Fantastic weekend of fishing out of the Red Door for us. Weather was perfect, and the fishing was unreal. During the day, we pulled blades on and around some northern flats and found plenty of biters. In the evenings from 7 until 945 was unbelievable anchored on the edge of a flat in 22 fow. I would guess we caught 60-70 fish between 2 boats. All sizes showed up from 12″ to 26″. Absolute blast!
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Well, now well…there’s still walleyes in Mille Lacs? Who knew? Beautiful sunsets BTW, or sunrise? Promising report, I’ll finally be up in a couple weeks (finally) for 10 days and that will just start my summer fishing!?!? So many other distractions I’ve had so far…inspiring to see reports like this to keep the dream alive. 
My wife, two sons, and myself fished out of the Red Door Saturday evening also. We were anchored in 19′ of water just down from the resort. We had similar results, we had bobbers constantly going down. We ran out of leeches and started putting half a crawler on our hooks, didn’t matter what we put down, the fish would take it. My wife and older son don’t fish much, so this worked out great, there was constant action and they were able to boat a bunch of walleye. It was the best fishing I’ve ever had.
I had dinner Friday night at Twin Pines. The Eno’s are such nice people and are very outspoken on the Mille Lacs issues. Anyways, she said her biz is down 80% from a year ago and they are just barely keeping keeping their heads above water (which I am sure is true for most up there…). The launch trips this year will have 4-8 people on them and they can get North of 30 people so they are break even at best on those trips. I asked if the DNR were to allow a 1 fish limit if that would help and she said dramatically. With the fishing the way it is up there and the DNR now knowing their numbers were WAY off I look for that 1 fish limit to happen shortly…RR
Great report, we had similar luck with walleyes and smallies. Caught fish everywhere we went with just about every presentation. Sure has been a fun year so far!!!
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>roosterrouster wrote:</div>
and the DNR now knowing their numbers were WAY off I look for that 1 fish limit to happen shortly…RRI’m thinking the opposite. Quota is quota. People keep reporting high catch rates, the DNR will be forced to close walleye fishing due to hooking mortality.
-J.
One thing for sure is we can never tell what our DNR will do. I could see them going either direction on this one. They called this season a catch n release season due to projected low fish #’s. They admitted their #’s were off so I can see them allowing a single (or two…) fish in the livewell. I mean throw the resorts a freakin’ bone here. You are right John in that quota is quota though…RR
I’m curious to know if the good bite is due to high numbers of walleye or low numbers of baitfish? Are we on the verge of seeing another year of skinny walleyes? (And walleye cannibalism?) The DNR could stick to their low number of walleye study and let anglers take fish on the premise that there is not enough food for the current population. Of course, they would need to go back to court and negotiate a new quota. And that would likely mean more netting for the tribes….. No one seems to come out a winner here.
Like I mentioned in another post, not seeing any perch out there for the last few years!
Thanks for the report, Brian. Looks like your crew had a good time and that’s what its all about.
-J.
I had dinner Friday night at Twin Pines. The Eno’s are such nice people and are very outspoken on the Mille Lacs issues. Anyways, she said her biz is down 80% from a year ago and they are just barely keeping keeping their heads above water (which I am sure is true for most up there…). The launch trips this year will have 4-8 people on them and they can get North of 30 people so they are break even at best on those trips. I asked if the DNR were to allow a 1 fish limit if that would help and she said dramatically. With the fishing the way it is up there and the DNR now knowing their numbers were WAY off I look for that 1 fish limit to happen shortly…RR
Yes, the Eno’s are very outspoken about the Mille Lacs issues, probably the most…they always seem to get the TC news interviews! Reports all around the lake is saying business is way down. Twin Pines and others with restaurant and bar can probably hang in there making some $ on selling booze. The one’s that don’t have that, would be surprising if they’re still around at the end of this year? BTW, everything I had heard was that Rod’s Bait store near Isle had closed a while back. When I drove by Saturday, they were definitely open! Anyone know anything about that? Meanwhile the M/L Corporate Ventures looks to be opening the old Meleens later this summer, convenience store, gas etc. The Bobber Stop?, with a Taco Johns. Ha…lol, how fitting!
Jon, is correct…the catch rates will only expedite the full closure for walleye as the quota is approached. They can’t/will not go back and rewrite the agreed upon safe harvest quota this year. Reports from the Mille Lacs advisory committee meetings are that the DNR and the lake business interests are far apart and the meetings have been contentious. Here is an exchange from the last committee meeting;
“The DNR has said repeatedly that their data indicates a drastic decline in the vitality of the walleye population, with a lack of walleye of spawning age. However, Tina Chapman of Chapman’s Mille Lacs Resort & Guide Service questioned that premise.
“If the lake is in crisis, that’s one thing,” Chapman said. “But from everything we’ve seen, the lake isn’t in crisis.”
DNR Fisheries Chief Don Pereira took issue with Chapman’s assertion.
“We have a disagreement about what we think the state of the fishery is,” Pereira said.”
So sorry to take this off topic, those with happy reports, carry on….
We caught a few different year classes on Saturday. The smallest was 14″, plus some 16″, 20″, 22″, and 24″.
Interestingly they were all even numbers. I don’t know how that worked. One of the 24″ was closer to 25″ so maybe if we round up. My neighbor said they boated a 27″ so there are odd numbered sized fish in there.
Here’s a couple of them:
A 22″
A thick 24″. This one was much heavier than the longer 24″ mentioned above. We expected it to measure closer to 26″ before seeing it.
I have a lot of buddies who are casual fishermen, and they know I fish a lot. I’ve been asked so many times about Mille Lacs even though I don’t spend a lot of time there. They universally believe that the lake is screwed up because of what they’ve heard. True or not, who would book a vacation to a lake where people have gone out of their way to say the fishing is terrible because you can’t keep a walleye and everyone is angry and fighting about it?
I wonder if the resort owners and other lake supporters could possibly do themselves a favor by toning down the rhetoric and instead using their soapboxes to talk about all the positives of the lake? I get that there is a strong Mille Lacs culture built around the idea of keeping walleyes. People seem to think they have to fight to preserve that culture, but unfortunately that fight – which looks to a lot of people like two cultures fighting over who gets to keep the fish – casts a shadow over all of the good things about the lake.
My point is, don’t you think reports like this will increase traffic to the lake and wouldn’t that help the Mille Lacs economy out just a little a bit?
I completely agree John. I’ve also seen more talk about the smallies out there this year than ever before. It seems as though marketing hasn’t been much of a strong suite for any of the smaller resorts.
My point is, don’t you think reports like this will increase traffic to the lake and wouldn’t that help the Mille Lacs economy out just a little a bit?
Absolutely…unfortunately some will always hold some bitterness no matter what. Ironically Tina Chapman is the director of the Mille Lacs Area Tourism. her quote; “As far as the tourism dollars go, we are thrilled to be able to continue to get the word out about the great Mille Lacs Lake area.”
Here’s the campaign link:
#Dothelake
And yes, by all means keep the great reports coming!
Actually, the #Dothelake campaign is on hold until Gov Goofy signs the bill to pay for it. If there is no special session, there will be no #Dothelake…..
-J.
Actually, the #Dothelake campaign is on hold until Gov Goofy signs the bill to pay for it. If there is no special session, there will be no #Dothelake…..
-J.
Yea, you’re right. This guy…
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As far as I know, you don’t need any tax dollars to use a hashtag on social media. Couldn’t the resorts all post reports about the great fishing with the hashtag for free?
Actually, the #Dothelake campaign is on hold until Gov Goofy signs the bill to pay for it. If there is no special session, there will be no #Dothelake…..
-J.
Actually you (we) may be wrong about this. I’ll start another thread so I (we) don’t keep hijacking this one. Best to leave this thread for the positive reports and pics.
Is there some place follow the numbers on the quota or is it just some imaginary figures with a guy with his finger on the “shut it down button”?
I cant remember last year how it went down. Did they just randomly announce it on Monday morning?
It was a great weekend! My neighbor and his son joined me this weekend and we fished the Malmo area. Because of the kids we did not stay out all day, but we enjoy a couple 1.5 hours trips out to do some bobber fishing (Fri evening, Sat early afternoon) and then Sat night pulled cranks for about an hour.
With the hot bite the kids had an absolute blast. It was one of those weekends I have been waiting for to have my son experience, and on top of that it was my neighbors boys first time fishing! We went through all our leaches both bobber outings, and the eye’s were hitting the shad raps as well. There was not a time where the bobbers were not going down. We also picked up on 36″ northern which was fun.
A few pics from the weekend:
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Great pics of the kiddos! Here’s one of the sunset sat evening.
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A few weekends ago we saw the DNR out performing their fishing mortality study. There must have been about 5-6 boats in total catching fish and then the DNR boat would take the eyes and drop them in a netted area.
Anyone know how long this study is supposed to run?
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