Mille lacs

[Jessie_H]

Hoping to start in Isle bay, we muskie fished a lot this summer and always hooked into northern in that bay.

I gotta get all the spearing in I can this winter, next winter my husband and I will have a little one so fishing in general will be far and in between next summer and winter.

[motownmasher]

well i had to go try it. headed out just after 8 on wednesday morning. saw one about 15 at 10:30 and then a huge musky right at noon. the musky hung around for a good 10minutes. not a fish after that.

thurs i had the decoys in by 8:00 and saw two small fish before 9:00. another one in the lower teens came through about 9:30, and then another musky about 10:00. this musky was only about 5lbs and came in to the decoy 5 different times. i think he hung around the rest of the day as this was the last fish i saw. speared until about 4:00. i was anxious before getting out there, this trip only put fuel on the fire. 10-11" of ice.

unsure of what the dnr has in mind with the new regulations, but seeing 10 fish under 30" isn't going to happen very often, at least until March. please be sure of your targets, this is an awesome opportunity we have as spearfishermen. throwing at off species will shut this off as fast as it was opened. i would reccomend other lakes to the unexperienced, or at least go with someone with experience.

[smurfy]

pretty sure I am headed up there sat for a day trip. does anyone know if there taking or allowing trucks out?

more importantly any idea as to where a guy would start????

[tca12]

The wife and I went up to the big lake today to get our 20 hammerhandles, her with tip-ups and me with the spear. One flag resulting in no fish. Saw and got the one pike I saw, just under 30 inches. Nice clarity. We were out in Cove Bay. Wish I'd known that I'd be cutting through 25 inches of ice...

[ESSGuy]

On the lake now, slow bite. Really? No snow and over a week with temps in the -10 to -20 degree range and your "surprised to cut 25" ice? I've "only" got 22.

[hawkeye43]

I wish I had 25" of ice around here. My feet wouldn't get wet when a snowmobiles drive by the house

[tca12]

Last week here in the Metro (where I've done all my spearing so far this year)I cut through 10 inches of ice after dragging my sled through 4 inches of snow, so yes, even with the cold I was surprised at the amount of ice but I neglected to take into account the distance farther north and the possibility that snow cover is not uniform across the state. The poster above also wondered if trucks were driving out so there is that too...

[hillbilly...]

Heard that dnr counted over 400 spear shacks..and i know a guy that got a 41 or 42 inch that that 21lbs

[motownmasher]

maybe that's why other lakes are so quiet. the lakes i've been spearing have had very few spear shacks this year. of course i havn't been seeing many fish either, so maybe they are just smarter than me

[tca12]

I was wondering what lakes all the shacks came from since they obviously weren't on Mille Lacs last year.

[motownmasher]

i was very surprised to see the amount of spear shacks out there. i didn't realize the amount of people that were into spearing.

the lakes i frequent (west central MN) there are normally between two and ten on any given weekend. last sunday there was one.