Opening Day Pics from Mille Lacs!

A big thanks goes out to Bob “Bobber” Carlson for getting these photos out to us to share with all our visitors here! Looks like some fish were caught, more than a few people made the opening day trek….. and a good time was had by all!

Big D in his new C-liner FishHawk

Bob Carlson with a nice opening day walleye!

Tim Folkerts with a 26 in walleye!

Boats up on the Malmo sand opening day!

If anyone else has a photo or two they’d like to share with us here at FTL, simply send the photo out as a .jpg attachment in an e-mail to [email protected] and we’ll gladly get that posted here just as quickly as we can.

Good fishin’,

EFN Webstaff

I was quite surprised at the number of boats on the lake this weekend, Actually the lack of! Sunday coming out of the boat harbor there were only 2 vehicles in Lakesides parking lot.

The attachment is of the winners of the local neighborhood tourney “The Big D Classic” at least the ones who stuck around for pictures.

Sat. nite we had a whole reef to ourself. Rained nearly all night and 2-3 footers in a 16.5 footer. We did not see another boat within a mile of us. 25 fish–ALL over the slot. I even caught a tagged fish–but there was a problem there—too many numbers on the tag to remember and the other to guys in the boat decided to double up so I tossed the tagged fish and grabbed the net. Weekend overall–46 fish–3 slots—1 tagged fish—-many fish over’ 20″ still milking all over the boat. Phenonmenal–those who stayed warm and dry on Sat. nite definetly missed out! TGIF

Spent most of the weekend bobber fishing on the east side between big point and lakeside. Made one run to the north end and pulled lindys thru the sand for a few fish. I found the best times for us was 5:30am – 7am.

we boated 8 fish in that span Sunday morning.

stats for D’s team.

1-24

2-22

2-20

10- 16-19

1-13

3- slots

Cant wait to get back at it.

I noticed quite a number of fish with the “Big Head, small body” syndrome. I hope that is not an indication of the fish experiencing some stress due to the food chain being re-organized. Think about it….How big of a bait are these 20″ to 30″ fish going to feed on? Anything it can get it’s lips around, thats what. It will be very interesting to see what happens to this years hatch. They could very well be canibalized!

Tuck

I noticed that last fall w/ the Pics from Sept/Oct full moon. For fall fish that should be fat and healthy, the Mille Lacs eyes looked very thin. They looked like spring post spawn fish. Some of the 28-30″ fish looked to be only 7-8 lbs. I think that we should all get out to Mille Lacs this year and next, because it looks to me like there is an unsustainable population of fish there right now.

The DNR and tribe are basing their harvest estimates on taking 30%(I think-someone more in the know can clarify the exact % for me) of the population of the lake each year. From what I have seen, most people are catching 10 protected fish for each 1 in the slot. The math doesnt work out. Either people are catching every fish in the lake 3 times are year, or there are more fish that projected. 30% harvest w/ 1 out of 10 fish caught harvestable equates to 300% of the population being caught each year. Not to mention that many fisherman release many more and you cant honestly tell me that every fish gets caught each year. They have seriously underestimated the number of fish in Mille Lacs and this will result in the mortality of a large percentage of the population.

I know this isnt a new issue-but what do others think? Are we seeing the evidence of what many feel is too strict of a slot? I probably fish 50 days are year and keep 10 fish for consumption. So I really dont care about not being able to eat fish. But I am starting to get concerned about losing a great fishery for the next 5-8 years.

I have no idea where the lake is headed in terms of the condition of the fish… but the fish I caught last fall, averaging 50 – 60 per night, were fat and healthy specimens. Some were absolutely greasy pigs… some were thinner. But over-all the fish looked VERY healthy. And I’m used to seeing all these pot-bellied pool 4 walleyes so I’m confident I can spot an overly-thin fish.

It will be interesting to see what comes from the DNR tagging study. Some growth and body mass data would certainly provide the info needed to assess the situation.

Dave,

Here is what I found to be unusual. Last weekend I did not catch one single fish under the 14 inch slot, nor did I catch one perch of any size. That is VERY unusual for the area I fish on the opener. It is not uncommon in most years to catch and release at least a dozen 10-12 inch walleyes, and 20 plus perch in a weekend.

Don’t know if it was this goofy weather, low water temps, the east wind or what!! But last weekend was wierd.

The fish we caught in the 17-23 inch range all appeard to be healthy.

J.

Well I may as well throw my 2 cents worth in here too. We also as J experienced did not catch a fish under the slot. The fish we caught over the slot were all 18″s or larger. These fish were all caught in the same general area of the lake and as Tuck said they did appear to suffer from the larger head skinny body syndrome. I will agree with James that the fish we caught in another area of the lake last fall were healthier looking.

We noticed last summer that during tournament season the slot fish (16-18″) caught on the rocks were on average .2 lbs. larger than the same size fish caught on the gravel. This was due to a huge crawfish population present on the rocks.

I’ve talked to people fishing different areas of the lake over the winter about the forage populations seen and have come of the opinion that it differs greatly from area to area on the lake and my underwater camera will be busy figuring out what presentation is going to work best for areas holding slots this next 4 weeks. I will be interested to see whats left to eat in the areas I like to home in on. We did locate a few areas holding eater size forage this winter and it will be interesting to see if they pan out.

I did like what appeared to be a lower volume of fisherman due probably to the poor weather, it should of cut the harvest way down for opener. Hopefully the DNR will have some Data to publish soon.

I would also like to add how important it is to report the tagged fish caught to get a accurate data base to estimate the fish population. Everyone should start carrying a pen in the boat. Don’t be shy write the number on your hand if you have to, it can’t be any worse than trying to wash Bass or Northern slime off. LOL The ink will eventually wash off.

Hopefully no wives will think its your girl friends number.

Its been a long winter away from Mille Lacs. So I finally made it back up there last night from 4:30pm-10:00pm. Boated 14 fish. One just under the slot and one just over. Rest were typical cookie cutter nice Mille Lacs eyes, with one nice one at 27″

But I did notice all the the big head, thin fish characteristics of the fish. I did see a fair amount of perch caught last night from some of the bobber dudes, which was encouraging to see with all the talk of little numbers of perch or food around.

I would have to agree with James as well on the fall weights of the fish. They looked to be a good shape to me as well. We did have a few skinny ones, but overall very healthy to a “chunky” tummies.

I heard this from a local last fall that “he heard” that the DNR were thinking of introducing a new forage base in Mille Lacs sometime in the future. Has anyone else heard this? And what type of forage? This may be all hear say….not sure.

DeeZee-

Where did you fish? I am curious as I didnt see or hear of any perch action this past weekend.

Sounds like you had a pretty good outing last night, the wind, temp, and sun combination I wish we would have had for the opener.

Dman,

I spent the evening over on the West side, Indian point area. Yeah, it was a fun night, just my lab and I. Slight chop out of the South around 10 mph and the sun felt very nice compared to the wet weekend we all had. Most of the fish came from a little deeper water(20-23) sand/gravel mix.

The perch I saw caught were all near shallower rock here. I heard of a few perch caught in Vineland bay as well last night.

Water temps were still cool 43 degrees.

Be back up tommorrow.

i went there yesterday and i caught 11 walleyes and no slot. most catch at 18 to 21 feet on rock/gravel area and i went to north side and catch 2 walleye for 3 hours so i went to back to my spot end up 9 walleyes

temps are differnt north 49 and near fisher resort 46

so i may going back there tomorrow