Mille Lacs was….fun?

I made the drive from Hudson early on Saturday morning to find Mille Lacs in really good shape. The ice was roughly 18 inches thick with very little snow cover. I drove onto the lake from Red Door and headed to the flats. The idea was to pop holes and move around once it got light out.

I popped two holes in the dark and set up my Otter of the edge of a mud flat in 27ft. They were the last 2 holes I needed to drill. It felt more like a Lake of the Woods type of outing. Large numbers of small fish with an occasional over mixed in. The best spoon was an 1/8 VMC flash champ spoon in glow green fire.

The lake was busy with people hole hopping on search and destroy missions. Multiple times I had groups come close to punch holes only to leave 20 minutes later after not catching fish. Staying put and waiting them out seemed to be a much better approach on this day. I was able to stay put and catch fish as they moved up and down the edge. By 1:00 I packed up and headed home. 20+ walleyes with some bonus tullies and perch. I even caught my 2 slot fish, but they got a free pass.

It was a really fun day. I’m glad I got up there before the cold snap.

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Glad to hear you had a good trip. You pulled out just about the right time.
I got to the lake about the time you were leaving with wheel house in tow out to the mud. Between leaving shore and driving 8 miles out the temp dropped 4 degrees. By 3 the winds were roughly 20mph carrying snow producing very low visibility. It was near impossible to run tip ups but with some stubbornness it happened. Fish were biting till about dark then turned off.
Very happy to have GPS last night!

Awesome report Mike!

After 3 good outings I was very very excited to be hitting Mille Lacs with a front on the way last Saturday but we never did put it together as well as you. That said 3 of us iced over 20 eyes, a 30″ pike, and several perch including one very nice one.

In hindsight the very good days I had earlier this year may have actually hurt us as we were on a pretty good bite in the morning that saw us put over a dozen small eyes and lose a couple very nice ones; however, the ones we caught were biting short and we decided to start looking for some more active fish only to end up right back where we started. Had we trusted my original instincts and just ground it out in our original spot I have no doubt we would have put many more fish on the ice.

I’ve never driven on Mille Lacs before. Are there marked roads on the ice? My concern is traveling predawn and pressure ridges.

Depending on the snow on the lake they will be staked or have snow banks on the side. You will need to pay the resorts to use them.
DT

If the road crosses a ridge, the resort will have a bridge over it.
DT

I’ll be going out of fisherman’s wharf with my wheel house on the 23rd only fished the lake a few time out of hunters. Anybody have any tips they would care to share wheir I can start looking? Thanks

Can’t say the same for our group, we went out of the West side, Twin Pines, my buddy had a sleeper, the wife and I went for the day on Saturday, we where set up on the rock pile flat 23-24′, worked the area real good till the weather kicked in and retreated to the sleeper, at the end of our day we had 3 perch, and for the buddy’s weekend 1 small walleye, small hand full of perch, we threw everything at them, even some of those fancy albino shiners… even I was tempted to taste one of those, well either way we always have fun, maybe next time. Its good to see others catching fish, so I can show the wife to keep her motivated…

Alex