Mille Lacs Walleye Fishing Secrets

Mille Lacs Lake in central Minnesota is arguably the most productive Walleye fishing lake in the United States. It can be a tough lake to fish however. It is a extremely large round lake that does not have the obvious fishing areas visible that most other lakes do. This article is designed to improve you catch ratio when fishing this fine body of water.

There are two ways to find Walleye on Mille Lacs. The first of course is to follow the crowd. This is a lake with a huge amount of fishing pressure, primarily for Walleye. You will often see large amounts of boats congregated in one small area, often to the point of watching anglers infringe on the area of other fellow anglers.

The better way would be to make use of a fish locator. Ideally you are looking for a spot that is fifteen to twenty five feet deep with a flat rock or gravel bottom. It of course is highly beneficial to see fish on your locator but it is more important to know which fish are active and which are not.

Actively feeding Walleyes will be found at or near the bottom of this lake. For instance let's assume you are in water that is twenty five feet deep with the preferred bottom of choice. On your locator you notice a large school of Walleye that is in the middle of the water, say twelve feet under the boat.

These fish are not actively feeding and are not prime targets for you to shoot for. Walleye that suspend in mid water depths in this manner are very difficult to catch. They are not actively feeding and will almost always ignore your offerings.

Look instead for an areas where the fish that show are at or near the bottom of the lake, preferably near a rock pile or gravel bottom. These are the fish that are actively feeding on creatures that inhabit these areas.

This is a lake that requires the use of light line to catch Walleye. Unless you are specifically targeting a very large fish I would use line that is no heavier than ten pound test. I advise using fluorocarbon line due to its increased invisibility factor, especially in deep water. My rod selection would be gearing toward feeling bites that at time can be very light. A Walleye often feeds much different than species like Northern Pike or Largemouth Bass. It is pick a bait up and hold it in its mouth before it commits to swallowing it. If it feels something that is not 100% natural during this process it will spit the offering out. This is why the rod quality is important. Many Walleye anglers do not catch fish because they never know they had them in the first place. Light line and a high quality light action sensitive rod will help in this regard.

The best bait to use if your main goal is to catch as many fish as possible is live bait. You have three main choices of live bait. Leeches are the most commonly used bait. You want to use large black ribbon leeches.