The fishing has remained consistent. There have been some gnarly storms the last week, so our water clarity is extremely poor, especially for Mille Lacs. It’s a very unique color as well, almost a brown. The north end in specific is extremely dirty. It has not effected fishing TOO much, but a note worth mentioning so everyone is prepared. Hopefully, the storms will take a break and give us some time to get the water back to normal.
Walleye:
We have found that our deep water gravel bite is not as hot and heavy as it was last month, but we are still getting consistent numbers throughout the day. With the gravel bite slowing; we headed back up to shoreline structures, and found great numbers. We are finding better size out deep (26-32 FOW) on the gravel/mud, but better numbers up shallow (14-24). The best mid day tactic for walleyes is your traditional Lindy rig, tipped with a piece of crawler or leech. When Lindy rigging crawlers, I like to use just a 3″ piece rather than the entire crawler. This will increase your hook-up percentage tremendously. Some days leeches are the bait of choice, and other days crawlers.
Bass:
There have been some pretty large tournaments beating up the lake, and the fish are reacting. We are finding our quality bass pushed off of their normal structures, and scattered out slightly deep. Our best depth for bass have been 12-24 FOW. You can still go up shallow (4-8 FOW) on some of the main lake structures and find fish. The fish up shallow are often times less than 2 lbs. The larger fish are sliding out a bit deeper. The best bait for bass is still the ned rig. Deadly nedly has been the bait of choice all summer long for most anglers. The tube jig and drop shot rigs are getting a few as well, but not competing with the ned rig. If you are going to go with plastics, the best color has been matching the crayfish.