Mille Lacs Mud flats with a camera

[Brian_MN]

I spent a few hours on Tuesday playing with my camera on the mud in Mille Lacs. What I learned was a little surprising, considering what I've always heard about the composition of the mud flats.

I'd always heard that the bottom was very indefinite, cloudy, and that a bait presented too low would disappear into the cloud of mud that existed on the bottom. Instead, I found that the mud flats were fairly firm. I was able to lay a 1/4 ounce sinker on the bottom and see it laying there with the camera. It didn't sink into the muck and disappear.

Another thing I'd always heard was that if you draggged your sinker you stirred up a ton of mud and made it impossible to catch a fish. I ran my camera facing backwards about 4 feet in front of my sinker while I dragged it along the bottom. It kicked up just a small amount of dust, and my leech was clearly visible behind the sinker at the end of a 6 foot snell. On two separate occasions last year I was outfished 3 to 1 on the mud by a guy who I thought didn't know what he was doing. He was literally dragging his sinker and crawler on the bottom without putting air in the crawler or using an inline float. I was putting air in my crawler and being very careful to always keep my sinker a foot off bottom.

All in all, it was a very educational experience. I plan to check out more flats and see if the composition is the same on all of them, or if there are differences. It will also be interesting to see if the flats ever get stirred up or cloudy due to weather or water movement.

[kc]

I've been told that the mud flats on Mille Lacs are not mud at all, but rather clay. Your experience would seem to bear that out. Thanks for sharing your findings.

[Ron]

Haven't fished Mille Lacs a lot, but one time it had been an extremely slow day and there were about 15 minutes left to fish. I got tired of dropping back and reeling up to keep within a foot of the bottom and started just dragging the sinker. The result was 26.5 inches long and weighed 7 lbs. 2 oz. This was on Sloppy Joe's, and I don't know whether that has a firmer bottom than other areas.

[eye1]

It all depends on the particular flat you are on , they vary from location to location as to the depth of the silt.I used my camera pretty extensively this past winter on a variety of different flats and they are all a little different.Some have a very thick layer of silt which stirs quite easily , and will make a jig or spoon disappear completely.Others have a very thin layer of silt , these don't cloud up nearly as bad and your lure can be seen laying on the bottom.There are other flats that have gravel/rock spots as well.Having seen this I have to believe that some spots you can drag your sinker with no problems and others where you might want to keep it up from the silt a bit.just my observations.