I saw an open seat for a trip to Mille Lacs posted and asked if it was OK to bring Lizzy with. I received an email to call the owner of the boat on Friday and did so. I chatted on the phone with Dion for a while and he told me to setup a time to meet up with Mike, another person that took his offer for the trip. After speaking with Mike we decided he would pick Lizzy and I up at 4:30 and we head out to meet up with Dion. We arrived at the meeting spot around 5:30, move dour gear from the car to the truck and made the drive to the pond. One thing I love about taking people up on open seats is getting to know other outdoorsman. I’ve been doing this for several years and have made some great friends. I have yet to meet a fisherman I didn’t get along with. It looks like Lizzy is taking after me as she opened right up to these to fellas.
We arrived at the lake around 6:30 and launched out of the NE side and were out of the bay around 7. There were a couple of hickups with getting the map chip to work but once we had that resolved we were on our way. Dion has a 621 Ranger with a 250 on the back. We headed out in 3 foot rollers doing around 35 and it was a very impressive, smooth ride. After driving around in “no man’s” land trying to locate fish we pulled up to a flat and decided to pull some spinners. We drifted a few times with a couple of bites but no fish to show for our efforts. At that point we decided to go back to the original plan of pulling cranks with leadcore in between the flats. So we got those rods all setup and ready and drove around to make some fish.
Took a bit to find just one or two fish in an area but we marked some. After pulling lead around for a while and changing up lures periodically we still had no bites. Lizzy was getting a little antsy with no action. She’s generally very good in a boat but when action is slow, like most of us, she looks for something to pass the time. I had her sit on the back of the boat with her legs in the water while I held her and that appeased her. A little bit into that one of the short rods started going. I called out there was a fish and Mike jumped up to grab it. There was a pretty good battle getting it into the boat but it paid off with, what turned out to be, the biggest fish of the day.
Mike with his 27″ eye.
That had us all pretty excited. It’s not bad putting in the effort when the payoff is a good quality fish. It took more time of trolling around to find the next one but Dion pulled in a very nice 25 1/2 incher.
We moved around the lake more pulling cranks and changing them up but we hadn’t found a patter in color or depth. Two fish in around 6 hours, doesn’t make much a pattern. After a while longer of pulling the cranks we decided to pull up on some mud and finish the day with some Slow Death hooks with crawlers. We moved around the break for a while and Mike landed a very fat eye. We estimated it to be around 26-26 1/2 as the ruler only went to 25.
About a half an hour later Mike landed another quality fish that we didn’t measure and that was it for the day.
All in all we spent about 12 hours on the water with a few fish. We didn’t get the quality but we sure got the quantity. None of us had a lot of time on that body of water so it was a great learning experience for all of us. We had great conversations to go with the lulls in the fishing. I want to thank Dion for allowing me to bring Lizzy. It’s hard to take a 6 year old out on the water that long with slow action and get a little whining. She held up pretty well and was pretty excited to see the giant walleye. I’m hoping the next trip up she gets the thrill of reeling one in. Thanks to both Dion and Mike for opening up so well with Lizzy and messing around with her a little here and there. She was pretty passed out when she got home but all day on Sunday she told mom about how much fun she had with the guys. I asked if she’d want to go up there again even though she didn’t catch a fish and she said “Yes dad, I love fishing for walleye and it was really fun!” Dion also gave her a giant thrill of running across the lake at about 60 for a little bit. Her cheeks were flapping in the breeze and her smile was priceless. It was awesome meeting you two, hopefully we can get out fishing again sometime.
Sounds like a great day for all and you’ve got a great young fishing partner.