Mille Lacs Opener Report

Me, my son, good buddy and his son kicked off the season at midnight on Mille lacs. We hit a rock reef in 7 fow on the north side to begin and after an hour with no bites we started moving around. We moved off deeper and around the reef and called it a night at 3am with a couple bites and no fish. Caught a few hours sleep and hit the lake again at 9am. We started out rigging the break east of Myr Mar and I hit the first fish in a few hundred yards. We rigged the top edge and out to 19 feet the rest of the day picking up a fish here and there. We left to go make some supper at 5pm with ten walleyes from 20.5-27″ and one 27″ pike. Most of the fish were caught rigging shiners except for a 26″ that my son got casting a jig n leech on the second cast. He was pretty stoked getting a new personal best. After some supper we headed back out to cork the rocks for a few hours before the rain/storms came in. We managed 5 eyes before heading in around 11 pm. Four were 15″ and buddy’s son got a beauty slot at 19.5″ our only keeper for the weekend. Shiners were definitely preferred and long lining the rig seemed to be a little better. It was an awesome weekend with my son and two good friends complimented by some pretty good fishing and good weather. It was nice to be back on the pond keeping the opener tradition.

Nice going with the Opener and getting
the boys out there.

Jack

Sounds pretty typical of what I seen/heard. Shiners were the go to bait

Nice work Jetro! That sounds a lot like what I heard from others that the most productive daytime bite was rigging shiners in 8-15 FOW. We actually did pretty well pulling cranks at night, with the key being to get down probably slower than you’ve ever trolled a Rapala. Our best luck was moving into the wind at 0.8 and with the wind at 1.0 mph.

Thanks Will. Good to hear you got the trolling bite going.

question for you guys.
I’m assuming your talking about draging shinners correct?
how do you set up/fish your rigs with shinners?
I would think the challenge would be getting the shinner to swim straight?
Please fill me in here as I’m missing part of the deal.

Thanks

KJK-
We were just using six foot leads with a #4 or #6 hook and speeds of .3-.5 mph.

I pull spinners quite a bit, also drag leeches, riggin shiners is one of those things I haven’t done.
Thanks for the reply.

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I pull spinners quite a bit, also drag leeches, riggin shiners is one of those things I haven’t done.
Thanks for the reply.

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One small modification that is extra important for rigging minnows is to use a wide gap. Here is what I use:

http://www.rapala.com/vmc/hooks/live-bait/7105-wide-gap-walleye/7105+Wide+Gap+Walleye.html?start=1&cgid=vmc-hooks-livebait

There is actually a soft spot in the middle of their forehead directly between the eyes. If you carefully run the hook into their mouth and out through this soft center of their forehead they will stay alive and swim along as long as you are trolling slowly for quite a while.

Cool. Thanks for the tip Will.
I’m definitely gonna be riggin some shiners in the near future.

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I pull spinners quite a bit, also drag leeches, riggin shiners is one of those things I haven’t done.
Thanks for the reply.

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One small modification that is extra important for rigging minnows is to use a wide gap. Here is what I use:

http://www.rapala.com/vmc/hooks/live-bait/7105-wide-gap-walleye/7105+Wide+Gap+Walleye.html?start=1&cgid=vmc-hooks-livebait

There is actually a soft spot in the middle of their forehead directly between the eyes. If you carefully run the hook into their mouth and out through this soft center of their forehead they will stay alive and swim along as long as you are trolling slowly for quite a while.

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Will, how does the wide gap help vs a normal hook? We are heading up this weekend and plan to put in some good time on the water. I have not rigged minnows before, but sounds like it’s worth a shot.

One of the cardinal rules that I go by for live bait fishing you should always use a hook with a gap wider than the thickness of your bait… The reason being is that when a fish grabs your bait it’s no longer going to be sitting nicely with your hook point exposed. Once in the fishes mouth if it starts to swallow your minnow head first the hook is now pointing back and if the gap is too small when you set the hook instead of finding the fishes lip the point of your hook can just bury back into your bait… The hook set will feel solid and about 5 seconds later it will pull out of his mouth leaving you with just a mangled minnow. I almost sways fish a wide gap hook for live bait and I also like to add the VMC sure sets to the back hook on my my crank baits which I find also leads to better hookup percentage

Here’s another hook option that I have been using extensively over the last few years for leeches and crawlers: Mustad double wide live bait hook . Another option that follows Will’s line of logic for hooks. Ditto everything Will said on the rationale for a larger hook gap.

Play around with different hooks during a good bite is a great way to see which styles you like best .

The hook looks good but the presentation for the leech shown should only be used when bobber fishing. When trolling or drifting always hook the leech on the narrow end away from the sucker.