Yesterday was my 9th straight day on the water. I had been doing a little guiding and pre-fishing for the Wave Wacker walleye tournament held this past Thursday and Friday. During this past week or so I did find some active fish on the eastside of Mille Lacs in the rocks. The Mud flats had some active fish early last week only to have those fish move from my areas.
The walleye that we found to be most active were in the 17 foot areas. We fished mostly with slip bobbers and leeches to catch our smaller fish. I had the pleasure of fishing with Mike Little of B-Fish-N Tackle Monday and Tuesday. We managed to catch a few fish for Mike to take home for a fish fry. Mike and I also had a few hours to try for some smallies Sunday evening as it was one of the only nice days that we have had this past week or so. We managed only 3 bass in the areas close to my home. The water still needs to warm up a bit to turn on those shallow fish. I think if we would have spent more time we might have found more numbers than we did.
Many of the past days we have had winds from all directions. I just don’t recall so many days with an east wind. Monday Mike and I ran to the mud flats to fish some of the schools of walleye that I had been fishing. Well the mud bite was not there for us and the wind came up strong out of the southeast leaving us a long ride back in. On the mud I have been rigging 6-8 foot lindy rigs with large leeches in 35 foot off the edges off the flats. The mud should improve with some warmer weather. I have been wearing gear that you would normally have on in the fall. When is summer going to arrive? Water temps still are only around the 60 degree mark.
The best method we found all week to catch numbers of walleye was to bobber fish the shallow rocks. The fish would come up on the reefs to feed on the bait that we were seeing on our locators. Many days we had loons diving under our boats after bait. Question: has anyone ever graphed a loon on your locator? Well we had one do just that, it swam all the way to the bottom at 17 feet and back to the surface. It was pretty cool thing to see. This past week we managed a few large fish also. Both Hook and I caught fish over 28 inches bobber fishing the rocks. And a good number of healthy 23-26 inch fish. We are not seeing any thin skinny fish any more in this lake. The lake is full of feed and is allowing our walleye to add some bulk!
June is a great time to fish Mille Lacs. Make some plans and head to the lake and catch some great walleye or get in on some great smallmouth action!
Hey Bob… do I see a NON SHEEPIE in Mikey’s hand? You have seriously helped this man!
Great photos and bigguns Bobber!
Mike you look simply marvelous in the red guidewear!!