Mille Lacs Lake Perch

There are two things I love about March; Perch fishing and there isn’t a fish house in my way for miles. Calvin and I were able to take advantage of the weather on Friday and spend the day on Lake Mille Lacs looking for the infamous big bellied, swollen perch.

Mid March should yield perch in large groups staged at feeding areas adjacent to spawning areas. However, Mille Lacs lake has not yet reached this point at which perch fishermen can take full advantage of the easy pickings. Small groups of roughly 20 perch can been found roaming in search of spawning areas with food nearby. You wouldn’t think a perch would lack food options on Mille Lacs. You would be correct. As of currently, perch have absolutely no reason to stop roaming. In fact with the large abundance of forage, this may be another year in which the perch are able to head directly to the spawning areas in the rubble and such. Angler’s will be quite lucky to have ice at that point this year.

So it sounds tough. Not the case in fact. It is however, a perfect opportunity to start your summer tan early, get some well needed exercise and break free from the ten to twelve inches of snow we’ve been walking through.

As an army of two armed with two augers, we launch an all out attack on any ice that got in the way. Calvin goes one way, I go the other. It’s absolutely necessary to have a team that can drill until the sun goes down.

Searching perch is rigorous work. Past perch excursions have left me tired and disgruntled until finally I’m rewarded. I’m sure many of you readers can remember past years perch reports in which this same scenario took place. We were tired and just about ready to go look for blue gill. And here they come on the second to last hole in the drilled set.

Now this is a critical point. You have very active fish below you that have no reason other than your bait to stay in the area. You need to be quick. I find my self unhooking rebaiting and dropping back down as quickly as possible until Calvin comes over to tag team these fish. I reel one in, he drops down and vice versa. Even though we’re able to entertain the fish in the area, there is still no possibility that they will stay. The “Tag team” approach will keep them around longer and gives a bit of conversation and excitement to the trip after a hard day’s work.

So now you find yourself out perch fishing Mille Lacs and fish are hard to come by. You’re tired of millions of newly hatched perch cluttering the MarCum. You’re tired and disgruntled. Do you drive around the lake asking how everyone else is doing and take comfort in that everyone tells you its slow and “there’s lots of little ones”?. I’ve seen it a million times. My problem is, how do I hide 15 perch under my shins while people drive by and ask how its going. Instead of burning up gas in the truck, try burning it up in the auger. I know its work, I know its tough, but somewhere on that lake there are people catching limits of great big Jumbo Perch.

Calvin and I were not able to locate any quality fish near mud or transition areas. Because of this, we headed directly to the rock and rubble of the South end of Mille Lacs. Our numbers of fish came from 27 ft. On Custom Jigs and Spins Lightning Spoons tipped with a minnow head.

I really encourage people to get up and get on Mille Lacs for the perch bite. There is nearly 36 inches of ice and travel is excellent for ATV’s. Truck traffic will be possible for a short time due to the warm spell we’re receiving.