Mille Lacs Lake Walleye and Muskie report

I don’t know if we really need anymore Mille Lacs lake reports…..the fish are biting! BUT, I had such a blast this past Tuesday fishing with my brother Andy, and brother-in-law, Ryan, that I just had to share our outing with everyone here at IDA! Fish like this 26 in. personal best for Ryan, are common….and almost expected. The best part is you can catch them on just about any method or location you desire. I have seen little kids catching honest 4-5-6-7 lb fish all by themselves, this bite is so easy! Read on for more info and pictures!

We started off on a mud flat on the West side of the lake I had fished during the MTT tournament. The fish were right where we left them. The real kicker though, was that the fish had lost 8-10 inches. All the 25-26 inchers we got in the tourney were in that 17 inch range. We had 4 slot fish in the box in 20 minutes! (We had 4 for the eight hours of fishing in the tourney!!!!) The technique we used was about as simple as you can get. We had #4 red gamagatsu hooks, ¾ of a night crawler, slip sinker, and 8 foot snells. Drifting across the mud flats was all you needed to do. The fish seemed to be holding to the edges for sure, but there were quite a few fish to be caught on top of the flats in 22 feet of water. When you detect/feel the dead weight, feed line for a few seconds…(any longer and you were cutting swallowed hooks off), close the bail and set the hook. Fish on! Here is Ryan getting ready to lay into one!…….I think that was a swing and a miss actually!LOL!

After we fished a couple flats and had caught a bunch of walleye, the wind died off to nothing. We decided to head back to the landing, grab the baitcasters, muskie boxes and head to the North end for the maiden voyage of 2006 muskies! We casted a ton and had one little tiny muskie nip at a bucktail boatside. We boated 4 pike in that 4-10 lb range. Never did see a good muskie. Neither Andy nor Ryan had muskie fished before, so I was really hoping for a 40-50in. plus fish come boatside to say hello, but not this trip. Here is the largest pike Ryan boated.

After we made one pass over the weedline there, the wind picked up to the point of white caps blowing into the North end. We decided to go back to the flats. When we got there, the water was like glass. We talked to another group of guys out there, they said the there was never had a ripple on the water all day where they were at in the middle of the lake!!! Weirdest thing! So anyway, we decided to troll the same rigs with the electric, and the fish were cooperating again. We took a boat ride to another flat just to cool off, cuz there was NO wind where we were. Got to the original spot, only to find a good chop!?????? Boated another 10 fish and had to call it a day. We ended the day with a 12 fish limit to bring home, with another 15-20 fish over the 20 inch mark. Here are a couple for the fry pan……mmmmm great supper tonight! Notice the tag in the one too. Thanks Andy and Ryan for joining me for a great day! Hope to do it again soon! If you have a chance to get to the big pond any time soon, you won’t regret it. Good Luck to all!

Steve Vick
In-depthangling.com Field Staff