Last Sat night with new friends

Our adventure started when Dan (captdd) posted in the Trip Swap forum for someone to introduce him to night trolling on Mille Lacs. Both Al (bobberal) and I responded, so we decided to make it a threesome using my boat. Al met us at the Sha Bush Kong (sp?) launch site at 7:45 pm where we saw many boats trolling the weedline. We headed further up the coast figuring it was calm enough to boat back after the crowds thinned.

Before we pulled away from the landing a short while later, I suggested we get our lines ready because our goal was to catch a fish within 5 minutes on the water. Four minutes later we released Al’s 26.5″ walleye.

Ten minutes later we released Dan’s at 25″.
That spot slowed down, so we did a couple short runs in nearby spots, and moved out to another long shoreline stretch. There we picked up a number of keepers, with a couple slow periods that approached 1/2 hour.

Around midnight we moved down to Sha Bush Kong, where there was still quite a few other boats working the weedline. So we stayed quite a ways away and worked rock and gravel. We began catching nice fish right away, including a large pike for Dan that we photo’d but did not measure.
How do you like the special lighting effects?

Most of the eyes were nearly identical at 25.5″. Finally we moved in to the weed line when there were only about 3 boats left. We were hoping to break the 26″ barrier, but we mostly caught keepers. Getting tired and wet from the incoming lite showers, we went back to our first site for a few minutes before quitting. We struck out there, which in restrospect, was not surprising. A hundred yards away we passed through a large school of hundreds of billions (they were hard to count ) of baby perch.

We enjoyed connecting by radio several times with TBO/MN and MIke W , and greatly appreciated their willingness to share lots of details with us. Except for a few boats along the weedline, we rarely had any boat come within a few hundred yards of us all night.

We started with a mix of lures, but for the second half of the night we used HJ 12’s in firetiger exclusively. Caught fish from about 5 to 9 FOW, with most of the nice ones in 9 FOW. We never went more than 30 minutes between fish. I don’t know how many fish we caught. Dan & Al did very well. I caught at least 9, with 4 over 24″. My camera time stamp showed it took me well over 4 hours to catch my first one over 17″.

We all caught lots of fish, and we kept 10 .

The weather was incredible, the fishing was terrific. But the best part was three strangers forming new friendships. It doesn’t get any better….

I think Dan has a new addiction .

Nice looking fish guys. Had to love that weather that night. I didnt put a coat on until well after mid night. I think you guys left just as the fish where realy hitting down there. We picked up some realy nice fish circleing that guy in the pontoon boat about 3 am. Had 3 hit while trying to get our lines back out to around a 100′. Hope to see you up there again. Im hopeing to get back out over the weekend but dont have a radio in my boat.

You got it Bob!!!!! The fish are secondary to making new friends through this board.

How does that saying go? “you post it and they will come”…or something like that!

Sounds like you had a great time!

So much for total dedication to night fishing!! I had to spend the weekend in Southern Minnesota at a wedding !! Bobber Al told me he was going fishing and I had to stop talking to him immediately !! I am hoping the weather holds out for a couple more weeks!! I could handle catching a few more of these girls!!
Nice fish guys, Bobber Al told me that he had a great time and just had to rub it in on the phone
Sometimes I think he just needs a swift kick in the !! (HA! HA!)

Walleye Warrior….

Bob turned us on to fish right away…That was way cool.
I had a great time too! with two total strangers, which I now consider IDA friends.

Thanks guys and lets do this again sometime. Dan how’s the bird hunting going?

Thanks Bob and Al. I had a great time,…the night went quickly with lots of stories filling in the time between bites. It was a great team effort keeping the lines from tangling and getting nearly all the fish in. I’m definetely hooked on Mille Lacs night fishing thanks to you and the reports on IDA. Its great to have some new and very talented fishing friends!

ps. As you can see from the pictures,… I couldn’t remember to turn off my cap lights,…Al got blinded several times but was patient with me. I’ll do better next time, AL.