Mille Lacs – June 1 Report

I have not been on the big pond in years, after religiously fishing the lake for over 15 years. But with a decent weather forecast, decided to extend the holiday weekend and spend a day on the lake. After reading reports, decided to start shallow in the areas I remembered from years ago.

Boat launches, pretty shallow, lake must be down. Talked to a few guys at the launch and they said this was the 3rd launch they visited because the first two were too shallow for their boats. Dumped in not problem and hit the lake. Well, early morning, bright blue sky and the first time I have ever been on that 132,000 acre lake with not a ripple in sight, glass smooth, not the best Walleye conditions. First thing I noticed was all the bug carcasses in the water, and bugs covering my white shirt, midges, fish flies, gnats, all kinds of different bugs. As stated I started shallow, nothing, never marked a fish, 10′-12′. Moved out to the first drop off, nothing, never marked a fish, 12′-21′. Moved out to the first rock structure out from the first drop off, picked up a 20″er right away, 18′ surrounded by 23′, most on top, everything in the 19″-20″ range. Kept trolling around that structure, picking up one here and there but nothing fast, and only saw a few mark on the graph. Putting the net in the water brought others over to that structure, saw them catch a few as well. One guy just picked an outside edge and through a bobber out, and I saw him catch more than all the rest of us combined, but I stuck to the trolling motor and Lindy rig. Eventually that spot stalled out, so headed out further to the first mud flats. First couple small flats, nothing, marked nothing, so moved out to a big flat and fished the edge. Marked lots of bigger fish, but could not get any to bite, but eventually picked up another 20’er. On the way off the lake, saw a handful of boats on a rocky point, figured give one pass, and sure enough, picked up a football Smallie right off the bat, fun fight, but not my species.

All in all, decent day on the lake, fishing was much harder then I expected, but weather and bug hatch probably had something to do with that. I don’t care what anyone says, those fish look sickly skinny, not the old healthy Walleye I remember from years past, and compared to other lakes I now fish.

Can’t wait for the H2H tourney starting on Monday to see how they attack the lake, especially with only artificial lures.

Thanks for the report. Water is very low, 18 inches I think maybe close to two feet. Hard to mark fish right now the boat spooks them and you’ll only get partial marks. Side imaging probably better. We’ve had better luck with slip bobbers also especially when it’s calm. We’ve been averaging 6 fish an hour.

I hear you on the electronics, I had side imaging going. But the guy running slip bobber I think had one of the 360 imagining, because it appeared he was casting to a location. I do not have that, so lost out there. I did pick up fish with side imaging, but tough to get them to bite, at least moving with a Lindy.

The 360 or live imagining do seem to provide a ton more information.

Every walleye picture I’ve seen from Mille Lacs this year the fish look really skinny and stunted. Big heads and really small bodies. Someone posted a fish that was 29″ long and said it only weighted like 6.5 lbs. A fish that length should way 2-3 lbs heavier than that. I think that lake has way more fish than the food source can support. If that situation doesn’t get better I think the lake will have big problems in the next few years

Fished Mille Lacs yesterday also. Caught about 10. Walleyes up to 22 were plump but the 23 and 24 1/2 were skinny. Live corking was the bomb and put 8 of the 10 fish in the boat. This is a new term I made up for casting a slip bobber to fish seen with the LiveScope. I used leeches and all fish caught on flats. Marked fish on the north sand and a few rock piles but couldn’t get them to go. The pic is of the 23. Starting to get the sway back. The 24 1/2 was worse.

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Weird all the fish I have caught have been plenty healthy and normal looking. Been on the lake 12 days since opener. Lots of forage right now. Will that forage last and feed all those walleyes. That remains to be seen. That 29 inch fish could be really old.

Good report OP.

We fished it in February and caught maybe 15-20 fish on rattle reels in 2 nights. Of those fish, the “biggest” were in the low 20s and all were quite skinny. I expect this fall and next ice season to have a much better bite as fish seem to have mowed down a lot of the present forage from last fall. Between the booming bass populations, muskies, pike, and some decent walleye classes, some mouths are going to get hungry.

Just like most big lakes.
Bass pike and walleyes. Yes. Muskie not so much that population is at its lowest point in quite some time.

That’s interesting on the skinny walleyes (again). They’ve been noticeably skinny for years out there but the reports last fall and this past winter seemed to indicate an abundance of forage, so there should be more food present.

The smallmouths I caught about 12 days ago were definitely not showing any signs of starvation. They were still prespawn and their primary forage is crayfish.

Maybe Bucky is right, there just isn’t enough for all those mouths to feed. With the water being down I’m sure the fish are also more concentrated in certain areas too.

Three of us fished Friday night-Monday morning. Only fished few hrs in mornings and few hrs in evenings. Boated 213. Half of our fish came in less than 12’ of water. North end. 75% of the fish were on jig and spottail shinners. Other 25% on bobber leeches. Of the 213 we had 6 fish that measured in the 21-23” slot. Biggest was 25.5”. 1 smallmouth and 1 pike. Buddy also had a 50”? muskie follow his 18” walleye right to the boat.

I’ve been hearing this skinny walleye stuff for years, maybe that’s just how they are built out there now. We caught a 29″ out there probably 5-8 years ago that didn’t even hit 6 pounds. Or maybe the bigger fish are just that old that they are losing weight as they get close to dying of old age. But I can’t imagine any fish being too hungry with the amount of forage, particularly bug hatches in the lake at the current moment.

fishthumper wrote:

Every <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleye picture I’ve seen from Mille Lacs this year the fish look really skinny and stunted. Big heads and really small bodies. Someone posted a fish that was 29″ long and said it only weighted like 6.5 lbs. A fish that length should way 2-3 lbs heavier than that. I think that lake has way more fish than the food source can support. If that situation doesn’t get better I think the lake will have big problems in the next few years

Bigger problems than the last 5 or 10 years???

Thanks for the report OP.