This afternoon I pulled some of the few houses left to shore that were ready and tomorrow afternoon the lake will be void of them. Before the snow coming Tuesday we are going to check the areas where we fishing and make sure things that can be picked up are before the late winter clean-up that we have done for almost 40 years.
Fishing was definitely better in the deeper spots today for Perch an Tullibee. The houses I spotted in closer for Northern and Perch did not fair well this weekend and I’m thinking the high barometer might have had a part in it, but not sure.With the Northern pike season open until March 31st, I’m wondering if the warmer temps of spring coming will bring with those that are going to try to catch them. This will be a new “experiment” as I have never seen this done on Mille Lacs in my lifetime. And to be very honest I’m not sure the whole idea of this was the right thing to do, but we’ll see what the outcome is…..
I want to thank all of you that came to Mille Lacs this year and gave all of us that provide the services and roads so you could come and enjoy a weekend on the ice. Yes, the lake is seeing alot of changes due to what is happening up here. Overall everyone that came seen the improvement, and despite all of the negativity that surrounds us up here, they seen a hope for a future. The last two years with late ice with little or no disturbance of the spawning grounds in the spring has provided two good year classes that have survived and it showed in the angler’s comments of what they caught and what our DNR has seen. And who knows, with the ice as thick as it is this year, maybe “Mother Nature” will take control of things again this spring and cover the lake with alot of snow and give us another late ice-out. It could give us another surviving year class of Walleye like we have seen the last two years..maybe three years in a row will prove that leaving them alone during spawning will help..it’s time for all us to not to depend on nature to correct the problems that were created by “treaty management” and change all of this……..
Keep a Tight Line! Eddy