So I’m of the opinion that the state would just keep the lake closed, however, I figured we would have heard about it before it was set to reopen in 4 days. Has anybody heard anything?
I’ve also heard that Isle bay had a ton of floating walleyes on it. Can we agree that hooking mortality isn’t the cause of this since they haven’t been targeted for a month? Or did we wound them in May and June and they are just starting to float now?
Its scheduled to open on Saturday, August 1 and stay open the entire fall. New regulations will start on Dec 1 (TBD).
The water is bath tub warm everywhere. When it re-opens and people start deep hooking them with leeches again, mortality will sky rocket. I’m sure the fish are still very hungry and willing to bite too. They were skinny and deathly looking before the closure and its likely still the same.
It will open no guarantees it will stay open all fall. Thanks Gimruis for reminding us how skinning you think the walleyes are for the 100th time. You win a skinny leech to catch a skinny walleye.
It will open no guarantees it will stay open all fall. Thanks Gimruis for reminding us how skinning you think the <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleyes are for the 100th time. You win a skinny leech to catch a skinny walleye.
Bahahaha
Im surprised those fish have survived so long in such a malnourished state. They’ve been starving to death for years!
You’d think we’d see a die off if they’re all starving….
Nope, the lake is still full of fish.
Of the many, many fish I’ve caught up there this year only one looked a little, I repeat, a little skinny. All others were very healthy including this 24″.
IMG_7289.jpg
Of the many, many fish I’ve caught up there this year only one looked a little, I repeat, a little skinny. All others were very healthy including this 24″.
Weird me too…
Well I guess skinny is relative. Compared to the walleyes I see from other big lakes and rivers around here, they are way skinnier. Compared to a fence post, I’d call them healthy.
Are these of pictures you see on the net or????
Are these of pictures you see on the net or????
No, these are photos I see from tournament anglers I know. I’ll let it go now, I’ve made my point.
I’ve also heard that Isle bay had a ton of floating walleyes on it. Can we agree that hooking mortality isn’t the cause of this since they haven’t been targeted for a month? Or did we wound them in May and June and they are just starting to float now?
I haven’t heard about tons of floating eyes, but I usually assume it’s by people who don’t or won’t know the difference between a tullibee and an eye. Hooking mortality as a management tool is BS, and based on severely flawed “science” as was recently pointed out in another thread. There’s a reason why they don’t use it as a basis for management anywhere else. Oh and yeah, the walleye I’ve caught there earlier this summer looked chunky! Although ML fish are not as chunky as other lakes every year, and I’m sure there’s a huge # of old age fish in the system since we are now 7 years into CnR “management”.
I don’t know why there’s dead walleyes floating in Isle Bay. My guess would be a result of warmth and lack of food. Will there be floaters by the end of August? Probably. Unless the water cools back down soon, which I wouldn’t expect until around Labor Day anyways. Like you previously stated, it may not stay open for as long as we should expect it to.
The water is bath tub warm everywhere. When it re-opens and people start deep hooking them with leeches again, mortality will sky rocket. I’m sure the fish are still very hungry and willing to bite too. They were skinny and deathly looking before the closure and its likely still the same.
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I don’t know why there’s dead walleyes floating in Isle Bay. My guess would be a result of warmth and lack of food. Will there be floaters by the end of August? Probably. Unless the water cools back down soon, which I wouldn’t expect until around Labor Day anyways. Like you previously stated, it may not stay open for as long as we should expect it to.
It will open no guarantees it will stay open all fall. Thanks Gimruis for reminding us how skinning you think the <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleyes are for the 100th time. You win a skinny leech to catch a skinny walleye.
HaHaHaHa. too funny. I think he’s just so good at fishing, a regular 26″ walleye just seems so small to him.
I’m here everyday and I can tell what I do and don’t see.
I see a lake mostly devoid of fishing boats, even bass boats have become a rare sight. Hot days or not, doesn’t seem to matter.
How much hooking mortality can there be when so few are fishing?
If the DNR comes out with some kind of inflated HM figure, they’re feeding us with more BS.
I am seeing a fair amount of floaters when there’s a south wind, most all are tullibee.
Overnight lows this week will be in the mid to upper 50’s with wind.
Let’s not yet predict high HM and early closures just yet.
I’m curious once it reopens how many boats return. I’ll go so far to say it won’t be anything like May and June…we shall see.
I’ll be interested to see how busy it is too. I’ll be back up there on Sunday. I’m hoping it’s not as busy as it was in June. With the Canadian border still closed I have a hunch the lake will still be plenty busy, especially if the bite picks up where it left off in June.
Lakes were bathtub warm for a little over a week in early July. With rains and cooler nights (along with wind) the past couple weeks the water temps have come down considerably.
Lakes in the north metro are 76-77 (yesterday) compared to 84-85 two weeks ago. I know the big bodies of water heat and cool slower but I’d be interested to see a graph of water temps for ML. My guess is the lake hit 80 for about two days in early July and has been cooler since.
I’m here everyday and I can tell what I do and don’t see.
I see a lake mostly devoid of fishing boats, even bass boats have become a rare sight. Hot days or not, doesn’t seem to matter.
How much hooking mortality can there be when so few are fishing?
If the DNR comes out with some kind of inflated HM figure, they’re feeding us with more BS.
I am seeing a fair amount of floaters when there’s a south wind, most all are tullibee.
Overnight lows this week will be in the mid to upper 50’s with wind.
Let’s not yet predict high HM and early closures just yet.
I’m curious once it reopens how many boats return. I’ll go so far to say it won’t be anything like May and June…we shall see.
It has certainly been quite up here during July. I could probably count the number of boats out driving around the lake and not have to take my shoes and socks off to count. It will be interesting to see the poundage number the DNR releases for July. It should be 0 lbs correct?
If walleye are so fragile we should probably just let nature take it’s course and let the pond turn into a smallmouth lake………… 
For what it’s worth, I’ve been up twice this month targeting smallies but have only seen two floaters, both tullibee.
Agree with the other guys who already stated:
Vast majority of floaters are tulibee
Water temps should have come down already with the rain and long range forecast looks cooler too
I’ll be back up this weekend after a brief hiatus…..
I’m curious once it reopens how many boats return. I’ll go so far to say it won’t be anything like May and June…we shall see.
I’ll be up for the second opener this Saturday, unless it’s too windy.
Of the many, many fish I’ve caught up there this year only one looked a little, I repeat, a little skinny. All others were very healthy including this 24″.
I’m not a Mille Lacs guy. I can say when comparing apples to oranges, that’d be a skinny fish for Pool 2, 3, 4, or 5 though. 
I read this whole post and came to the conclusion that skinny walleye lives matter
The walleyes I caught on Leech Lake looked the same as the walleyes I caught on Mille Lacs this year. I guess Leech has a problem too…. 
There were plenty of 25″ walleye floaters in around Sunset Bay during the first couple of weeks of July and only saw a couple of tulibees. I thought it strange to see so many floaters with no walleye fishing. The last couple of weeks I have not noticed any floaters.
The fishing boat traffic has for the most part dried up. However I am seeing more folks out trolling the typical walleye runs than SM folks.
While I have been fishing bass in July, I have caught only a single walleye which is very strange. But also the bass bite has been pretty slow.
Looking forward to fall fishing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, these are photos I see from tournament anglers I know. I’ll let it go now, I’ve made my point.
Care to share one or two of these photos you speak of?
I found that the build of the walleyes I caught out there this year varied depending where I caught them. Some areas had skinnier walleyes than other areas. The thinnest I saw were in the rocks. They were feeding on crayfish. I saw a couple with one still in their mouth when I caught them, and another that spit one out as I was going to net it.
Is it possible to get lake survey reports from the MN DNR?
If so, what is the Wr (relative weight) of walleye in Mille Lacs?
Buffalo Fishhead
Yes you can. The DNR does a LL Survey of Mille Lacs and the report from the previous year is typically available June/July. I ask and receive it every year.
I asked the DNR if it was okay to share the LL survey and the response was yes it is public information. You can ask the DNR for the survey.
The following are some cherry picked comments from the LL that I have pulled from the Walleye section.
Please don’t turn this into a DNR bashing discussion.
An interesting pattern was apparent for Walleye catch in the individual nets, with the vast majority of nets in the southern half of the lake showing highly reduced catches compared to their average catch across years, with catch tending to improve at netting locations heading into the northern portion of the lake (Figure 32). It doesn’t appear that forage levels were responsible for the pattern observed in Walleye catch across the lake as age-0 Yellow Perch, the
22 typical preferred forage species in Mille Lacs, was relatively limited in the offshore areas of the lake, but available in the nearshore regions (Figure 33). Additionally, the amount of Yellow Perch under 6 inches observed in the standard gill nets does not match up well with the pattern of catch observed with Walleye, further suggesting forage is not playing a major role in the unusual dispersal of Walleye throughout the lake during the netting period (Figure 34).
The truncation of the 2013 year class beyond 21 inches is particularly interesting as the 2018 sampling indicated reasonably good numbers of fish available to grow into the 21 inch to 22 inch size groups over the 2019 summer (Jensen 2019). However, it appears that fish available to move into these size classes have become depleted, most likely due to angler cropping from a 21 inch to 23 inch harvest slot over the winter fishing season and through May of 2019.
Walleye condition, an indication of fish fatness, was exceptionally poor across all size ranges (Figure 39). Medium sized Walleye (14”-20”) exhibited the worst condition ever recorded, while small (<14”) and large Walleye (>20”) had the second worst condition ever observed.
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