Mille Lacs

Fished the MTT two day event on Mille Lacs this past weekend. Congrats to the winners with 17+ lbs and big fish. Nice basket. Our weekend did not go as planned. After prefishing the prior weekend and Thurs and Friday, a decent mud flat bite was working for us, including good box fish (14″ to 18″ inchers). Leadcore and #5 shad raps and flicker shads of several different colors (pearl white, purple, blue, fire tiger, hot steel) all worked. Saturday rolled around and this bite for us never materialized. After checking several flats (marking lots of fish) and throwing every crank in the box at them (and finally giving up and using crawlers and leeches), we could not get them to go and had to go in with our tail between our legs. Sunday, having a fat 0 on the board meant we were going big fish hunting as even getting a 4 fish limit of smaller fish would not help us as the first day top 10 was just over 5 lbs. We were looking for the big fish award and swung for the fences. We headed to the basin and began our search… after several miles, some solid arcs began appearing on the Lowrance. Running deep storm thundersticks, deep tail dancers, and #9 shad raps. we had our first fish in about a half hour into the first run… 23 inch. An hour later, our goal was nearly met with a 27 inch fish coming in. The day progressed and fish continued to come to the boat. We connected with a box fish at 18.5 and then a close call 20 incher that had to go back as it was just barely touching. At 3:00, another barely 20 inch came net side and had to go back. 3:15, with only 15 minutes to go to weight in, the heartbreaker hit and taped out at 27.5 inch. Our goal came close, but was not realized. Swinging for the fences was fun, but ended uneventful for the tournement standings for us. Storm deep thunder sticks in blue or gold were the best baits and colors, working them at 15 to 20 feet down over 32 feet on 10/4 fireline and straight dead sticks (12 foot trolling rods)at 2.5 to 3 mph was our pattern. MTTs are always well run and this was no exception. Congrats again to all top finishers. A few quick pics attached. Also tied into a 46 inch Ski on a deep dancer run at 15 feet down. Interesting bonus fish…

LOW for the championship?

Great report and nice ski! The bite definitely wasn’t like last year at this time.

Thank you for the report!

Healthy looking ski there.

Yep, those 2 day tourneys on a slot lake can be pretty tuff. Lots of strategy and a little luck goes a long way.

Thanks for the report and pics.

-J.

Great recap and report – thank you. It’s refreshing to hear a genuine fishing report from a tourney angler who didn’t place too high in the standings. It sounds like you were getting the open water trolling bite dialed in! Very interesting to see that your higher speeds were producing results.

Congrats on the ski too!

We ran the higher speeds figuring we needed to cover lots of water in little time and also the fish we were marking only had minimal bait marks showing up which maybe meant the pod we were on was maybe not currently feeding and the strikes we were getting were more reaction strikes. 90% of the fish were on the front treble and we didnot lose any on the way in. Just an observation.

That’s weird, last weekend I was able to go 2.5-3mph and get fish more than going around 2mph. This weekend I had to slow back down to 2mph. I prefer to go faster if I can get them to bite, but after 2 hours and no bites I finally got one on an inside turn, I slowed down to 2mph and started getting fish. I was on deep gravel though and running lead.

I’m a speed freak…. meaning I work and work at it doing S turns out there until I feel I’m onto something. I usually start out at 1.9 MPH and go from there. I’ve learned that speed can change from day to day and hour to hour and it also depends on what crankbait you are pulling. For example crankbaits with a tighter wobble and an aggressive swimming action such as Reef Runners are even more finicky when trolling at higher speeds. If they are out of tune, it’s exaggerated at higher speeds.

Has anyone noticed a preferred speed in regard to the time of the day or within the solunar tables?

I normally fish a little higher in the water column early in the morning and before sunset due to tullibees rising to feed at night. During these times, I would think these suspended walleyes may want a faster presentation. Any opinions?

I usually troll right around 2 mph. This week I tried moving up to 2.3-2.5 mph and the only time I got bit was on an inside turn, so I just kept it there. The shallower fish were a different story. When the bite slowed, I moved the speed up to 2.3 and ran the cranks down so they were ticking bottom and that triggered a few strikes. I need to try that 3 mph stuff. That could be interesting.

Our Speed was 2-2.2 mph pulling leadcore. That is my target speed to start and will adjust from there. We tried faster (2.5 to 2.75)trying to trigger bites to no avail.

Brad – our basin fish were the opposite of what you described. The morning fish were deep at 25 feet down over 32 or 33. By the after noon we were running lines 60 feet shallower targeting fish 15 feet down and that produced. Our last four fish came with only 80 feet of line out. That is the challenge that we deal with trying to figure out how and why each day and keeps us all coming back!

BigFife – Congrats on a 3rd place finish – NICE WORK

Great report.

I also find that speed plays a huge roll in success. I just got back from a Salmon trip to lake Michigan last weekend and something that many of the charters out there use with their downriggers is called a sub-troll which measures the speed of your lure versus water flow at your downrigger (as compared to just air speed) Example – I talked to a guy who said he needed to have a boat speed of 4.4 mph just to get his lures to have the same action that they typically would at 2 mph because there was that much current at the depth where his downriggers were at. This got me thinking – I know Mille Lacs doesn’t have as much current as Michigan but has anyone noticed much of a pattern in your success using different speeds trolling with the wind versus against it?

One other thing that I didn’t see mentioned was the old neutral trick… If I have a short hit or know my bait is in front of fish but I can’t get them to go I frequently will hit idle on my trollmaster to try and trigger a strike. It’s amazing how many times I’ve missed a fish dropped the speed right away and had them come right back and hit again. This works especially well long lining floating crankbaits in shallow… When coming up to a rock pile as soon as the baits start ticking rocks reaching back and throwing the motor into neutral for a few seconds can trigger a fish who might not have committed otherwise

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BigFife – Congrats on a 3rd place finish – NICE WORK

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