Mille Lacs opener report

[Ret-ro]

Thunder and Jackson jumped in for a run up to Mille Lacs for the opener. I had a hunch the bite was going to be good with how the fishing was this last winter. We launched out of Garrison and setup on a shallow rock area with the splash brights. Jackson had the first fish shortly after the clock struck midnight. We picked up a few fish including a small eel pout, but it was slow. We moved, got a couple, then nothing so on down the line. Third spot we picked up a few then a lull for a bit. It started getting light around 4:15am and the fish went nuts. 16″-23.5″ walleyes were coming to the boat at a steady pace. About 6 am things settled down and we were on the move again. (Sidenote: The blue tooth Terrova rocks. Never even took the anchor out the once!) We tried a few more spots on the shallow break with only a few fish to show. I decided to slide off deeper and do some scanning and we ended up doing some power corking once we marked a few fish. We carried on with that program the rest of the morning and just before noon I had a fish slam my line! This fish was heavy and it just happens that while I’m fighting my fish Thunder’s line goes down. He’s manning the net so Jackson grabs it and reels in a 23.5″ and of course the jig gets stuck in the net. They get the line cut just in time to scoop up the toad at the end of my line. In the net, hooked with just a 1/8″ flap of flesh of the upper jaw lies my Minnesota personal best 29.25″ walleye! Things slowed down for us after that and we switched over to drifting jigs to end the day after the wind had picked up a bit more. We called it a long successful day at 6pm, having put in 18 hrs straight (Jackson caught a couple naps in the bow). 2019 will go down as our best opener with 59 walleyes and two eel pout. It’s going to be tough to beat, but look forward to trying! I hope everyone had a great opener also. We saw fish being caught multiple ways on Mille Lacs and it wasn’t very busy, If you have a chance I believe it is worth your time if you like to catch fish.

LSF Staff http://www.lakestatefishing.com

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[Bandersnatch]

Great report!

Glad you had a bang up time!!

(after hour four, I would have knocked you in the head, and stole your boat headed to shore for a break! lol)

[f4rcr]

nice fish and glad to some eelpout being caught. I believe they are a important food source for the other fish. I just got back from spending the weekend up there I did not go out at midnight but went out in the morning we picked up a few fish but nothing spectacular the first morning. Saturday evening we set up on the same spot I always do in12.5 feet of water and proceeded to boat over 70 walleyes for the 3 of us from 7 till 1030 with our 3 keepers and had to let keepers go 85 percent of the fish we caught were between 17.75 and 18.5 we did catch 2 that were between 11 and 12 and a few overs. Sunday evening was alot tougher we missed aton of fish they were just nipping it but we still managed about 40 with our 3 slots again all in all it was another fun opener on mille lacs

[Ret-ro]

Good to hear you made it out. I would of liked to have fished saturday night, but we were about shot when we quit.

LSF Staff http://www.lakestatefishing.com

[ibthor]

Sounds like you guys had great success too. I took my dad and son out in my new boat and we had 43 in the boat in less than 4 hours of fishing Saturday morning as the sun came up. Most were 15″ to 20″. It took all 43 to get our 3 keepers. After that, with the wind picking up, we got lazy and didn’t fish the rest of the weekend. Another fantastic opener on Mille Lacs (the lake with no fish in it).

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