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By Louie Stout

Mille Lacs Lake – Simply IncredibleMille Lacs Lake – Simply Incredible

Photo courtesy BASS

If you like to catch big smallmouth and lots of them, I have just the place for you.

Mille Lacs Lake, Minn.

Sure, it’s about a 10-hour drive from northern Indiana and not a weekend trip. It’s big water, too, like 132,500 acres, and you’ll need a power boat or hire a guide.

But man, what a smallmouth fishery.

Mille Lacs, located about two hours north of Minneapolis, has long been known as a walleye fishery. The smallmouth have always been there but ignored.

Not anymore.

I just came back from the Bassmaster Toyota Angler of Year Championship held there last week. I didn’t get to fish – I was working – but I saw enough to know this is currently the best smallmouth fishery in the world.

Bar none.

How good? Well, there were 50 pros fishing the tournament, including Kalamazoo’s Kevin VanDam. They fished a daily five-fish limit and the winner (Seth Feider, Bloomington, Minn.) had 76 pounds in three days. That’s more than 25-pound average for five fish, and better than a 5-pound average per fish.

If that isn’t impressive enough, nearly half the field each day weighed in five fish weighing 20 pounds or more. There were several 6-pound smallmouth bass weighed in, with the biggest caught during the event a 6-10.

Here’s another example: Pros Matt Herren and Brandon Paulanik shared one spot for three days. Both anglers cast to an isolated rock pile the first two days and caught 59 bass estimated to weigh 210 pounds. Of course, they could only weigh their five biggest. During those two days, Herron’s five weighed 48-7 and Palaniuk 41-2. And that’s from one spot!

What’s equally amazing is this wasn’t the best time to bass fish the lake. The fish were in transition from summer to fall haunts and scattered. It’s scary how good that lake will be in two weeks when the smallmouth are solidly in fall patterns and feeding up for the winter.

“I’ve fished for smallmouth all over the Great Lakes, Canadian waters, New York and all the way to Maine,” said VanDam, who finished 10th in the tourney with 64 pounds, 3 ounces. “Michigan has some of the finest smallmouth fishing in the country, but what is happing on Mille Lacs is incredible. I’ve never seen so many big, old smallmouth in one lake.”

Old is right. The lake is loaded with 5 pounders, which Minnesota biologists estimate to be between 12 and 14 years old.

Of course, the exposure the Bassmaster event gave the lake, coupled with more liberal bag limits that Minnesota has imposed there, could make the trophy fishery vulnerable.

Walleyes have long been king there, but the population has diminished in recent years. Minnesota actually shut down Mille Lacs walleye harvest a few weeks ago and there’s concern it would hurt the tourism business around the lake. The bass fishery has had very tight regulations in previous years, but those were relaxed to provide guides and fish camps a harvestable fish.

That hasn’t set well with local bass anglers who want to protect the incredible bass fishery.

So, if you want to sample the country’s best smallmouth fishery, I’d plan a trip there before that big fish population gets crushed.

You’ll get a glimpse as to how good it is when The Bassmasters Show airs the Mille Lacs event on ESPN2 Oct. 16 at 3 p.m.

JBLP

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