quite interesting to see how much business this attracts for all the resorts that are still running up there. I also have a feeling I may be following them next year to watch Seth. The last thing is I think they had a huge crowd for the final weigh in compared to other tournaments

The Bass elites may share information amongst each other ONLY within 30 days of the tournament, but it has nothing to do with being sponsored by the same companies, its simply friendship based. The elites are not allowed to pre-fish within 30 days of the tournament other than the specified BASS practice days preceding the tournament. They are all susceptible to a polygraph at any point during the events, of which Luke Clausen failed earlier this year which cost him a top 12 finish and lots of $ (seemed bogus). The rule is pretty obscure as to what is considered “soliciting” information and the elites have said it should be defined better to prevent a DQ from failed polygraphs if a random person just tells you about good areas out of the blue trying to help.

The biggest issue now is how many years it will take the DNR to reduce limits on Smallmouth on Mille Lacs that they opened up greatly to save the walleyes based on zero factual information. Some elites had been informed that many of the smallies could be 15+ years old… The DNR took information on all of the fish caught and released them with a 99.7% survival rate. Even with live bait their walleye hooking mortality figures are a complete joke.

TripleA wrote:

The DNR took information on all of the fish caught and released them with a 99.7% survival rate. Even with live bait their walleye hooking mortality figures are a complete joke.

I agree the calcs used by the DNR seem to be off considerably, but you must agree that Bass release FAR better than walleyes even on days where water temps are cold.
It still shows well for the tournament and how they care for the fish to have that success rate considering those fish are bouncing around in a livewell for hours and miles of pounding to the weigh in.