Mille lacs perch

John Timm wrote:

Bass are definitely the dumbest fish in the lake following a close second is the northern.

I’d say that bottom feeder walleye is at the top of that list.

I’d say that bottom feeder walleye is at the top of that list.
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HEY! NO say like that.

Productive convo on the perch bite on the pond.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Productive convo on the bite on the pond.

My son and his friend are catching a few 10 plus inchers so far but LOTS of lookers and no bites. A few small walleyes too 35 feet

The only thing dumber than a walleye is the person fishing for them.

chuck100 wrote:

The only thing dumber than a <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleye is the person fishing for them.

And that’s why you got kicked outta Walleye Central.

My son wanted to catch burbot and I said there are better places than ML to get one. I was clearly wrong. They have gotten a dozen or so keeper size perch and lots of non keepers. A handful of walleyes but all small. Haven’t kept anything yet.

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Please forgive me but JAEHEYSUS KHARAIST, have u people lost your minds??? Walleyes aren’t wet socks, LMB aren’t dumb easy sunfish, and decent sized pike are nothing to mess with(although annoying when you’re fishing for anything else).

All fish have their time and place, man. Stop bickering.

Try and hone in on decent river walleyes and what they’re hanging out on/in. Then try and dial in where the big LM bass are and what they’re hitting on a lake. Try your best to figure out where a 48”+ Muskie or two is and how to get her to eat(but don’t eat her!). Not as easy as some seem to think on all fronts.

Last one was a bad example but walleye and bass guys can’t seem to leave each other alone. It’s like vikes and packers fans. Can we all just agree to hate the bears and/or lions, and treat them as hammer handle northerns? Jk

Guarantee you could catch a pretty good pike trying for any one of those however lol

I can’t catch any of them and hate them all equally

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I spent yesterday fishing Mille Lacs on the west side. I normally fish the East side but I wanted to fish some mud flats and they are a lot closer and many options fishing the west side. I thought that I would try Terry’s Boat Harbor but at approx. 7:15 the door was locked. Ran up the street and ran out of Twin Pines for my first time ever. They have 2 of the biggest metal bridges that I have seen on Mille Lacs which are located close to shore.

Once past the bridges about the only thing limiting me driving my truck around were some banks from the plow trucks. Some little and some a little larger. Once past these it was basically clear sailing. My second stop was over by Curly flat which to my surprise I did not see any one around for a 1/2 mile or more. Usually there are many houses in this area which normally come out through Terry’s but it sounded like he was having problems with ice heaves and bridge capacity. Maybe this is why his door was locked at 7:15 in the morning.

Dropped in by the bottom edge of the flat but rotating my Livescope I noticed several marks on top. I drilled over by these marks and dropped down the Livescope but nothing below and marks were approx. 40′ away. After several attempts with the same results it was quite noticeable that these fish were spooked from the drilling of the hole and had moved before I dropped in my transducer from the Livescope. Once these fish relocated from where I drilled my hole they would hardly move. On my 4th or so attempt I finally got close enough to one which slowly swan in and bit. It had some weight but I lost it half way up… I made several more attempts to get on top of these marks with no success so I headed off to deeper water to try for these large perch that I keep hearing about which I mainly came for on this outing.

I moved around quite a bit but I surely did not put a dent in the large perch population. I only managed 3 above 10″ and the balance were 6″ or smaller. About every hole I punched I would drop down and most holes I marked nothing initially but a little jigging brought in multiple to hoards of small perch and small walleyes under 8″. The 3 larger perch were fairly aggressive which came on spoons tipped with either larva or minnow heads. A few tullibee added to the enjoyment. Large perch just like real estate is all about location, location, location and with the many holes drilled I was surely did not drill a hole in the best location.

Good luck to others.

Good report OG.
I was out on the pond all day Wednesday in a group of 6 and most the day Thursday with just 2. Beautiful days to be out. Fishing was very similar both days with a morning until noon bite window and very slow after. Never got an evening bite on Wednesday and left before on Thursday. We went out of Hunter’s both days and drilled a lot. Waiting out a spot was maybe the better way as even the Livescopes that I saw never seemed to do much better, including one guy in our group. We probably averaged 7 perch over 10 1/2″ per guy with the biggest at 13″ for the two days we caught 8 of them that were over 12″. And those are some serious piggies! Live Minnows got a few while the rest were on 70/30 larva/minnow heads. A silver/perch color VMC Tumbler spoon was the best hook in our group followed by smaller gold tungstens. We drilled deep through shallow and the good perch were always deep for us. No doubt we caught over 100 tiny walleyes 5-7 inches. Probably 20 nice Tullibee.
I did have a camera down for half of each day and some of the perch pods would fly through at blinding speed and some were very slowly working around. Seemed like both would bite, while loaner big perch wouldn’t bite often. Tullibee were constantly zig zagging the bottom and without a camera you’d be certain it was a school looking over your hook when they actually weren’t.

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Nick Lindner put out an excellent YouTube video with plenty of underwater camera action giving tips on the Mille Lacs perch bite. I wanted him to catch the silver bullets that came through instead. Tullibee on 3lb test line, that is a fish I get excited about. Those dudes will peel drag.

I watched Nick’s video this afternoon. Tullibee are fun to catch but they are a bit stinky if you do not plan on keeping any. And if fishing with a treble hook Tullibee seem to have all 3 hooks stuck in their mouths.

I know he did not show every thing that he experienced but I thought that it was quite odd that I did not see one small perch mixed in with the large perch that he showed us from the under water camera. Even though my experience yesterday was no where similar to Nick’s it got me excited to get back to Mille Lacs and give it another try in a different part of the lake.

Went out of Hunters on Thursday. The woman selling road passes circled the area to try which was out in the basin. Tried several spots out there and contacted fish in each spot but only sniffers. About 3:30 pm went into the sand break ~29 feet. Caught 5 as fast as I could get it down. 5mm jig with euro larvae and jigging spoon with minnow head. The small macho minnow type spoon did not have a split ring so I tied direct. That was a mistake. On fish #6 which was probably bigger since it was pulling drag the knot came undone. The fish then moved and I couldn’t locate them even with LiveScope. Kept all fish since their stomachs were in their mouth: one 9″, three 10 1/2″ and one 11 1/4″. All puked up larvae. Fried the perch up yesterday and had fish sandwiches. Gooooooooood!! Next time up will be out of Red Door.
Has anyone seen small planes doing touch and goes on Hunters road out to the flats?

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Netguy, thanks for the update. How much ice did you see up there? Extension needed?

Can’t ever recall using an extension on Mille lacs. Maybe in a wheel house.

These planes.

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Has anyone seen small planes doing touch and goes on Hunters road out to the flats?

There is a flight club that lands on the lake every so often. I have seen a bunch of them parked in front of Twin Pines a handful of times. Chatted with some of them having breakfast one morning. Pretty cool to see 10 or so parked out front.
Makes me wish I had a license.

John Timm wrote:

These planes.

Bogey on your 6!!!!

Dang he’s close!
I heard the planes both days I was out but never saw them. Definitely didn’t have any buzz me!

Yeah that is a little close IMO and there is another right behind it. How many years ago was it that the floatplane crashed in Mille Lacs? Has to be 5 or 6 right?

About 5-6 years ago we were out there in April late ice fishing for perch and tulibee. A plane came over us really low, then landed right next to us. It was a conservation officer who was up north doing moose counts and decided to stop and chat with us on his way back south.
According to him, we were the only people on the entire lake.

I was up there this past weekend and just barley could get through the ice with my pistol bit not having the safety ring run into the top of the ice. We caught a handful of jumbos but they were hard to stay on and seemed to move so fast that we only really caught 1 or 2 at a time. Hindsight we probably should have just setup the hub and let them come to us, but we tried to run and gun with minimal success. You had to be in 30 plus fow and when you have active fish make sure you get a bait right back down or they will be gone.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Yeah that is a little close IMO and there is another right behind it. How many years ago was it that the floatplane crashed in Mille Lacs? Has to be 5 or 6 right?

About that time frame yes. Knew the two guys that were flying. Sad deal.

Ripjiggen wrote:

About that time frame yes. Knew the two guys that were flying. Sad deal.

Yeah, that was sad for sure.

I checked one hole with a bump board and had 26″. I had a ways to go with the 8″ lite flite. I don’t even own an extension for that bit. Note to self!!

I was on the north side of Hunters road. These planes came by at 2:49 last Thursday.

I’m heading back up tomorrow and will set up in the one man and let them come to me. If some keep coming through I’ll stay there otherwise move until I contact them.

Last week I got bait at Vados on the way up. I talked to 3 guys that worked there and when I told them I was going to Mille Lacs for the jumbos they pulled out their phone to show me pics. One guy had caught a 15″. Holy crap was that big!!

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Went out yesterday with a buddy, fished half the day out of the north west side. Ended up keeping 10 plus caught quite a few small perch and walleye. We fished off of a flat a few hundred yards, hole hopping a little and just sitting in the portables. It didn’t really matter where we fished we were marking but a lot sniffers. Two biggest were 12”.

Not a single fish on a dead stick, all caught jigging with waxies and larvae. I’d say best bait was a gold vmc bull spoon with the bladed treble.

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Made it up on Wednesday out of Castaways. Fished in the areas the woman who sold me the road pass said. A lot of sniffers which I think are small walleyes because I caught two of them: 6″ and 8″. No perch caught. Fished only 4 spots since I was in my one-man house (first time I used it with the heater and it was comfy!) and to give each spot some time to see if perch would move through. Next time will be out of Red Door unless I get a hot tip!!
A guy in a portable near me left about an hour after I started fishing. Figured he got his fish. Moved there and nothing but sniffers.

Now that this perchy bite is no longer a secret I have a couple questions:

How did they get so big so fast?

What is the consensus depth to target perch?

I’m guessing there isn’t much C&R going on with these and they are in 30 feet or more. That accurate?

eyeguy507 wrote:

Now that this perchy bite is no longer a secret I have a couple questions:

How did they get so big so fast?

Perch grow quickly but this class has been present for about 4 years or so.

What is the consensus depth to target perch? 25 plus

I’m guessing there isn’t much C&R going on with these and they are in 30 feet or more. That accurate?