Friday
Strong south wind, needed plenty of sock to keep the drift at a reasonable speed. NE side of the lake provided some nice long drifts in 18 fow on the sand. Many fishermen worked shorter drifts but we landed fish consistently for miles on this pattern. Used jumbo leeches and crawlers with the same production on red hooks, 8 foot snells, 1.2 oz lindy weights and fed them plenty of line — pretty straight forward. Boated 30 eyes in 9 hours, 8 keepers in that mix with most fish in the 19-23″ range.
Saturday
Very windy in the a.m., settling down around 4 p.m. Marked fish in 18 fow but had few takers, moved out to 20 fow and found active fish — otherwise pattern much the same. One difference was with the overcast, fish didn’t seem to like the red hooks as much. Production increased a bunch with the use of orange/yellow hooks and/or couple small beads. Boated 25 eyes in 7 hours.
Zebra Muscles
Despite being one of my favorite lakes, I never made it out on the pond last year — spending most of my time somewhere between Grand Rapids and the Canadian border. The last time I fished Mille Lacs I hand’t ever landed a Zeb.
During these two days I was shocked at the number and density of them — and how frequently I was picking them off my hook, even “in the sand”. Shocking. During one drift I dropped down my Marcum camera and kept it just off the bottom and watched the lake bed. Anything that wasn’t sand was 200% covered in Zebs.
Using the kicker a bit Saturday evening I noticed how clear the prop wash looked and that I could see every bit of my lower unit on the big motor like it was in a fish tank — almost looked like Caribbean waters. These things are definitely changing the lake.
I don’t want this to happen to all the rest of those little lakes and rivers I fished over the past year. Please, I beg you — drain and dry everything after being in infested waters. Your boat plug, live wells, bait water and even lower your motor. These things can be EASILY transported the in your water because the babies can’t be seen with the naked eye.
I included a pic of a clump of them that my friend “caught” while we were dragging snells to help you remember.
And thank you for your friendly reminder the importance for everyone checking their boat for zebra mussels. 