Memorial Day Weekend on Mille Lacs 5.24.08

Well, I am finally getting around to write a report from this past Holiday weekend. I have been pretty busy since opener but fishing has been on the back burner as I try to gain occupancy on a building for work here this week. I have been out fishing on Mille Lacs very little and have less then 24 hours on the lake. This past weekend I spent three hours Friday night and about 4 hours on Saturday chasing walleyes with my bride Stacie. Somehow she has a real good knack of finding big fish to wrestle with as shown here in the first picture as she holds a very healthy 27.5” walleye she caught Saturday at about noon. The bite on opener was good for me, with plenty of slot fish the few hours I was on the lake. Since then it has been a little tougher then past years, with slot fish really hard to come by.

The water temperature finally was in the low 50’s. It was pretty windy the time we were on the water this past weekend. So we concentrated corking the East side rocks close to home base. During the evening we found fish coming up to feed on a 10’ rock pile. We fished for about 3 hours that evening and landed 5 walleyes along with one nice 10.5” perch. The biggest eye of the evening was a nice 25.5” with the smallest going 18.25”. There is just something I love and is so relaxing about watching a lighted bobber slowly sinking below the surface and having that red glow illuminate the subsurface. It is just what the Dr. ordered after a grueling week at work.

During the later morning and early afternoon hours on Saturday we were again faced with a stiff wind. On this day Stacie and I were joined by my brother Rich for a few hours. Again we chose to cork the rocks on the East side. This time we found them on top of a few different 15 foot rock humps with 21 foot of water real close by. They would come up in flurries to feed before moving back off this hump. As I was tying up another slip bobber rod Stacie stands up and sets the hook into a good fish. Once the fish got close to the boat, the fight was on as drag started to peel off. After about a 2-3 minute battle boat side the fish finally came to the surface and found the bottom of the net. Stacie just landed her biggest walleye of the year. This fish was a very healthy and fat 27.5” fish for this time of the year. After a few more fish came to the boat and we decided it was time to call it a day and head North to McGregor and spend the rest of the 3 day weekend with my family up at our cabin.

I have been finding the best color jigs using corking have been orange, white and red glow. The depths this past week have been 10-12 feet during the evening on the rocks and 15 to 18 feet during the day. I did not get a chance to check out the mud like I hoped too, but I expect the fish to start showing up there in numbers anytime. Well, things have been a bit slow as far as fishing time and the fish biting when I have been able to get on the lake. Hopefully, that will change starting next weekend when I start the lake pre-fishing for the Wacker. I will be away this weekend again as I have a buddy getting married in Wisconsin. So good luck to all the MTT’ers as the tourney is full again and make sure IDO comes home with another win. I hope everyone is enjoying the season so far and hopefully it gets warm here soon. Hopefully, I will become a little more active here as I wrap up my project here this next week or so. Until next time, Lip is out!