New Mille Lacs Report Posted

The “no Mille Lacs chatter” post from sktrwx2100 had me feeling a bit guilty this morning for not getting a report out yet so I used my lunch break to pull one together… Bottom line if you love catching walleyes Mille Lacs is a great option right now. If you’ve ever wanted to put your spouse/kids/friends on a great walleye bite now is the perfect opportunity and especially with the short season the resorts could use some extra business

https://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/fishing/reports/fun-fishing-at-mille-lacs/

Awesome Will!

Glad I could shame you into it Will!
Great report! Thanks.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing! I had another buddy share a very similar report. It is great to hear positive news about my favorite lake!

steve-fellegy on 1/29/2016 at 9:15 am

I would be curious to know how many of these big numbers/catches are many of the same fish biting over and over or actually different fish relative to how many were reeled in.

The DNR knows based on their own hands on experience ( that they have NOT made public), that in recent open water BIG bites, the SAME fish bit multiple times in an hour let alone the same day on a hook and line––thus the creel survey numbers /reports like this one are NOT accurate in regard to how many fish are actually being caught. I for one, did some tagging of fish in recent years both open water and through the ice and found the same fish to often bite on our lines at least 3-5 times an hour. This scenario was a daily happening–ALL season long in recent years. (back years ago with no slot limits, the numbers we “harvested” were accurate being we rarely put a fish caught back–and NO—the harvest numbers were NOT higher back then–per the DNR records!)

My point is, when forage is low, is the “bite” giving anglers/the DNR a false sense of how many fish are there and being killed? In other words, what is the ACTUAL harvest vs. the “count” of the times an angler reeled in a fish? The answer would hugely change the harvest numbers used relative to the quota system!!

The DNR reps will NOT answer me on this….anyone else ask them–say the so called “advisory” group in public? I challenge any of the advisory group to get THAT question answered. The quota /harvest total would surely change if the SAME fish are NOT counted multiple times in the creel surveys! Questions about how the DNR reps know this I will gladly answer with proof they know…

Now, before anyone accuses me of being negative AGAIN–lol– I am TRYING to make sure we are not, as many have in the past few years, living in denial based on how big and many of the fish are in the lake–based on what is seen on our lines.

Another question needs an answer from the DNR via the advisory members is ” what size are the famous 2008 year class–deemed the last good hatch that survived past the magic one year old class? And being we needed to “protect” that precious year class—are they now or have they been in the legal size parameters the past two seasons?”

Good question as we now never hear of that “protected” year class from the DNR?

Thanks for the input Steve. I agree that during the hot bite a few years ago for larder fish we definitely did catch the same fish a few times if sitting still and that’s probably happening with some of these smaller ones as well to some extent if fishing in a permanent house in the same location.

I have to say that the likelihood of the fish ice caught this year being the same ones is low because we never stopped moving for either of our trips. We ice trolled on 8 flats this past weekend and hit several of my early season spots on the first trip and have seen the same results everywhere.

I definitely wouldn’t be encouraging people to come up if I thought it would harm the fishery but I am comfortable the the 2012-2013 year classes are still in good shape and they sure don’t appear to be starving either.

Will

Will Roseberg wrote:

Thanks for the input Steve. I agree that during the hot bite a few years ago for larder fish we definitely did catch the same fish a few times if sitting still and that’s probably happening with some of these smaller ones as well to some extent if fishing in a permanent house in the same location.

I have to say that the likelihood of the fish ice caught this year being the same ones is low because we never stopped moving for either of our trips. We ice trolled on 8 flats this past weekend and hit several of my early season spots on the first trip and have seen the same results everywhere.

I definitely wouldn’t be encouraging people to come up if I thought it would harm the fishery but I am comfortable the the 2012-2013 year classes are still in good shape and they sure don’t appear to be starving either.

Will

For about 45 plus years, we watched in our dark houses, the walleyes come to our baits. Most years, what I would call average, we could get about 40-50 percent of the fish to bite ( and we knew a lot about getting fish to bite right? LOL) A handful of years, we saw most of them NOT bite-no matter the day./weather or presentation–all winter long. Then, another handful of years, they ALL bit!

So–in the average years ( winters), late summer/fall–when food supplies were at their peak and fish ate the most of any month of the year– we would find quite a few ( maybe 4-8)YOY perch in the bellies. On the bad bite years, we would find 15-30 YOY perch in the bellies of an average size fish! In the GREAT bite, we found very few if any YOY perch in the bellies. All late summer/fall findings-that ALWAYS reflected reality in the winter.

My point–again? Are they short on food this winter or “well fed” as you say? ( I was NOT on the water to gauge things/forage base numbers as we used to do over the years … 40-50 plus years in row!)

Just adding a “potential” viewpoint that could be reality VS. what seems to be the trendy view point these days.

I fully agree Steve that fish bite because they’re hungry and there is no question that the 12-16″ fish on the lake are hungry because they’re so plentiful.

As you note over 50+ years of fishing “the pond” there have always been fluctuations in bait/fish populations that let to some very good, some very bad, and some average years for fishing… This to me is a very normal and natural and I don’t see the fact that there is a very good bite going on right now as anything to be concerned about. While hungry most of the fish we’ve caught still appear healthy.

On the flip side by reading the size of the marks on our graph I can see that that larger fish are very hard to get to bite right now meaning they are not hungry.

I have no misconceptions that the prevalence of the 2012-2013 year class of walleyes has resulted in not enough bite sized meals to go around for themselves leading to a hot bite. This happens in various lakes all the time, but from what I’ve seen I think it is more a natural fluctuation and not an inherent problem across the board. It is natural to have high numbers of young fish every few years based on spawning conditions… As much fun as it a few years ago it was never natural to have high numbers of 24-26″ which is why I feel the current good fishing is not worrying that we are heading back down that path.

Will