Mille Lacs update 7/11 - good

I'm off the water this weekend for family stuff, but this past week was another good one. July so far has basically been a 50+ every other outing, with some smaller** fish mixed in. Big blades (Spanky Baits 11" Fireball) and big plastics (Big Joe, Mo Joe, Mag Dawg, Pounder)are leading the charge, with an occasional topwater thrown in to make things intersting. Fishing last night with a couple great guys, the remarkable fish was a stout 52 1/2" beauty, caught on a Fireball, whose girth was just a hair shy of 25". That's pretty heavy for a July fish. It was a fun night out with big fish, can't beat that.

Last night the fish bit right before sunset, but night fishing is still the most productive.

The water temps are mostly 69 degrees everywhere. The water is surprisingly murky all over. Visibility is relatively low all over the lake. A few days ago it was surprisingly dirty at the northeast, Sunset Bay, pretty much everywhere. The west side isn't any better. The stained water isn't slowing down the fishing at all, it just makes it harder to see follows.

**On Mille Lacs "smaller" means up to, and including, 49 7/8". Note that "smaller" on Mille Lacs means "bigger" almost anywhere else. :)

Paul:

Thanks for the great reports!!! Looking forward to getting over there starting this weekend!!! Got friends over there right now and the visibility is giving them a hard time. They are figuring that they will be lucky to see any fish and really have only contacted one so far on a dawg that came unbuttoned. They are also speculating that they won't see the lake make it back over 70* the rest of the time while they are there.

Mark

Any pics to share?

Though these requests are generally ignored, and though I don't generally spend the time posting photos, here's a couple I'll share.

Posting photos is a time-consuming hassle I can't seem to keep up with during the musky season. I'm fishing a lot and have a hard time just keeping up with e-mail and posting basic fishing updates I don't have internet access at the cabin on Mille Lacs and I don't make it home very often. When I do make it home for some much-needed family time, Mrs. Schlagel isn't too happy if I spend some of that precious time screwing around with my message board. I don't care for fishing business either when I'm home. She doesn't care much either with fishing phone calls or anything fishing-related. While at the cabin I have to go to Isle to get on a computer, which is a pain in the butt. So I barely keep up with e-mail, much less screwing around posting photos. Taking them off the camera, compressing them using Picnik.com, and posting is time-consuming and I suck at it and i'm slow.

I'm rambling. The point is, don't always expect photos when requested. I e-mail them to the client as soon as possible and encourage them to post the photos if they'd like. They rarely do, however, which tells me it's a pain in the butt for them too, or they really don't care that much. Probably both.

I'll put together a big photo album at the end of the season. I'll also add a bunch of the photos to my Muskylink page: http://www.muskylink.com/profile/PaulSchlagel

Oops, I forgot the photos. Here they are.

Wow, awesome fish. Way to go.

Very nice I agree. I can understand about the photos. It's just that the occassional weekend warrior fisherman like me like see what were missing:)

Good luck and keep it up and i hope you have dozens of big'uns like that to share when you can.