Mille Lacs Lake Fishing Report 5-24-04

I had the opportunity to take out a couple hardy souls fishing on Mille Lacs this weekend, Pete Frank from the Twin cities and his Brother in law Jon Brunner who was visiting from Washington. I knew the weather was going to be challenging to say the least, With temps in the 40s it would be a Santa suit day. With all of the warm clothes you could get under your Gortex we ventured out. Our first morning run was to the Malmo sand, After a couple quick moves to various depths and no fish to be seen, the winds picking up and the rain pouring down we opted for the bobber bite on the East side rocks. This quickly produced a nice eater walleye for Jon, pictured here.

We headed in before noon to dry out with that one fish. After changing into dry clothes and getting a bite to eat, we headed back out for the evening bite. This time we stuck to Bobber fishing due to the high winds, easiest slow presentation for the three of us. After making a few moves Pete tied into a nice 26 incher seen here. This was one of the bigger walleye’s he has caught. We also caught one nice perch, and that was it for Saturday.

Sunday greeted us with mist and wind gusting to 30 MPH out of the northeast. We headed out of the boat harbor when Jon asked, were not going out very far today, are we? He evidently had his fill of the wind, cold and wet on Saturday.

We headed out to a few of the closer to shore rock humps to bobber fish but after a couple moves and no fish we quickly switched to pulling cranks. With the wind sweeping the point this looked promising. I graphed fish on the backside of a couple of the sharp breaks along the shoreline when two lines tripped and we picked up a double on almost identical Smallmouth bass. After a quick photo we quickly released them and with that my Clients had seen enough rain and wind for the weekend.

With the weather doing 360 degree swings for the first 10 days of the Minnesota fishing season I look forward to calmer warmer weather and the bite to improve as the water temps continue to increase. This was another weekend where you really appreciate good Rain gear and Gortex.