It's been fun doing the "multi-species thing" on a few of my trips. I've been chasing the bass on Mille Lacs now for a few weeks since the opener. Fishing for them has ranged from fantastic, where we catch great numbers and great average size, to slow and really frustrating where we work hard to catch a few. There's still a few bass on beds. The rest are cruising around in the shallows...sometimes a fish here and there, and sometimes in some pretty big loose schools. I've seen as many as 20+ bass in one little area all within casting distance...usually a sand and gravel flat with reeds nearby, and a few big boulders. And they are spooky. Once they see your boat, they are very difficult to catch. If you back off and let them settle down, you will find that they will move back to where they want to be. We've had some trouble getting these school fish to bite artificials, but with some patience, have been able to get them on live bait. We've actually had better success getting the more random fish, long bombing casts in the shallow likely areas. x-raps have been working the best. We've also gotten some on tube jigs, and regular jigs and plastics and swim baits. Here's a few pictures.

"Doc" with a nice bass. Beats being in Las Vegas, right Doc?



Docs partner Jim with a beauty.



Cory Schmidt from Nature Vision and I had a great day on the pond, catching around 20 fish with easily over a 4# average. We did really well on their new Castaic swim baits.



Pete with his biggest bass ever. Pictures never seem to do fish justice. This one was just short of 21 inches.




They even let me catch one once in a while!



Have fun bassin' this weekend!

Nice fish Tim. Looks like a good time.

was out this weekend and got a 20 inch fishing jumbos on a rock pile boy do those things ever fight that was my personal record

I was out on Sunday with mixed results. Even found a nice largemouth in there. Anyone know a good area to find more than the occasional black bass?

Tim,

What kind of live bait rigs do you use for smallies? Just a hook and leech under a bobber or do you use some kind of jig?

up walleye fishing on indian point and caught a 5 pound smallie on a bobber. look at indian point for some good smallie action on the rocks. good luck

Slip bobber and leech.