Mille Lacs Muskies

[muskie55]

I will be headin to Mille Lacs in the beggining of September and I am wondering if people are having luck with the muskies. I do a lot of fishing on Leech and it has been slow to say the least up here. Hopefully they have had more luck down there. I have never fished Mille Lacs before but I have seen pics of the monsters that it produces in the fall!

[MUSKY18]

Hopefully Cjac will chime in here. I know he was just on the Big Pond with Jonesi yesterday.......waiting for his report.

[cjac]

Well, Mille is holding true to being a tough lake to figure much out on this year. We moved a couple smaller fish on weed edges and rocks, but nothing real hot. That's not just me saying it's tough, for the most part all the guys are. The typical North Shore phenomen never really took a hold, and even typical weed structure is not holding fish.

muskie55: If you fish Leech a fair amount, you have a general idea of how to fish weeds and rock I'll assume. Come Sept it'll be both but this year it's an "anything goes" deal. Get a decent map, look at some of the good spots to the eye, and start on those. SE corner is a good starting area, it's a mix of weed and rock. Bays and reefs all over. In general, a Mille new guy with a little muskie background will do just fine.

Side note: Saw a fish yesterday (twice actually) in the lazy swim mode....I looked down and thought it was submerged timber at first, then I remembered we're not on LOTW. That big......silly big. She hung around a while...all I could do was laugh! I'm not even going to guess at a length, but I can say I used to cut all my hockey sticks to 56" inches from butt to the heel of the stick, back when sticks were wood.... I got pretty good at eyeballing up the right stick length!

[Rmac]

By "North Shore phenomen" are you referring to the warmer water that you will find early in the year? Or is this a Mille Lacs specific phenomen that I'm not aware of?

That's pretty cool just to see a fish that big, makes you get weak in the knees.

[cjac]

North shore deal is the sand up across the north end of the lake, several miles of it really. The last few years it's a "resting ground" as it seems for fish that come in off the deeper edge. Years past it kicks in early July-ish and carries thru the month and into August. I've had days of seeing upwards of 25 fish in a day. Most are lazy, but they can be caught if the situation is right. It's a great way for a guy to get used to seeing fish and losing the knee-knock syndrome.

A typical day/night is a line of boats all basically throwing big blade baits. I call it the Congo line. That really has not been like it was in the last few years. Last couple years the MMTT event has been won up there, 2 years ago with the fish coming from 3-5 foot of water.

In general, no apparent or expected pattern has taken hold in '08. Some weeds, some rocks, but no consistency.

Anyhow, hope that makes sense a bit. By the way, welcome to the Fishing Minnesota site!

[Rmac]

Thanks cjac, I have heard of the sand thing before but never been there to experience it on the big pond. Seen some situations like that on other water. Usually takes some wind or some other factor to get those fish to eat a bait. Definately a fun way to fish though.