Snowy Mille Lacs Report

Well I will start out by saying it is great to be back reporting and not just reading these great reports! My son Ben and I spent the last week fishing the north and the west side of the lake. We took walleyes and smallmouth a number of ways. But it was not an easy bite. You would think with the alleged lack of baitfish, these fish would be snapping like gators in a kiddy pool! Not quite so for our boat. We worked over weeds, over rock, over breaks, inside weeds, 3 FOW shorelines. We pulled bent lips shads, #10 Huskys, Thundersticks, Rogues, Lil Rippers. We threw chubs (Thanks Mr. Fellegy!) suckers and shiners on some of my secret slip bobber rigs. We fished day time, dusk to well after midnight. We fished in fog, rain, snow, moonlight and pitch darkness. The one thing I can say with certainty is that our fish and our pattern revolved around some sort of light. Colors and style of our cranks also depended on light conditions. Favorite color for us was Blue, whether chrome or just a dull blue seemed to perform best. Number two was the venerable Tennessee Shad Husky Jerk.

Some of our old faithful lures such as the Rogue failed to perform for us. My thinking was that the lake was so low, it made the weeks higher in the water column. The Rogues found the weeds before the fish found the lures. We also noticed that on nights without a mood, our bite window shrunk dramatically. We would get a half dozen or so from 5:30 to 7:30, and if you were lucky you could scratch out a few more until midnight or so. As is almost always the case, the walleyes like the “Rod Surge” and would smack baits on the drop back on a tight line. Speeds we ran were from 1.2 to 1.8. Over shallow water we would make a lot of “S” turns that would invoke strikes as the lures passed through water the boat did not go over.

The water was ultra clear and we could easily see down 7 feet or more. Thank the Zeebs for that I believe. I have a hunch that these zeebs may be having a larger impact on the baitfish than the walleye are. The zeebs may be filtering out the algae and microorganisms that the small perch, shiners, whitefish and other YOY fingerlings feed on, thus altering or impacting the food chain. We covered a lot of ground without seeing the large “Bait Balls” we were used to seeing from years past. Matt Grow, Jami Ritter and Jon Jordan were all fishing different parts of the lake and noticing this as well.

When we did finally get a good moon night, the fish responded well! Blue chrome baits were the best lures in our boat. Daytime, corking over rock piles was an absolute blast! Ben and I agreed that there was no other time of the year where you could come up here and consistently catch 4 and 5 pound smallmouth! These bass were all scarred up from what we think wasrock bombing for crayfish. We could see why they would rather have a chub or sucker rather than a craw! Ouch! I would like to thank the staff of the Red Door Resort for the awesome cabins and great food at the Waypoint Café. I hope that the bite improves and I hope that the skinny walleyes get fat somehow! Looking forward to deer and then hard water! I am also looking forward to Matt Grow’s pics as well! Great fishing with you and Roger!
Good luck hunters!!!