Mille Lacs Lake Minnesota Walleye Report 6-22-08

Another enjoyable weekend of Mille Lacs walleye fishing and guiding has come and gone. On Saturday we started early pulling spinners and Gulp crawlers and leeches on the a rock/sand transition just off the access we used since we marked quite a few fish. Unfortunatly these fish would not take our offerings so off to the mud we went. Being that the lake is still behind where the fish are normally I hit the spots that I would usually fish 1 to 2 weeks earlier in a normal year. This is why I keep records of all my fishing trips. Our first stop yielded 2 nice 17" fish for the live well and 2 in the 24" range to go back for another day. The fish were slowed down so we moved again. Most flats seemed to have very few anglers on them in areas we fished, and that was fine with me. When we drove by a couple of the bigger "named" south east flats they had a ton of boats on them, and I hate crowds. Each flat gave up 3 or 4 fish before we moved on. By the time we decided to start trolling we had 6 to take home with twice that many bigger fish released. It was about 60/40 crawlers to leeches on 10′ Vanish leaders

We trolled cranks on 2 different areas. On the first spot we marked a ton of baitfish and arcs to go with them, much more than I’ve seen so far. To my suprise we were only able to catch 2 fish here both coming on Flicker Shads trolled with lead core. Our second spot was just the opposite. We marked very few fish our clouds of bait, but manages to average a fish every 20 minutes. These fish also like the Flickers with Deep Tail Dancers coming in 2nd. Lots of "S" turns and turning around and trolling back over a spot that just gave up a fish worked well. We ended the day reeling in lines and hooking up a nice fish while doing so. We put on a lot of miles that day putting in at Myr Mar, stopping at Red Door for a potty and ice break, almost making it down to Sloppys, and than heading for home.

Sunday’s group was looking to learn what the whole Mille Lacs trolling was all about. We didn’t hit the water until 9am and were greeted with the wind blowing good out of the nw. The way it was blowing I wasn’t wanting to run that much, but we still mad a 9 mile run to where I marked the fish the day before. The bait and fish had moved about a mile to the se, I would assume due to the wind. While setting the 2nd line the first board went off. This kept up for about an hour until things slowed. We pulled all the lines, ran back into the waves, and set up for another pass. We managed a few more fish, but nothing like the first run so we decided to work some new water. We hit 3 different stretches that showed fish and caught fish on 2 of them. Fortunaty we only got a couple sprinkles during the day on us and never had to break out the rain gear. There were a few cells that blocked out garrison and the west side water towers as the rain went down the west side of the lake. I guess we got lucky.

One thing I really noticed with the fish we boated this past weekend was that the 22-26" fish are real thick and healthy. The fish we caught that taped 27" or more were not as fat and alsmost looked skinny. I also saw my first floaters of the year. I was hoping the cooler water would help lessen that this year.

The fishing may not be as hot as last year, but there are still plenty of fish to be caught as long as you are willing to work at it. If not, call and book a trip and we can do the work for you!