Mille Lacs Update

53 walleyes last night in my boat. 1.6 mph was best speed. UV colored husky jerks were hot early and dark blue turned on before sunrise. Big fish was 27″ and FAT!

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Awesome Will, can’t wait to get up there next week.

Last night I know you meant this early morning. So one or two “biguns”, were the other 50-51 walleye 14 inchers? You were off the north shore?, were they on top shallow, or off the sand drop? Did you fish until daylight, or head in for Bloody Mary’s and bacon and eggs? All crankbait trolling or did you stop for “bait-rigging”? Anyway, good report, encouraging! I was stuck down here in the cities packing for my move. In spirit I have prepared some walleye fillets with side of cole slaw and corn bread tonight so that I may celebrate the “opener” vicariously it least. Watching news on reports from Mille Lacs this evening, TC media must stop interviewing Linda Eno.

What’s the report from the daybite? Deciding where to go tomorrow. Hit the river in Anoka and BP today, omw home to fillet

Fished tell 330 this morning with fairly steady bite all night. Are biggest eye was 23″. Seems to be alot of year classes present.

Mille Lacs has an unbelievable number of 14-17″ walleye. Three of us caught over 150 Saturday evening from 7:00 – 10:30 Lindy rigging and corking. Once the sun went down, we couldn’t keep the bobbers on the surface. Multiple triples. We finally ran out of bait. Then we started looking on the floor of the boat for pieces of leeches we had dropped while catching fish. We were catching fish after fish on bait scraps the size of my pinky fingernail. Unreal! We’ll talk about this opener for the rest of our lives.

So what you boys are saying is……. Get your butt to Mill Lacs now because the lake will for surely be shut down by July 1st.

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

Last night I know you meant this early morning. So one or two “biguns”, were the other 50-51 walleye 14 inchers? You were off the north shore?, were they on top shallow, or off the sand drop? Did you fish until daylight, or head in for Bloody Mary’s and bacon and eggs? All crankbait trolling or did you stop for “bait-rigging”? Anyway, good report, encouraging! I was stuck down here in the cities packing for my move. In spirit I have prepared some <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleye fillets with side of cole slaw and corn bread tonight so that I may celebrate the “opener” vicariously it least. Watching news on reports from Mille Lacs this evening, TC media must stop interviewing Linda Eno.

After dealing with a dead battery in my Terrova remote that required a bit of searching for my spare battery we hit the water at 1:30 Saturday AM. Since it’s the only weekend of the year to fish cranks at night on Mille Lacs we skipped the day bite and conserved energy for night fishing… Cranks only no live bait. Fishing until 7 AM on Saturday. Lot’s of small fish but we had 10 over 20″ on Saturday AM and 12 over 20″ on Saturday PM/Sunday AM. Total fish in my boat alone was at 131 walleyes in 11 hours of trolling. I’d say we had at least a half dozen year classes hit the net between 10-27″… Probably 50-60% were the 2013 year class or later, but at least 20 fish would have also been in the “missing” 18-20″ slot. Full report later today.

Will

fishinfreaks wrote:

Mille Lacs has an unbelievable number of 14-17″ walleye. Three of us caught over 150 Saturday evening from 7:00 – 10:30 Lindy rigging and corking. Once the sun went down, we couldn’t keep the bobbers on the surface. Multiple triples. We finally ran out of bait. Then we started looking on the floor of the boat for pieces of leeches we had dropped while catching fish. We were catching fish after fish on bait scraps the size of my pinky fingernail. Unreal! We’ll talk about this opener for the rest of our lives.

If one boat with 3 caught 150 on live bait, and others had anywhere near that kind of success, I’d be surprised if they don’t shut it down before next weekend

2 things are clear from this post. 1. Plenty of walleye’s can be caught without live bait. 2. There is a good reason why the no livebait may have been a really good idea.

Are the fish #’s truly that good in the lake, or are these fish just that hungry coming off the spawn? If fishing is as good as I’m hearing about when the lake is in trouble and at a all time low. I’d hate to see # of fish being caught during the haydays of fishing there that some keep telling about.

Huh? You’d be surprised if they don’t shut it down? That makes no sense. Please explain why you think they are going to shut it down by next weekend:???:

fishthumper wrote:

If one boat with 3 caught 150 on live bait, and others had anywhere near that kind of success, I’d be surprised if they don’t shut it down before next weekend

With the cold water temps the hooking mortality will be very low. Also, with as much success as those of us fishing had the pressure was less than half what was there last year and probably 1/10th of the number of boats from 5 years ago. You are correct though that if this type of bite continues into late June when the water warms up and hooking mortality increases then shut is a very real possibility.

fishthumper wrote:

2 things are clear from this post. 1. Plenty of walleye’s can be caught without live bait. 2. There is a good reason why the no livebait may have been a really good idea.

I agree to a point but the daytime bite without live bait is much more difficult to pattern than night shallow water bite that only takes place for a couple weeks in the Spring. If the goal was to reduce hooking mortality by keeping people away then the no-live bait did it’s job even in the few weeks before it was rescinded…. In talking with multiple friends who own resorts they each lost upwards of $25,000 in reservations within one week of the no live bait announcement. Once the no live bait ban was rescinded most of those who previously had planned to come to Mille Lacs had already booked somewhere else.

This weekend was by far the fewest people I have ever seen on Mille Lacs in my 30+ years of fishing opener there. The only word that really captures how I felt about the small number of trailers in the resort parking lots and boats on the water is… Sad.

fishthumper wrote:

Are the fish #’s truly that good in the lake, or are these fish just that hungry coming off the spawn? If fishing is as good as I’m hearing about when the lake is in trouble and at a all time low. I’d hate to see # of fish being caught during the haydays of fishing there that some keep telling about.

The numbers of small walleyes really are that good and they’re hungry partly because of spawn and partly because there are so many 12-17″ walleyes that there is plenty of competition for small walleye sized meals. The bigger fish are mostly hungry because of spawn and are very very well fed… They will be much harder to come by later in the year.

roosterrouster wrote:

Huh? You’d be surprised if they don’t shut it down? That makes no sense. Please explain why you think they are going to shut it down by next weekend:???:

With the rather limited Quota of Lbs. of fish that is allowed this season and with Hooking mortality figured in ( How they get any kind of Accurate date on this – I have no idea ) with the catch rates being reported I doubt it will be open for a full season.

…a “full season” is a lot different than by “next weekend” from your earlier post. That’s the only comment I was questioning…RR

Will
The whole situation on Mille Lacs is SAD. I guess I’d much rather see the situation be sad for a few years to get the lake back on track to what it once was, rather than seeing them keep putting band aids on the problem and have it be sad for a long period of time. I truly believe that the hooking mortality on live bait caught fish is much higher that you or almost everyone want to know or admit to. Rather it be warm or cool water. I believe that the no live bait plan was truly one of the few good idea’s that they came up with that made some sense to me. Yes the daytime none livebait patter may be slightly more difficult, but if fisherman took the time to learn and try more none livebait tactics they would be surprised to learn how productive and fun it can be.

roosterrouster wrote:

…a “full season” is a lot different than by “next weekend” from your earlier post. That’s the only comment I was questioning…RR

Given the rather low quota and not knowing how they are figuring the mortality rate, I have no idea. I’d have to guess the mortality rate is figured based on the # of fish being reported caught. If their surveys are seeing the kinds of #’s I see being thrown around, anything is possible. After all this is Mille Lacs we are talking about here. Nothing will surprise me when it comes to decisions on this lake.

Nice Job Will. I only hit the water on Saturday afternoon for about 3 hours, due to a thrown out back from last week, and we spent the time experimenting with Rippen Raps. I had zero impact on the walleye mortality issue this weekend, but I did pick up a couple Smallies one over 20″. No walleyes yet in my new boat but I’m on the mend and should be able to get back after them later this week.

I have to say, I’ve watch James and the guys fish these plugs and it is sure a fun way to catch fish. Here’s a pic.

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Just got back yesterday and have to agree. We did very well pulling cranks on shallow rocks over the weekend. Roughly 150 fish, walleyes and smallies from Saturday afternoon to monday 11am. Did not fish at all after dark. We did nothing but pull cranks. Biggest walleye was just over 28″ the smallest was 14″ and we hit almost every inch mark in between. A great variety of sizes with lost of year classes.

The smallie fishing was also very good. I would say the majority by far of the fish we caught were smallies and again all sizes from 12″ to just over 20″ Very fun weekend!

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Well, you know…these catch rates are phenomenal, almost off the charts! If one didn’t know, these reports would be just like those from remote “fly-in” camps in Canada. Glad to see reports of goods numbers of multiple year classes! That’s encouraging to say the least and also the SM bass being reported. How strange it is when the bite on Mille Lacs is perhaps the hottest in the state and the anglers turned out in record low numbers! But as has been said too many times…everything about Mille Lacs has been strange for some time. Let’s hope for record cool temps this summer. The sooner the water temps go up, the sooner the safe harvest quota will have been met and the 2016 Mille Lacs walleye party will be over.

And the star of today’s Target Walleye episode? None other than our own Will Roseberg featured in the “Mille Lacs slugfest”!

What depth seemed to work well pulling cranks?

Dumb question. I thought the lake was in trouble???

Jake D wrote:

What depth seemed to work well pulling cranks?

For us it was 6-12′ on the rocks

Jake D wrote:

What depth seemed to work well pulling cranks?

We were fishing in 4-8′ since we were fishing after dark last weekend, but during daylight hours I’d be focused more on the 8-12′ range.

Will

For shallow cranks, what do you typically use? Thundersticks and Husky Jerks? Or shad raps? Or does it not really matter. I am new to trolling crankbaits and don’t have many….yet.

I mostly use flicker shads and salmo hornets and some hot-n-tots. The flicker shads are much cheaper than the salmos… about half the price. Both work very well I just like to have different action and profile.

jad2001 wrote:

For shallow cranks, what do you typically use? Thundersticks and Husky Jerks? Or shad raps? Or does it not really matter. I am new to trolling crankbaits and don’t have many….yet.

If I’m going super shallow (>6 fow) I use Husky Jerks, and I run as many different colors as I legally can until one starts showing a preference.

I just saw a post by Al Lindner about the Brainerd Newspaper the “This Was Brainerd” Section about opener in 1936 (80 years). “Thousands of fisherman swarmed the Brainerd region for opening of fishing. All available boats on Mille Lacs were rented, and there were an estimated 10,000 boats on the water.”

Will’s opener SMB photo makes the Mille Lacs Messenger

http://www.messagemedia.co/millelacs/outdoors/fishing/wally-finn-s-trophy-case—may/article_dff8b374-1c55-11e6-923f-3750354ca22a.html

-J.

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Yes, I saw that printed version that came out last week. Furthermore, Wally Finn reported on Will and Susie Fishers friendship.

“Susie Fisher of Fishers Resort on the north said they pretty much got beat up with the wind but when customers did go out, they caught epic numbers of fish. She said her friend Will Roseberg, in the photo above, caught 54 walleye trolling cranks and 10 of them over 20 inches and the biggest being 27 inches.”

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