Mille Lacs Opener Report

[proangler16]

Hit the lake around 8:00 a.m. out of the Casino Landing. Fished some deeper spots that have generally been good on opener's for us until around 12:30 or so with no takers. Water temp was around 42 degrees. Pulled the pin out there and headed for Indian Point for some slip bobber fishing around 1:00 p.m. I managed a nice 28.5" Walleye did the CPR thing as she still hadn't spawned yet and was full of eggs, then the rain came in and we headed out about 2:15 or so.

Had 3 in my boat and only caught the one eye which was a nice one, but with the cold water temps I just don't think the eye's are done spawning yet. I'm sure if we hit the shallows earlier in the morning we could've done a bit better. Only saw two other eye's netted off of Indian Point and talked to a few others at the landing coming off the lake and the bite didn't sound really great. There weren't the big numbers of boats up there either.

[Mayfly]

I'll post my Brothers report as I was not up there this weekend. The opener was slower than last year and slower than the average year but there are always a few anglers out there that did really well and some who did ok. My brother did ok. They pulled all of their fish off of shallow rocks doing the slip-bobber thing. They fished spots that always hold fish and caught them but not as amny as years past. I imagine with water temps rising over the next couple weeks we will see the bite obvioulsy increase. Should be a good year. All their fish were caught in 10fow over rock using slip-bobbers and leeches. The best reports came from more shallow water. Checked a few favorite deeper water spots and marked fish but could not get anything to bite. I'll be up next weekend Thur-Sat. Should be better.

[GirlGuide]

We hit the lake a little after midnight Friday night, we fished until 5 a.m.  It was a little brisk out there, but after the first hour or so there was absolutely no wind, which was really nice.  There was not a ton of boats out there this year and it was awful quiet.  We pulled rapalas for the first couple of hours, with no luck.  We tried that right on the weed line for a while in about 11 f.o.w, then we tried it shallower for a while..still nothing.  Then we tried slip bobbers with a leach in the shallows up in the rocks..nothing again.  We went back to doing the rapalas, we started doing that from Terry's resort, went all the way down past pike's point, past garrison bay, and finally I got a bite in front of garrison sports on the weed line, I pulled in one that was just a little over 26" at about 4:00 am.  We gave it another hour and kept going with the rapalas until we got down toward Garrison Bar Harbor Inn...we then called it a night.

We didn't get out Saturday, it was rainy and sleety..and didn't look like much fun at all.

On Sunday we spent 9 long hours out on the boat.  It was a nice day, just a little windy, and that died down later in the evening.  We tried everything, shallow, deep, rocks, sand, bobber fished, pulled rapalas, and lindy rigged it.  I ended up catching one more, a 25 1/2" walleye on a lindy rig with a leach.  That was the only bite we had all day!!

The water temps were pretty cool, around 43 degree's or so.  The whole weekend we only saw around 4 other walleye's netted by others.  That is insane!!  I don't know what the heck was going on, maybe all the netting the week before had something to do with it, I'm not sure.  All I know is that on other lakes that are even further up North than Mille Lacs, people were getting there limits...there water temps have to be just as cold as ours I would think.  So who knows why, but it was the slowest opener I've ever seen...it was so quiet it was almost eerie.

gg

[Mayfly]

Good report GG. Sounds like you worked a lot for the few fish you caught. I was thinking the same thing about the water temps but then again I never really start hammering the fish until about the 20th of May regardless so I am thinking it will get better.

How shallow did you go??

[GirlGuide]

Good report GG. Sounds like you worked a lot for the few fish you caught. I was thinking the same thing about the water temps but then again I never really start hammering the fish until about the 20th of May regardless so I am thinking it will get better.

How shallow did you go??

Tim, it can only get better I would think, because I can't imagine that it could get much worse!!
By memorial day the temps should be much better, so we will see if that makes the difference or not.  But you know those netters that were out last week, had their nets put out right where we fish....so that really sucks, and we heard a few comments from others kinda thinking the same thing.

We went as shallow as about 5 ft of water or so, or maybe it was more like 3 to 8 ft up in the sands was more like it.  I can't quite remember exactly, all I know is there wasn't much places that we didn't try, we pretty much covered the whole west side of the lake.  Except for one thing we didn't do was go out to the reefs, but I heard they weren't catching them there either.  We couldn't even get a rock bass to bite, that's pretty bad!!

gg

[tom fellegy]

gg,
there were alot of walleyes netted in the garrison area this spring. that my have something to do with it. i fished today in the mpls fireman's tournament. we fished the east side north of hunters point. there were 2 of us in my boat and we caught 20 fish today and we had 8 nice keepers. my friend that was fishing with me had 4, all between 17 and 17.5 inches, 6.23 pounds, he is in first place. there is tomorrow still to fish. i weighed 1 17 incher and passed on a couple of 16's and a 15. that is the kiss of death, i probably won't a fish tomorrow. the fish are still shallow right now so don't go too deep. i will check back tomorrow and let you know if my boat wins any money................tom fellegy

[GirlGuide]

gg,
there were alot of walleyes netted in the garrison area this spring. that my have something to do with it. i fished today in the mpls fireman's tournament. we fished the east side north of hunters point. there were 2 of us in my boat and we caught 20 fish today and we had 8 nice keepers. my friend that was fishing with me had 4, all between 17 and 17.5 inches, 6.23 pounds, he is in first place. there is tomorrow still to fish. i weighed 1 17 incher and passed on a couple of 16's and a 15. that is the kiss of death, i probably won't a fish tomorrow. the fish are still shallow right now so don't go too deep. i will check back tomorrow and let you know if my boat wins any money................tom fellegy

Tom,
All I have to say to that is.....MAKE ROOM FOR ME IN YOUR BOAT!!    I guess we were on the WRONG side of the lake!!  And we actually did talk about that a couple of times...wondering how everybody was doing on the other side...go figure!  To be honest, the whole time I was out there, I kept thinking about them netting all of those fish...it was constantly in the back of my mind.  And after putting that much time on the lake, and only seeing a handful of people net a walleye...we kept going back to thinking about how insane it was that the nets were just out here a week ago...and loaded up with walleye...it actually makes me sick!  There wasn't as many boats out on this opener as usual, but there was still quite a few, and all the launches were still out.  Every other year, you usually hear some hootin' and hollering coming from those launches, this year we heard them only one time.

Good luck on the rest of the tournament Tom, I hope you guys do well!  Keep us posted, and thanks for your great report, ....it gave me hope!  I seriously am leaning towards that the netters cleaned my side of the lake out!  You wouldn't think that would be possible, and I know it probably isn't quiet true..but one thing for sure is...they made one hell of dent!!

gg

[tom fellegy]

they netted out red lake, it can happen here too. looks like there is some wind today, just like yesterday. hopefully we can catch another 20 fish today, all i need is 3 17's and both of us will be in the money.

[GirlGuide]

Good Luck today Tom!!  I am looking forward to your next report!  Here's to wishing you three 17's today!    Fish on!    gg

[tom fellegy]

we caught 6 fish today with only 1 being in the keeper slot, it was 16.5", so i only weighed 2 fish over the 2 days. i was out of the money. like i said, ishould have weighed the fish last night.  the 4 fish @ 6.18lbs that my boat partner johnny dorn, caught yesterday, held up and he won the tournament. $400 for 1st, $200 for 2nd, and $80 for 3rd. there was 35 guys and gals that came up over the 2 days. our union gives us the money for the food and george and linda nitti at hunters point really treat us good. yesterday for lunch george supprised us with steaks to go along with the brats...............tom fellegy

[GirlGuide]

Well that's too bad you didn't win any money Tom, but it sounds like you all still had a great time, and an extra added bonus with a great dinner with some good friends.  Thanks for the report!
Take Care!
gg

[proangler16]

Finally got the cell phone pic from my buddy, I forgot my camera on Opener.  Anyhow here's the pic of my 28.5" Opener Walleye from Mille Lacs from my report above here.  She was CPR'd and released right away.

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[GirlGuide]

Very nice ProAngler!!  Thanks for sharing the picture! 

gg

[Mayfly]

Yes, very nice fish. Wish I could find more of those!