The Toothy Critter bite on Mille Lacs is starting to really heat up! We’ve caught fish on everything from Bucktails to spoons, surface baits to shallow divers.
I’d been prefishing for the Minnesota Muskie Tournament held this last weekend on Mille Lacs.
The best bite has been coming in the evening for the diehard Muskie guys but we’ve had our best fishing early to mid morning. Our Northern Pike we are getting are in the upper 20" to mid 30" size, and the Muskie have been upper 30" to lower 40" size. This first picture is of an upper twenty-inch pike taken on a white and red spoon as released. My son didn’t want to photo it, but I snapped off a quick picture while he was sliding it back in the water. This size fish is very common.
Our best fish have been coming out off the weeds adjacent to sharp breaks in 10′ to 12′ of water. We’ve taken a few fish off the rocks but have been concentrating on the weeds in Vineland bay Well over 50% of the fish caught in the tournament were taken from this area. On Saturday 4 of the 9 fish on the board were measured from there.
This next fish was taken on a giant perch shallow shad rap off the rocks in 15 feet of water, it taped over 36"s.
During the tourney we had four hookups on Saturday, only getting one fish in the boat. One of the fish we lost when it surfaced behind the boat then dove for the weeds, this was an easy 40 plus inch fish. During this years tourney three fish over 50 inches were measured. Two of these fish were taken on Holcombe Tackle baits, one on a Magnum Stomper, the 53 inch fish and the 51.25 inch fish on a Magnum LOWRider.
This picture is a nice 43" Muskie my son landed while prefishing on a Firetiger spoon last week, it was his biggest to date.
Reports of 50 inch fish have increased through the last week from all areas around the lake. It should only get better from here.
Nice fish Tim. I fished in the Alex area over the weekend and came to Mille lacs Sunday night. Got on the water Mon and boated two small pike. Tues was terrible, I couldnt believe the weather.
Thanks Derek,
We put 101 miles on the tiller boat over 2 days of tourney fishing running and trolling. My rear still hurts!LOL
Smooth Moves!!!
Have you heard of any Muskies coming off the shallow rocks during the day?
A few, but the big ones are coming at night. A buddy of mine told me this morning that three more over 50″s this week came in the evening.
The walleye bite sure has picked up after dark.
I hear corking is the ticket after dark. Still going to chase those toothy critters a couple more days though.
LOL
Bob’s going to have to take me smallie fishing next week, Bass, the dumbest fish in the lake!
Derek
Shallow or deep? Bait n’ bobbers or cranks? Blue and I will be up next Wednesday night REAL late and would love to jump right on the water with an approximate idea of which patterns are going. Thanks buddy!
Cranks in the rocks in 6-9 feet. The fish are really aggressive. I’m hoping to be up all next week. I wont know until Fri.
Derek,
You’d be a hero if you could throw James & myself into a hot bite Wed. night.
I sent James a PM.
We’ll be out Friday night to see how the night bite is going.