Labor Day Weekend Fishing Strategy??

Any of you Mille Lacs maulers care to share what your fish(walleye/musky/smallie)catching pattern might be over the upcoming Holiday Weekend?

I myself am so looking to the fall bite and some shallow trolling. I know it is probably too early to give the trolling a test.

Be safe and have fun.
Mike

I was on the pond walleye fishing over the weekend Thurs – Sun. Many good walleye anglers have been struggling over the last two weeks while using live bait and there were just a handful of boats on the lake over the weekend. Long story short – there’s a lot of bait out there and some of the walleyes that we caught were coughing up 2 inch perch. Your best bet is to troll crankbaits out in the open basin targeting the mud areas. My boat is averaging between 15-20 walleyes per day using this method. Deep Tail Dancers and Deep Thundersticks trolled deep in the water column are taking the majority of the fish. I’ll be back at it on Sat – so if you see a black and white skeeter with Yammis on the back – say hi!

I’ve only been up to the big lake three times, and only in the spring. We are going up the day after labor day for a week. Staying at the ref door on north side. Any suggestions on where to start looking for pike? Have never used leadcore but we’re going to try it out.

I haven’t been able to get up to the pond nearly as much as I would like this summer with family responsibilities keeping me at home but my strategy this time of year would be to start looking for fish in the deeper water starting to head back towards shoreline breaks. With a full day to kill I would say start on the North end of the lake and troll cranks all the way around the lake to East side anywhere from Garrison to Hunters point. Focus on 25-30 foot depths and even a few hundred yards out into the basin and watch your electronics closely as you should find that the ‘Eyes can be very schooled up right now. With a long trolling run you can throw every crank that you’ve got at them but my two go to set ups would be to run a Gold Alburns scatter minnow on leadcore and long line a Purple Clown Flash TD-11… Perch colors are also great this time of year. Good luck!

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I’ve only been up to the big lake three times, and only in the spring. We are going up the day after labor day for a week. Staying at the ref door on north side. Any suggestions on where to start looking for pike? Have never used leadcore but we’re going to try it out.

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Head East right out of the Red Door harbor and troll in the 6-10′ range with large cranks. There are some great rock piles right out from the resort that transition to a sand about 1/2 to 1 mile down with weed patches mixed in the whole way. If you don’t find any pike there head down and try in front of the Wealthwood public access a few miles to the West, there are some great weedlines for pike.

For giving leadcore a try take a look at my previous post

Thanks for tips guys.
I can’t wait to get out fishing again.
Mike