116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Mille Lacs a bass wonderland
Fishing column: Once a walleye haven, this Minnesota lake now offers plenty of smallmouth bass
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
AITKIN, Minn. — About 8 a.m. on a recent October morning, Ward Stubbs set the hook on a powerful Mille Lacs Lake fish.
For a while, it was a game of give and take. Stubbs gained a few feet of line, then his angry opponent took it back until Mike Wirth finally slipped the net under a fat 4-pound smallmouth bass.
"Good lord, these fish are linebackers," Stubbs said.
"I don't think any fish fights harder," Wirth said.
That scene repeated itself over and over during the day and a half we spent on one of Minnesota's most renowned fisheries.
Not that long ago, a Friday morning on Highway 169 along the west shore of the Mille Lacs looked like a boat and RV show on the move. Wally the Walleye, a giant fiberglass fish, welcomed visitors to Garrison on the lake's western shore. Fishing launches transported boatloads of anglers to areas loaded with walleyes, and liberal limits sent them home with some tasty table fare.
As recently as 1970, nearly 100 resorts and hundreds of businesses around the 132,000-acre playground were thriving as anglers and vacationers flooded the area.
These days, traffic is light. According to Minnesota Department of Natural Resources data, open-water angling hours have decreased by 50 percent since 2012. Many once-popular restaurants, bars, shops and bait shops are boarded up. Many resorts have been parceled out for sale or simply ghosted. Even those that have persevered through the ebbs and flows of the walleye fishery and the fallout from COVID-19 are less vibrant than they are fighting for survival.
It's a powerful fish that effects that kind of change.
Biologists cite ecological changes, including invasive species, that have led to a decline in walleye and yellow perch production and survival. Sampling of Mille Lacs has shown less available forage that walleyes prefer, such as ciscoes and those yellow perch, and a corresponding rise in cannibalism and predation.
Some anglers blame tribal angling. Politicians, scientists, business owners, recreational anglers and tribal representatives have spent thousands of hours addressing the situation, but there is no apparent solution that will restore the lake to its glory days.
The thing is, Mille Lacs still is a world-class fishery. In fact, it might be the world's best trophy smallmouth bass lake. They're big, they're ornery, they're plentiful — and they're not that hard to catch.
Smallmouth bass are native to Mille Lacs, but their numbers have exploded since 2010. Unlike walleyes, they are typically released.
In 2016, the Bassmaster Angler of the Year Championship tournament opened a lot of eyes. Five-fish daily limits exceeding 25 pounds weren't uncommon. Seth Fieder of Bloomington, Minn., won the title with 15 smallies that averaged more than 5 pounds apiece.
Our recent visit produced 37 smallmouth that averaged close to 4 pounds each in about 10 hours of fishing. Two of them topped 5 pounds. Surprisingly, we didn't catch a single walleye.
With some guidance from Tim Harms, an Iowa native and longtime friend who spends much of his summer on the big pond, we targeted large, boulder-strewn areas. Big winds limited our range and location, but it didn't matter. We found plenty of hungry bass from 12 to 17 feet deep, and both artificials and live bait were effective. We could have, and probably should have, netted closer to 50 bass.
Stubbs had the hot hand in our boat.
"Sorry guys, got another one," he said a couple of times. Either Wirth or I reeled in and stood by to net his fish.
"It's gonna be awhile," Stubbs said. "It feels like another big one.
"What a powerful fish."
Daily Newsletters