With our guiding season coming to an end on Mille Lacs we start fishing & guiding on other lakes. This weekend I fished Mille Lacs, Winni and Red. The fishing on Red Lake was nothing short of fantastic. Saturday evening I hooked up with a good friend Joel (Ninetoe) Leonard and his father-in-law Mike. Joel put us on some fishing that is going to be tough to top. The first picture is a 15 1/2 inch 2lb 7.8 ounce crappie I got Saturday afternoon.
During the 3 hours of fishing I landed over 50 crappies and I would imagine for our group of 3 we had well over 100 fish. The fishing was nothing short of fantastic. The next picture is Joel and I with a few of the fish we ended up keeping. The fish on the left is the 15 1/2 incher and the little one next to it was 14 1/4. All the fish pictured are over 14 inches. Those crappies in that lake are impressive!
Sunday I stopped on Winni in hopes of hooking up with Sean Colter. As much as the weather was bad the fishing was good. I stopped to get some eater fish and within an hour I had iced 15 nice jumbo perch. On my way off the lake I looked for Sean but with the 1/4 mile visibility I quickly got off the lake. Rumor has it I missed a great walleye bite. The good news was I made it home in time to have some fresh perch for dinner.
As for Mille Lacs, the bite continues to be slow but steady. We picked up a few nice pike in the AM and our sleeper clients did as well, with one 26 inch walleye. It is kind of a waiting game but patients is still rewarded. Good days are producing 4-5 very nice walleye. The Perch fishing is picking up, but weeding through all the little ones can take some time. The best perch bite has been in the evening hours until just after dark.
Great report Scott. How much snow is on Red?
Mike, we were able to get off the roads but you had to be careful you didn’t stop in an old drift. Before the snow yesterday I would imagine there was 6-8 inches of snow on the ice. It was just starting to snow up there when I left Waskish at 8 AM. I am not sure how much new snow they got.
Scott-
Were you fishing out of portables? How much searching did you have to do to get on ’em like you did? I met Ninetoe on my last outing up there. Pretty good guy.
Nice crappie Scott! Bet that was a lot of fun. Gotta love crappie!
Hey Scott,
I’m planning to be on URL the first weekend in March. Can you suggest a guide that could put us on some fish. There will be four of us with two portables. We normally fish out of Rogers. Where did you guys go out? We’ve been up several times and had some decent fishing, but I’m interested in learning from the local talent.
Thanks,
Steve
Steve, shoot me an email at my address below. I can get you set-up with a local guide. He will put you on fish. We didn’t have to do a lot of scouting around with portables because Joel had found the fish prior to my arrival. They don’t move a lot during the day, so if you can find them it can be fun. I got all my fish before dark.
Nice fish Scott,
We just came back from four days at mille lacs and the worst fishing we have had in ten years up there ,we talked all the way home about red lake and it looks like we will try that next year. Thanks for the report!
Evileye, I wouldn’t count out Mille Lacs in the future. We pull our sleeper houses Feb 6th because it gets hard to stay on a good walleye bite with them. I would recommend fishing Mille Lacs in December or early January if you are looking for really good fishing.
We do most of our guiding on Winni after Feb 1st. We now take all our perch clients to Wiinni. I am sure this will change in two years but right now the jumbo bite on Mille Lacs is poor when you compare it to how we do on Winni! Now you are talking JUMBO perch!!
thats a nice fish would love to hook one of those. nice work.
Dandy Crappie Scott! Nice report…I haven’t seen many slabs like that for quite a while.