Mille Lacs Messenger who's eating what

http://www.messagemedia.co/millelacs/outdoors/article_f6b94e98-5eb5-11e4-af40-0017a43b2370.html

It has been pointed out to me that The Mn DNR are saying that they now believe that Mille Lacs Lake has more northern Pike than smallmouth bass??

I’m interested in what others think about that statement.

I for one…..disagree

I am a little more interested in this side step.

“The answer to the dwindling walleye population as it pertains to predator diets in Mille Lacs…”

Though back to your question Bob, I find it funny that last year it was the Smallies eating the yoy walleye but this year it is the pike.

And then later goes on the say
“A bass is a more bottom-associated fish,” said Ahrenstorff. “They eat a lot of crayfish.”
I guess that makes perfect sense now. WOW

The side stepping and guessing all over the board is getting worse every year.

From what I remember reading on this site last year the DNR said smaller pike were to blame for eating the most young walleye….? I know they said at the time of the survey all smallmouth were mainly consuming crayfish. This appears to be the same findings…

I’m not sure if it’s just me or that the article was poorly written, but I really can’t draw a single conclusion from the information gathered here… It seems like everything stated here was for the most part the same info we’ve known/been hearing from the DNR for the past few years. I didn’t see anything I would consider new info. It also seems like they jumped between talking about total consumption and consumption rates.

Will

In my limited experience fishing Mille Lacs from shore this year (About 7 total trips) all in May or Oct. I got 2 pike (one small pike on a swimbait and one big on a jerkbait) 1 walleye (21 incher on swimbait) 1 smallmouth bass follow, and 1 muskie follow both on the same jerkbait I got the big Pike on. The way I hear non-bass fisher people are keeping and or killing the smallmouth now for the past two years I’d believe it. I guess the pike (and how many ski’s) are gonna get theirs come this winter. All I heard this year was guys talking about getting to spear them northerns. I don’t mind little pike getting the spear, but any pike over 30″ that gets speared is a disgrace, same as all the 16″+ smallmouth that have been killed.

Bob Carlson wrote:

I for one…..disagree

I too read this and thought the same thing. There’s no way there are more pike than smallmouth in millac. The DNR saying this shows how inept they truly are, IMO.