Mille lacs Ice Fishing Report

I just got back from my first ice trip of the year on lake Mille lacs. The weather could not have been better and the walleye bite is great one day and spotty the next. I had the pleasure of spending two days fishing with my good friends Bob "bobber" Carlson and Craig Daughtery.

We met Bobber yesterday morning at Hunters Resort and headed out to the gravel about a mile out. Whats nice about this time of year is there is very little traffic on the ice and all the areas we wanted to target were pretty much virgin waters. The first gravel area we fished produced nothing. Scanning the top of the bar and gradual edges with my Vexilar FL-20 and a bottle of water and shooting through the ice , it didnt take long to rule out this bar and move on to the next. With 9-12 inches of clear ice, this is prime time to take advantage of shooting through the ice with your flasher and eliminating dead water fast. You cant catch fish until you find fish. This is really important when fishing during non-prime hours, after sunrise and before sunset.

We then headed out to Three Mile reef and and we wanted to target the tops of the reef and found a small circus of people and we quickly turned away and decided to head to the mud flats.

Bobber pointed out an awesome sight of Mother Nature about a 1/2 mile away on the south end of three mile. During normal years that area is about 4-5 feet deep. Now its probably 2-3 feet deep. There was a ice heave that had to be 20 feet high. Too far for pictures but awesome with the naked eye.

On to the mud! Hunters Resort has a staked road to the Sliver and Boot flat. We headed to the Boot and kept going north to fish a no-name flat. With the snow cover on the lake, we followed old trails and crossed two breakers with no problems. Once over the breakers, there was 9-12 inches of ice pretty much everywhere. But there are breakers in between flats and we did not want to cross anywhere that nobody has been to. I had a friend that sunk his ATV on Tues only a mile out trying to get to Blue Jug. There’s plenty of places to fish off Hunters road. There’s no reason to venture to unsafe areas.

Back to the fishing. We arrived to the mud flat we wanted to fish about 12 noon yesterday. Scanning an area with a steep edge that held a flat on top, Bobber and Craig set up shop with Scenic Go-Devil spoons tipped with minnow heads. My agenda was to find some sumo jumbo perch, so I kept covering the top of the flat searching with my FL-20, Lowrance Globalmap 4900M and Lakemaster chip all mounted on my Ski-doo. Using my GPS and map chip, I look for the shallowest part of the flat and areas where the contour lines are wide. These are areas where you can find clam beds and sticky bottom areas where bugs love to live. I was constantly moving and scanning. Not even finding baitfish on my FL-20. I finally found some nice targets on my FL-20 just about 50 yards away from Bobber and Craig. I was on top of the flat and they were working the edge with that nice little shelf that came up. I had three nice red bars just off bottom on my FL-20 and I lowered my green GO-Devil spoon. Hoping I found some nice sumo perch as the first fish that saw my spoon came racing up on my FL-20 and just smacked my spoon. I reeled up a 9-10 walleye. I put him back and again got smacked by another cigar moments later. Bobber and Craig kept yelling at me to comer and cash in on the walleye bite which I did. Bobber caught and released a 25 incher and we caught 7 walleyes from that edge. Notice I posted my water temp for this report at 40 degrees. That is key!!!

At 4pm we decided to head for the rocks. We fished the rocks about a mile out from Picard Point. Craig and Bobber and set up on the steepest edge at 16 feet while I set up on top in 10 feet. And this is key, each of us had our own flip style portable fishhouse. Craig and Bobber using Otter and myself using a Fish Trap Yukon. Each of us never fishing with in 30-40 yards from each other. Theres no reason to fish elbow to elbow, spread out and with two-way radios you can all stay on top of the bite. We jerked three more slot fish from the rocks and Craig and Bobber missed another 5-7 fish. Heres a tip, when using spoons, most spoons come with a # 8 treble hook. Replace them with a #6 or #4. When walleyes slam a soon, hook size doest not matter. And when fishing these areas where you are waiting for the fish to come to you, always set up a dead stick with a slip float and minnow. I’m still thinking and talking about this one. Last night I was in 10 feet like I mentioned earlier. I had two holes, one for my spoon and one for my dead stick. Just as the sun was below and gone, I saw a nice thick red mark on my FL-20 which I had down my spoon hole. This fish gave my spoon only seconds worth of look and it was gone. I kept jigging my spoon and I heard a "PLUNK" Ive caught pig walleyes before on slip bobbers and I knew right away what I was in for. I set the hook on my deadstick rod and could not lift her at all. She took one run and I had not time at all for backreel or drag. The hooked popped and I let out a *&^%$%.

Today the bite was very tough, George at Hunters said everyone that came in said the same. We went back to the same holes and found a very negative bite. I thought I was on some Jumbo perch and set up my Reel Weeds. Only to be disappointed. Heres a tip for the Reel Weeds users on the Mille lacs mud flats.

I lowered all 5 of my weeds into the mud. The mud we were fishing was extremely soft. The weight of the Reel Weeds sank into the bottom 6 inches or so. Pulling the weeds back up, I had to guess and thought all my weeds were placed correctly. I called Bobber on the two-ways and asked if I could borrow his Marcum camera. Sure enough, three out of my 5 weeds were over 2 feet off bottom making them useless. If your a Reel Weeds user and have no camera, I suggest marking the cord every 6 inches to give yourself a good reference point. The weeds are useless unless they are on bottom.

Lastly, George at Hunters wanted me to tell everyone that ALL his rentals are out on the lake and ready. Hes running a 1/2 price special on all rental fish houses. Sun-Thurs 1/2 off.

All rental houses are on the first break at 24 feet. This is the best time to cash in on the first ice bite.

Call Hunters Resort 1-320-676-3227

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good bite!