Mille Lacs Fishing Reports

Gonna try to get up there this week. Any recent reports?

I hear the landings were packed this weekend, so the bite must be on fire.

Bite is good. Fish are moving off shore structure and are all over main lake structure. Caught fish on rocks and mud. Rigging leeches slip bobber and drop shot.

I would not say on fire. Decent though. Fish were out on the mud this weekend. Also still in shore depending on wind and clouds.

Thanks guys. It could be on fire for some and not for others. That happened to me once last year when I struggled and others posted here that they caught a lot the same day.

Judging by the MTT results, I’d say fire lol.

I’ll be up Thursday through Sunday this week pre fishing for the Tournament this weekend. Looking forward to sharpshooting fish for four days.

Was up last week the 28th-2nd. Fishing mostly smallmouth, catching a lot of walleyes in 8-12ft on neds rigs/swims. Im sure its warming quickly and they might be sliding out a bit deeper, but there were plenty of fish in shallow still.

Saturday night I caught 20-25 on the NW sand with a bobber and a leech from 7:30 to 9:30. They didn’t want anything else. Pulled some rigs through the same area and only caught one. Fished the rocks in the morning and pulled 4 out in an hour, one over 20, again bobber and a leech. It’s terrible but I’m getting tired of bobber fishing, but that seems to be the method that puts the most numbers in the boat.

Chris Messerschmidt wrote:

Judging by the MTT results, I’d say fire lol.

I’ll be up Thursday through Sunday this week pre fishing for the Tournament this weekend. Looking forward to sharpshooting fish for four days.

My neighbor and good buddy ran the mtt and said the bite was fire for those boys.

I was on the phone with a friend as he was asking about the bite, I caught 6 while on speaker with him. Nothing big, but it’s Canada like fishing right now.

There was an AIM event out of Hunters Point yesterday and the winning team put up over 41 pounds of walleye on 5 fish, for a over an 8 pound average per fish.

https://software.aimfishing.com/event/259/isle-mn

AIM uses a very generous length/weight conversion. Saturdays Walleye shootout uses the MTT conversion. Our bag in that was 22.68 Saturday. Those same fish would have scored over 28 pounds on the AIM conversion they use. The Walleye shootout and AIM events over the weekend both took a 27 inch average for their big 5 fish to win. However I would put the actual weight of most these 27’s well under 7 pounds each this year.

We had a good weekend fishing. Lots of action but biggest was 25 1/2 which didn’t help us much in the tournament. But boated about 50 fish in two days so can’t complain.

Thanks, I knew they used a length to weight conversion. Good to know the metrics tho.

Seems like they could just as well use length instead of doing a conversion to a fake weight.

willconj wrote:

AIM uses a very generous length/weight conversion. Saturdays <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>Walleye shootout uses the MTT conversion. Our bag in that was 22.68 Saturday. Those same fish would have scored over 28 pounds on the AIM conversion they use. The <em class=”ido-tag-em”>Walleye shootout and AIM events over the weekend both took a 27 inch average for their big 5 fish to win. However I would put the actual weight of most these 27’s well under 7 pounds each this year.

We had a good weekend fishing. Lots of action but biggest was 25 1/2 which didn’t help us much in the tournament. But boated about 50 fish in two days so can’t complain.

You just beat us Saturday! We had 22.5. First time I fished a tournament and learned a lot. I’m guessing the top teams were targeting basin fish?

I also fished in the Hunters Shootout on Saturday, first tourney in 20 plus years. Found fish everywhere just nothing over 23″. I told my buddy I need to start staring at my Livescope more next year, or not. Had a good time regardless.
Glad I didn’t have to fish on Sunday, that would’ve been a grind. I’m getting to old to grind…

I took 3rd in the Hunters Point Shootout Saturday with 33.6lbs (AIM weight would have been 39.42) I was fishing right next to the winners who are friends.

My teammate won the AIM event Sunday. I gave him all the info that was working, and they had a bag! I fished right next to em all day. The key to their success was using 2 drift socks to slow them down to scan with livescope.

I was doing alright till my drift paddle rubber bracket on the paddle cracked and then it was tough. But we ground it out anyways in the brutal conditions. I think we finished with 30.6lbs for 25th or 26th.

That fishing was unreal and if I said what actually was working to most people they laughed and said “yeah right”. I learned a lot this past weekend, and I have been fishing the lake since I was little.

35ft of water targeting fish 5-10ft below the surface. Those were all big fish. An occasional fish on bottom would be decent but more 21-24″ fish than anything.

We lost track of the number of fish caught each day. The bite was crazy good.

The entire time we literally didn’t catch a fish smaller than 20″ and our biggest was just short of 28″.

I used a drop shot the entire time. Pretty tough to get me to change what I use anymore.

Chris Messerschmidt wrote:

35ft of water targeting fish 5-10ft below the surface.

You were catching them suspended over 35 fow? How is a drop shot effective that way

Throw at them and let it glide past the fish. Could watch the fish on livescope react to the bait as it went by em. They’d either hit it fast after they saw it, or they’d follow it to the bottom and hit it on bottom.

Could have done it with a jig as well, but I just went with what was working for me. And yes suspended 5-10ft below the surface in 35ft of water.

Chris Messerschmidt wrote:

Throw at them and let it glide past the fish. Could watch the fish on livescope react to the bait as it went by em. They’d either hit it fast after they saw it, or they’d follow it to the bottom and hit it on bottom.

Could have done it with a jig as well, but I just went with what was working for me. And yes suspended 5-10ft below the surface in 35ft of water.

Cool I know they suspend and have caught them occasionally doing that with slip bobbers just didn’t think they would work that high in the column.

I often think that Brad Juaire could do well in these tourneys. He is a master at open basin, large suspended fish, with boards. I hate to think what he could do with live scope out there !!!! Lots of big bags Saturday.

I have been out with Brad, and also have seen him compete in a few tourneys. The problem with Brad’s style of fishing (it certainly does work) is that it works best the more rods you can put in the water, optimally 4-6, but that means more people in the boat in Minnesota. with two rods you need to have the bite (color, speed, and location) really dialed in prior to the tournament and hope it remains stable.

Wonder if those suspended fish up that high were targeting bugs that float up?

No offense to Chris here but livescope is ruining tournaments like this. I hope eventually they make people fish the old fashioned way again instead of just staring at screens.

gimruis wrote:

No offense to Chris here but livescope is ruining tournaments like this. I hope eventually they make people fish the old fashioned way again instead of just staring at screens.

No offense but how was the tournament ruined. Sounds like the top guys found the biggest fish.

gimruis wrote:

livescope is ruining tournaments like this. I hope eventually they make people fish the old fashioned way again instead of just staring at screens.

How is it ruining tournaments like this? And to the last sentence, why? These tourneys aren’t televised and are CPR tourney’s so I think FFS helps and along with CPR enables us to see who can really catch the 5 biggest fish in the lake on a given day.

Because it’s eventually just an arms race to see who can rig their boat with latest and greatest electronics. There’s no end in sight without limitations.

Also, do you think someone who had a tournament winning formula would publicly disclose that information on a public fishing forum?

gimruis wrote:

No offense to Chris here but livescope is ruining tournaments like this. I hope eventually they make people fish the old fashioned way again instead of just staring at screens.

I’ve never agreed with a single thing you’ve posted until now.

I fished an NWT event and the 2 guys I fished with said the same thing: This will probably be the last year they fish it because of FFS. They both have it and use it but don’t like the direction it’s taking the tournament scene as well as fishing.

Back to Mille Lacs. It is good to hear big fish are out in the basin… but June seems early, maybe that’s why they were suspended?

gimruis wrote:

Because it’s eventually just an arms race to see who can rig their boat with latest and greatest electronics. There’s no end in sight without limitations.

Also, do you think someone who had a tournament winning formula would publicly disclose that information on a public fishing forum?

Eventually is now…..

I wonder how pissed his buddies are that he spilled the beans on how they caught them…. I know I’d be less than impressed if it was my buddy.

beardly wrote:

Back to Mille Lacs. It is good to hear big fish are out in the basin… but June seems early, maybe that’s why they were suspended?

Or, they’ve always been there. The use of FFS has just now made those fish vulnerable too.

I didn’t meant to derail this thread off course.

We’ve had more than one thread about the use of live sonar/livescope on this forum before and those conversations should stay in those threads. Not in a general fishing report thread.

Carry on