Mille Lacs MN walleye report 5-20-7

I was able to spend the last 4 days Guiding friends and family on the big pond. Each day we caught plenty of fish, buit did find little changes that put a few extra fish in the boat. Fri I was fishing with an inexperienced angler, so instead of Lindy rigging like I planned, I ran bottom bouncers and 2 hook spinners instead. This helped eliminate the need for having the "feel" and put many more fish in the boat. We covered a lot of water this day putting in at Izaty’s, which currently has a great ramp with easy access to deep water for big boats, and ended the day north of Hunter’s Point. Our single best drift was 5 keepers in less than 30 minutes with all over 17". Leeches on the spinners caught all the fish. I did not gat a single walleye on a crawler. I did catch some perch on it, and the males we caught were milking in the boat. The best walleye bite this day was a rock/sand transition in 21′-25′. Getting away from other boats helped a lot.

Sat we started out by running out to a favorite early mud flat I like. Well so did about 40 other boats. We drove around and found 1 little area that we marked a decent number of fish. Myself and 2 follw boats worked this area and boated 4 nice keeper, 2 over and lost one very big fish. When the front moved through and the wind changed, the fished vanished. Fish were caught on both spinners and lindy rigs, but all on leeches except for the big one that got away. She hit a crawler. I would expect the crawler bite to pick up as the water warms. We did notice quite a few husks floating while on the flats.

When the wind picked up we ran north to the sand and caught fish right away pulling spinners and leeches. The fish were hitting so hard we actully missed half the fish that bit. We kept our snells shorter than usual on Mille Lacs and only ran them 6′ as if they were longer we kept hooking snails. 22′ was the best depth for us. The wind made for a perfect drift with the small drift sock out and bowmount down pulling us up to that 22′ mark. Sat we put in at the Red Door. The ramp is great, but there is quite a bit of shallow sand outside the harbor to the break. It was fine when calm, but with the wind I was kicking up bottom.

It is a pretty good bite out there right now. Now is the time to get those kids out and enjoy. And ltes all preactice a little patinece at ramps, as they are very busy.