Zebra Mussels - Mille Lacs

[Chuby Minnow]

On Sunday, fished the west side on some rocks. Constantly getting these little snail looking things on my hook and not on my bait. Litterally every 10 mins had to clean them off. Not knowing what they were, went on line this morning and they sure look exactly like the pics I was able to find. Very surprising, I have fished Mille Lacs alot and have not had this issue until this year. They are annoying to say the leats.

[BartmanMN]

Same for us. My brothers lindy rig kept hooking them too.

[DTro]

It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Based on historical information from other bodies of water they have infested, they will spike sharply to a point in which they start dying from overpopulation and will drop back down to a level in which they can sustain themselves. But from an article I read a while back the population is currently exploding on ML (exponentially) and the peak is a ways off yet.

[Ice_Fishin07]

Same issue here. Zebra mussels are getting crazy on rocks. I was hooking into them very often.

[Stick in Mud]

We noticed it, too. "Caught" on anything that touched the bottom....the only way we didn't catch any was on slip bobbers.

[JohnMickish]

And people think that ANS won't become a problem. Zeebs can and will change a body of water.

[CaptainMusky]

I read an article in the Strib last year about Mille Lacs. They had a DNR official "counting" them in an area of the lake where they counted them previously to track growth. The numbers were staggering I cannot remember specifics but I think the population grew like 100% in a year or something crazy like that.

They also had details how how effective their "filtering" capabilities are. Based on peak populations they could filter the entire water column in like 30 feet of water daily. Yowsers!

Found the article. I hope its OK to post:

http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/127646623.html

[Stick in Mud]

Thanks for posting the article, CaptainMusky....I remember seeing that from a while ago, but I had totally forgot about it. Pretty amazing...

[solbes]

Great read, thanks. I know we all grow tired of new stickers, boat checks, ramp warnings, etc. But its such an important issue to try and stop the spread of all invasives. I'm dealing with one of the other ones on our lake, but Zebra mussels sound much worse.