Mille Lacs Full Moon Trip

So we held our annual Mille Lacs Full Moon trolling trip this past weekend fishing Friday and Saturday evenings late into the night (or morning if you will). Joining me were several high school pals along with Jolly Roger Tackle’s Shawn Flemming. We set up shop as we have now for the past few years at Red Door. What a great place to stay. This resort continues to impress. We had 9 guys and 3 boats. Dividing and covering water was the plan, which started Friday evening, West, NW, and North. We ended up all circling in on the West side as that area was producing for us. We fished both nights on the West side running rock/weed transitions, weedlines, and right over the weeds. The baits run were mostly Husky Jerks and X-Raps 65-85 feet back at 1.6-1.8 mph. Husky Jerk Colors varied slightly but Jolly Roger Purple Haze and Baby Walleye produced as well as Tennesse Shad and Chrome/Black. X-Raps took most fish on Saturday evening in colors of purple, pearl, and black/gold. SSRs #9 only accounted for two fish for my boat. Most fish ranged in the 22-26″ size with one slot for our boat in two nights of fishing. One other boat in our group had 3 slots and a 27.5″ and a giant 29″ that went just over 10lbs Saturday evening. Water temps ranged from 50.5 to 51.5. As the water temp continues to drop, I would think the bite will continue to improve. We ended up with approximately 60 fish for the two nights between the three boats. Not what were used to seeing but not bad considering the bite. All our fish, including a 23″ tagged fish, were fat and sassy. They are feeding well on perch mostly (based on the ones we cleaned). I hope to get out one more time this fall once we get into the mid-40 degree range. Stay safe out there and good luck.

Nice report! I’m sure we crossed paths and didn’t even know it!

Great report…Sounds like a blast

Have put that bite on my must try but seem to miss it every year.

Great report. Are you using your big motors or the trolling motors to pull the cranks?

I run a 9.9 Yamaha kicker in conjunction with my I Pilot Terrova. 9.9 provides thrust and Terrova steers the boat. 9.9 will troll down 1.3ish. This set up works great as it is really hands free and allows me to tend lines net fish take pics, etc all while keeping boat in strike zone.

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I run a 9.9 Yamaha kicker in conjunction with my I Pilot Terrova. 9.9 provides thrust and Terrova steers the boat. 9.9 will troll down 1.3ish. This set up works great as it is really hands free and allows me to tend lines net fish take pics, etc all while keeping boat in strike zone.

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I am curious if you needed to power your Terrova or just steer it to control your boat??

I run it at 3 or 4 speed most of the time, depending on win speed and wave size. It really keeps the bow pinned down and keeps the boat tracking straight. The kicker is locked down and I only steer with it in extreme conditions.

do you have that set on a “follow this contour” on your map chip or are you using the foot pedal or the remote? I’ve got the 898 and the ipilot but I fish the river so much I haven’t even tried to set up the bird and the minnkota to communicate. how hard is that to do?

Nice report Nate! Nice to see the fish filling up again.

I run Lowrance HDS units so I am not familiar with the I-Link between MinnKota and Hummingbird units.

I steer with the remote control and will run the record trails feature at times or just manually steer making adjustments as needed.

Regular Husky or Deep Downs?

Total Feet of water you were fishing in and depth in the water column you were hooking up? Doubt this Pattern will copy to these Deep Rock Reservoirs down south. Just wanting to rap my mind around your pattern and it might help me find something with mine.

Thanks!

regular #10,12.mostly weed lines and transition areas less than 10fow,2mph or slower,S curves to speedup or slow your troll down. Approx 100 FT behind boat is a good starting point.