Gee, we sure could use some rain… I’m kicking myself for saying that now! I’m wet in places I didn’t know water could get to! 
This is going to be one short report as I’ve literally been blow, drowned and scared off the lake by lightning for all but a couple hours over the last two nights. When I have been able to be on the water, the fishing has been very good. I fished for an hour last night with mudlnthru and it took a grand total of 30 seconds for him to stick his first walleye. Over the next hour we took 6 more ‘eyes, most in the 24 inch range, and two pike. Then the rain came came down in buckets and held for the next couple hours.
Last last two night we moved to the extreme SW corner of the lake and took fish inside the weedlines. The #12 husky jerks and rattlin rogues have been putting the fish in the boat. Red Craw, Lazer craw and firetiger have been the hot colors.
I wish I had more to share. We had some picture worthy fish in the boat but didn’t dare risk exposing the digi cameras to the downpour. I’ll have more for my next report on Saturday night. Tonight looks to be the first night in the last 3 where we’ll have some moonlight to work with so I anticipate a good bite.
Water temps are down a couple degrees over night…. 66 degrees when I left the lake last night. I would anticipate the temps to have dropped a bit further by the time I get to the lake tonight.
I look forward to hearing from everyone that fishes the pond tonight and over the weekend! Stay safe and stick a pig! 
I never made it to the pond last night as I got roped, kicked, scratched into taking another trip for the giant upper Miss smallies. It rained the entire night for us as well, but boy were those smallies on the chew big time! Lots of 18-20″ fish made it to the boat. Once I wrap my river smallie trips up, I am off to the big pond! Save a couple for me James!
How long are you up there for September?
I’m headed home, reluctantly, on Monday AM. I’ll be back up here for most all of October though!
I posted on Mille Lacs form, thought I would dubb it here too.
Was out fishing last night from about 9:30 till 11:30. The rain pushed us off earllier than we would like but it is always enjoyable getting out there. Go figure too when the fishing starts to pick up we need to get off.
We started trolling a rocky reef in about 8-10 feet of water without much success. Alternating between firetiger, clown, craw, and red. We then started moving shallower, 4-6 feet, and alternating again with the baits, that was the depth that we found the fish. We caught fish basically instantly on black/orange husky jerk. The fish that we caught were either relating to the beginning of the reef, where the wind blew driectly on the reef, or the back side of the reef, where the wind could push everything to the end of the reef. The fish smoked the baits really hard shaking the holders. we had about 90-120 feet of line out and our baits where thumping the rocks.
Then I had one big hit, I set the hook and a couple seconds later my line snaps. Checking my line I didn’t see any frays but I assume that it was torned up from the rocks, I retie and then continue fishing. About 5 minutes later I hear a splash by the front of the boat and I see a 40+ in muskie tall-dancing on the top of the water like a Tarpon. Go figure.
Speed for us was 1-1.8 mph, water temps dropped fro 67.4 -65 when we were out there. The fish that we caught were smaller than usual, from 16 1/4 to 20 inches. Is this normal to get them smaller in the begining of the year as oppose to later fall?
It was good to get out there for the first time. Hope to be back there tonight and forsure Sunday.
Good luck.
Nice reading the report even though no pics!!
I wasn’t able to make up last night either. I had a phone system die in one of my SD locations and I sat in the airport until 1:30 am waiting for the equipment to show, which it never did. I was pretty hot when I left, thinking I could be sitting on Mille Lacs catching fish instead of on the stainless steel luggage conveyor.
On a positive note, since the hardware didn’t show, I didn’t have to drive 5 hours stewing about the fishing I was missing. Maybe one night this next week.
Guys are reporting lots of smaller fish in the mix this fall but honestly I guess I haven’t seen many sub-20 inch fish yet. My guess is its just time and location deal but you can count on an improvement in average size as we move deeper further into the season.
Excellent report… thanks much for sharing.
I’ll chime in here with a little scenery. It was great fun last night even though I found out that summer might be heading south and sandals don’t work very well any more. My feet didn’t get cold, but they sure got wet yesterday. Bobber loaned me a pair of his boots for the night fish.
We put in at a nice landing last night in the middle of a downpour. I figured that it probably had to stop. It doesn’t rain all THAT much, does it?
7 or so miles of black rough water away, we started trolling. My first hit, as James mentioned, was right at the moment I set the lever on the reel. Instant fish. We figured it might be a decent night. James had two northerns even though we couldn’t even see the line going out.
I don’t know how often folks fish Mille Lacs, but I’m sure that everyone has a story about a rough day or night. Last night was a good one to remember. There was a moment when we thought the rain would let up and we’d really be able to hammer the fish. I looked west, saw a little light and a horizon for a few minutes. Then it was like someone shut off the sky. As we continued trolling it got darker and darker and finally reminded me of flying a small plane and not being able to see the horizon. It wouldn’t have made any difference if we were airborne or under water at that point. We could have been upside down for all I know and the rain drenched us so completely that I’m still drying out this evening.
But all in all, it was fun. I even nodded off on the way back to the landing. James thought I just had my head down to avoid the rain that kept slashing in at us. Nope. I was sound asleep. 45 miles an hour through heavy rain, driving by GPS and I felt like I was at home in bed. Well, on a water bed with a leak.
Looking forward to going back. The ‘eyes and smallies both are biting.
dang guys, that sounds like a fun night out on the water. I don’t think that i would have liked the rough waters, but hey, you where out fishing. hope you ya’ll had a blast up there.
shane
I was out yesterday from 4:00pm til 10:00pm. We worked the following areas: anderson & rocky reefs, Indian point and the cove bay area. Lot’s of small walleyes with a few 18’s and some decent smallies. We caught most of our walleyes in the 6′ to 10′ range on fire tiger shad raps (deep divers). The fish would hit the plugs as we trolled in and out of that shallow water. Another method we tried was to hammer (not tick) the bottom with the plug as we worked in and out of 4′ of water, especially around andersons reef. A decent smallie hit at 9:30 doing this along with a couple more walleyes.
Side note, on rocky and andersons reef we had walleyes following our jig worms back to the boat. They would stop short of hitting the bait. We had one muskie attack on rocky reef, but it was a disappointing miss for me …and to add insult to injury it took three stabs at my buzzzz bait!!
It was a fun outing and considering the nice weather last night I was surprised at the lack of boats. I think we counted a dozen boats working andersons reef.
As we left the lake, the moon was just clearing the clouds…hmmm wonder if we left too soon??? Jon