Water Temp 74 degrees
WALLEYE:
*AUG 16th 2 FISH LIMIT HAS TAKEN EFFECT WITH SLOT BETWEEN 18-20 INCHES
Thanks to this new regulation, Mille Lacs has seen an uptick in traffic, which is a big help for local businesses on the lake. There are lots of fish in the system, and you can find them just about anywhere, from mud flats to humps, gravel bars, rocks, sand, and weeds. So, how ever you want to catch them, you can on Mille Lacs. The problem, though, isn’t locating fish; it’s finding fish that aren’t already full from all the forage available in the lake right now.
The solution to this is either drive around and keep hitting different schools or troll and cover water until you start running into fish that are feeding. Spinners have worked well for this in a variety of depths. Run a 1.5-ounce bottom bouncer and a #3 Colorado blade on a pre-rigged VMC TechSet harness with a crawler at 1-1.4 mph. Bump up to that 1.4 when the water is warmer, and you’re trying to evoke more reaction strikes. Colors vary from hammered gold on sunny days to a perch pattern or chartreuse on cloudy days. You can also run a 1/4 ounce VMC bullet weight with the same rig and fish in much shallower depths if need be. The bullet weight stays above the rocks and goes through weeds much cleaner if the fish are up there in 8-10 feet.
Trolling tight-wobbling Rapala Shad Raps or Shad Dancers have also been a good way to find feeding fish across a given structure. Stick to the tops and edges of humps and bars and troll at around 2mph. Orange crayfish mimicking colors have been hot.
The fish out on the deep mud don’t appear to be feeding as heavily as those on the edges and tops, but they will slide up in the evening, where it’s hard to beat a bobber and leech at sunset.
Report from Tony Roach of Roach’s Guide Service
https://roachsguideservice.com/
