I had the rare opportunity to spend a few quiet and secluded days on Lake Mille Lacs recently. I had rain, snow, fog, warm and cold conditions to deal with. Typical for this time of year. Well, maybe not the rain. I was staying in a fish house on the east side of the lake over 31 feet of water. The spot is and has been known for perch and walleye early and late in the day. And that was the case this last week. Low light was definitely the key. This perch came up just after sunrise. Just under 14″ and my personal best! It is going up on the wall.
This year, I am going to up-size my baits for perch as I have found that my biggest perch have either come on rattle reels with larger minnows, or walleye spoons such as Go-Devils, Demons, Buck-shots or Ice Minnows used for walleye. Don’t get me wrong, I will still be dropping down Diamond Jigs and the like, but the bigger perch have shown a preference to the larger baits. I use a Marcum LX5, and the fish streaking up like a rocket would usually hit and hit hard! The lookers for the most part tended to be smaller perch and smaller walleyes. The smaller perch in this picture was 9″, and the other two were 12.5″. One of the big ones was a male! That surprised me!
I spent some time plying the shallow rocks, and the deeper flats. I found a lot of small walleyes over the 15-20′ rocks, and some 8-9″ perch. These little walleyes would hit like mad! Perch would pick, pick, pick. These aggressive little walleye would scream off the bottom on my Marcum and smack the spoons! I caught a dozen or so of these fish both on the shallow rocks as well as the flats. I am told these are this year’s hatch as the spawn came early and the fish got a good jump on 2010.
The Flats have fish all over them, but biters for me were fewer than I would have liked. As is usual on the Flats, you could pull fish off the bottom and have them chase up to 20 feet off the bottom and not bite. I would vary baits from jigging spoons to Salmo Chubby Darters. All would get fish chasing, but committing to biting just wasn’t to be. We decided to head back in to the permanent shack for the evening bite where we did pick up some nice fish for the box, and some too big to keep as well. Once the clock rolled around to 5:30 PM, they went to sleep! At 7:30 AM, they would wake up and the walleye would be active until about 8:30. The perch would do as they do and school in and out over the course of the day, and if you were lucky you could pick off a few of the bigger ones. Sorry about the phone photos as I had camera issues. (Fixed now!) I hope to get back up soon!!
Utilize the Resorts for roads, and IDO for up to date info! Be safe and have fun!
Tuck
Great report Tuck That looks like a blast
Heck of a wall mount that will be Chris
I toyed with taking my largest 3 and doing a driftwood mount, til I saw the cost!
Chris, you guys have a very healthy fishery up there! Great report!
The current state of Mille Lacs right now is simply awesome.. The jumbo perch are on the way back in some very solid numbers mixed in are younger year class to keep the perch population strong. Walleyes numbers are also very good, you can catch a 7″ walleye and a 27″ along with everything in between out of the same hole only minutes apart. Pout are starting to show themselves as well, I had the chance to fight with one yesterday only to loose at the ice….darn…Tullies are still strong as ever and in my opinion very fun to catch.
Ice Fishing on mille lacs does take some work, with the amount of vehicle traffic the low light periods are your best times right now for fish, however getting away from the “crowds” will increase your odds of catching vs sniffers during the day.
Please check with whichever resort your going out of as the ice is changing almost constantly, lack of snow equals lack of insulation so rise or falling temps causing these mass ice sheets to move, a lot of active cracks right now that will run your day in a hurry. Go slow respect the road speed limit of the resort.
Good point on the ice Cal! On Monday night the ice was just exploding! The temp went from 10 to 27 degrees! The ramp I used on the East side to get on and off had a good sized heave along shore that required bashing from a plow truck to become passable. I drove over and around some cracks mid-lake that had water coming up through them. Just use caution and all will be fine! These temps will help the healing.
Nice report Tuck. That perch will make a fantastic looking mount
I can only imagine what these fish are going to look like for the upcoming perch tourneys in February and March!
Nice job Tuck!!…. Which freezer did you put that perch in again?
Red’s.
Are those Peacock Bass??
Wow, dandy perch Tuck
No doubt, some true giants in there! Congrats on the fishing, thanks for the report.
Joel
Great read Tuck, congrats on the tanker orange fin
Great Report Tuck! We were on 3 Mile in 19 fow, caught 11 eyes, kept 7, 2 perch that were 10.5″ ers.
Hey Craig I think I drove by you on Hunters Road on Sunday.
I’ll be up there again this weekend with the 20′ wheelhouse. I got a buddy from Redwood Falls heading up on Friday morning. I’m sure we will be up at Hunters for dinner.
All I know is that I think it is gonna be a fun season!!
Awesome report! those are some nice perch! WOW
Awesome report! those are some nice perch! WOW
That my friend is one “DANDY” perch!!
Nice Report and Perch, Chris
Jack
I wish I could say it was like that for us on the weekend of the Jan 20th. -25 degrees had everyone’s lips tight. a total of 20 perch between 10 guys & one 13″ walleye.