I used to love pool 4 until…

I spend most of my time on pool 4, but I have been to mille lacs a couple of times in the past week and am starting to change my tune. I am looking forward to getting back up there as much as I do getting on the river. I went up last wednesday by myself and must have caught 40 walleyes in 6 hours and the best part is probably 30 of them were over 20 inches. All I can say is wow what a lake.
On the other hand on Friday the river showed her true colors. In 2 hours of fishing the rocks we caught a sheephead, crappie, sauger, walleye, carp, catfish, white bass, largemouth, smallmouth, and a northern. All out of the same shoreline. There really is nothing like fishing a river. I love the question asked by your parter “what is it” and the appropriate response of ‘I don’t know it feels like a walleye stop the boat.” and up comes a sheephead, white bass, catfish, carp, etc. you get the picture. Mille lacs will never do that for ya.
labsrule

Labsrule, I have been thinking of going to Mille Lacs also probably next week in the middle of the week. I have not been on the lake in several years. What technique would you suggest? I have heard of using 3-ways and of course cranks. What snell length worked well. What dept should I start at? I want to get in on the hot bite, but am a bit intimitated by the vastness of that body of water. Where did you launch. Coves Bay I am familiar with.
I also want to try for some Northerns. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Grinder

Grinder- For up to date info on Mille Lacs go to the sister site http://www.fishthelake.com. I have been on the lake every weekend since opener and you won’t believe it until you experience it. Walleye’s with average size 20-23 and throw in the daily 25,26 and 27 till the cows come home, and I dont have any cows so it should be awhile for me. Oh, see the fishing reports section for Bob Carlson and Hooks Hukriede. Good fishing to ya!

Dman, Checked the website you mentioned but except for trolling cranks, and useing leeches, not much info about techniques for Mille Lacs. Will check again later. What I am wondering is do I need colored hooks, long snell, regular
Lindy rigs etc. That sort of info. I am not an accomplished lake walleye angler. Thanks.

Grinder,

This is what I experienced last weekend. Red Gammy hook produced best with a small float right in front of the hook. I was using anywhere from 7-10 foot snells. The shorter snells caught smaller fish, the other two guys in the boat. I did catch the biggest fish on a chartruese gammy #8. Leeches produced better for us that day also. We fished the south end gravel. Hope this helps!!

Check out the articles on the fish the lake site [FTL] on fishing Mille Lacs. There are several. Lots of real good info from EFN Guides. http://www.fishthelake.com/articles/ All you have to do is just click on the site I just listed. Hope this helps.

Yeah…what Bill said, Thanks Bill. If the fishing is still what it was yesterday its a cant miss. Have fun !!

Did anyone see the Kare 11, 10pm news last night? a reporter went out with a guide to check out for himself for one hour. They boated 15. Fish every four minutes? sounds like it’s slowing down a bit,hehe.

Hey DMan, do you have a cabin up on Mille Lacs? Just curious to know if the Mud is going yet. Hopefully my fish house at flagship won’t be under water this weekend with all this damn rain.

Crossin Eyes

Don’t you have floats setup on the it for summer pontoon use?????

Just about any thing that you use will catch fish. I had a guide trip up at Mille Lacs last weekend with a couple(husband and wife) . It was their 2nd time fishing for walleyes. we boated 46 fish with only 2 keepers in the slot. The biggest was 27-1/2. When we were in the sand we went slow with a lindy rig . Leech caught 2 to 1 over crawlers. When we went out ot the gravel we 3 wayed with spinners(gold Hammered was the best) and a crawler. The couple lost at least 1/2 of their bites until they got the hang of it.Try different things until you find a pattern and duplicate it.

I found the articles on rigging for Mille Lacs on the website you talked about. Thanks all for the info! Hopoefully a crankbaiter like me can catch a few Walleyes up there. Gota try for Northerns too. Another time for that. Grinder

Grinder,
sorry i haven’t been around to reply. Everyone is right on, just about anything catches fish right now. I have been using a 7-10 foot snell with a colored hook (orange or pink), but i don’t think color really matters. by the end of the day the color is gone off the hook and I was still catching just as many fish. We went up on thursday and we caught most of our fish bobber fishing on a reef by indian point. It is really easy to get to. Take the first right turn past the casino and there is a public landing right there. You will catch plenty of fish anywhere in front of that landing doing just about anything and it makes for easy navigation. It is an amazing fishery and no matter what you are doing you will catch alot of fish right now, which brings up another point. I say fish it now and fish it often because these fish are starving to death. 28″ fish that weigh 6 pounds and 25 fish in 2 hours from 1-3 in the afternoon is not a good sign for this lake. I worried about what it is going to look like in a couple of years. I heard in the rumor mill that the dnr was going to dump in some bait fish. I wonder what good it would do in a lake this size unless they dumped them in by the billions. We caught a couple of northern that also didn’t look to good. Anyone else have an opinion on what is happening to this lake.
labsrule

Labsrule- I too have seen some skinny fish, but have also seen my share of real healthy fat fish like the one here in this attachment. Dont know what to think, but one things for sure. The bite is crazy..and I mean crazy.