Mille Lacs SMB Mini Report

Quick Mille Lacs smallmouth report from Saturday.

Fished the north end with KWP over the weekend. Caught a few decent ones but couldn’t locate any concentrations of fish. Most of our fish came off breaks in the 10′-14′ range but it was onesie-twosie fishing. Did a lot of prospecting including some deeper water (15′-20′) but no better results. The guys we talked with did about the same. Drop shots, Tubes & fast retrieve Scrounger Jigs produced best results.

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With the amount of folks targeting them over the last few years, it is not surprising to hear of the lower catch rates. Now that you can keep them may have something to do with that also, less fish in the system. Looks like it may have a positive impact on the walleye’s with all the small walleye’s being caught this year. Little to no netting the last two years and less smallmouth in the lake might be a part of the puzzle.

I haven’t bass fished a lot on Mille Lacs but when I have I’ve never been left with the impression there are a ton of guys out there targeting them. Not like walleye. I’m sure some guys keep bass. Over the past 3-4 years (like all fishing) we’ve had great days, decent days and slow days. With weather influences, seasonal changes, fish location, presentation, etc you have a lot of variables to sort out in addition to fishing pressure.