James Holst(please help)

Hi James, having a lot of trouble find fish, been out night fishing Milly a fair amount(10-15 times) this fall. I have never seen a night go better than 4 fish nor have I ever talked to anyone at the landing who has done very good. I fish from 6:00-2:30. I use mainly #12, 14 husky and #13 originals with every color, but always some firetiger, sil/black, perch, sil/blue and gold/black and clown. Also thrown plenty of shallow t sticks and rouges in many colors as well as #5 shad raps. Put in a lot of time mostly in 5.5-8.5 feet. Troll about 1.4(gps) but change speed often. I have been on most types of bottom, fishing out of Myr Mar area west to garrison bay(and humps). Also lots of time on indain pt, rocky reef and entire south half of Vineland bay to Rocky reef, also Sha Bush bay. Also put in time around Doe island area shore. As you can see I need some help, I will be up about 5 more times in the next week or two. I am not asking for a hot spot just some general areas to try and techneques that you think may be good or similer to the area you are doing well on. Thanks in advance

bigeyes

Happy to try and help….

You seem to have all the bases covered for the most part and you’ve specifically named 2 of the areas I’ve been concentrating on over the last week so you are on fish. On the north end sand, the area to concentrate on is closer to Knox Pt. Several friends did very well up there this weekend pulling red rip sticks. Over the last 3 nights we’ve been seeing 40-50 fish nights… last night (Saturday) went fantastically well with big numbers of fish over 26″ with more 28″+ fish showing up than in nights past. Check out my last report for more on that.

By that doesn’t answer your question now does it?!

Last night’s program consisted of running #12 husky jerks on 6 lb spiderwire in 8.5′ – 9.5′ of water at 1.8 – 2.1 mph. Color selcetion was crutial to success. The red craw pattern was the ONLY pattern I could get the fish to hit from sundown until about 1 AM… then that bite abruptly stopped and switched to firetiger… despite the early success we never had another fish on red craw once we started getting bit on firetiger. My customers and I are giving the plugs a sharp 18″ sweep of the rod, allowing the plug to fall back w/o slack in the line…. followed by a very long pause when the plug was held perfectly still. No sweep = no fish. No pause = no fish. Line lenghts ran from 115 – 130 feet back depending on depth fished at the time.

When we mark fish we seem to have success catching them…. and they move around along a piece of structure CONSTANTLY…. so your electronics are your eyes out their. Trust your equipment.

Other then that, I will suggest getting on the water prior to sundown to tune your plugs to make sure they’re running perfectly… an absolute obsession of mine that proves it’s worth time after time. Even if they’re a little off, when the bite’s tough, they’re WAY off.

That’s all I can think of right now. Any other questions, just holler. This is the time, when the bite is tough, to improve your proficiency as a troller. Focus on details and success will follow!

Hello, This is my first post. I was reading the info above on Mille Lacs. I have a question for the guide Jim.

I see that you have been catching 40-50 fish per night from sundown to 1 am. That’s almost one fish every 7 minutes. I also see that the Crawfish color is the only thing they seem to be biting on. You also say you have to jerk the rod to get a fish to bite. My question is, if the bite is really good like 1 fish every 7 minutes, do you really need to do these things? I have found on Mille Lacs that if iam catching one fish every 7 mintues like i rarely do being a novice and not knowing the lake very good, it seems like they usually hit anything. You also stated trolling speed is important. Would they not bite if your were going faster? I have been getting maybe 5-8 fish a night with some big ones mixed in. All my buddies are doing the same as well. You seem to have found them. Iam also wondering how your are marking fish in such shallow water? The cone is way to tight and wouldnt the fish get spooked? Can i get a wider cone for my finder?

Hope you can help me out, were pretty much doing everything your doing. Do you have any other tips?
Thanks Whitetip

Hey Whitetip –
I’ve had some of the same questions, but after fishing with James a couple times, I just try and follow his advice.
I’ve fished walleyes longer than James has been alive, and don’t know a fraction of what he knows about walleyes (or probably a lot of other fish) – not even a tiny fraction! I’m convinced of one thing – his attention to detail is key and I think he’s alluded to that in some of his posts also.
What I’ve concluded is that whether the bite is tough or great, I want James doing the guiding. No offense to anybody else, but I’ve learned a ton while in that Crestliner!

Dustin and I fished up there with James all last week. And, yes, you do need to pay attention to detail all the time to keep the odds in your favor, and “Create” a bite that most people are missing right now. Many people in bait shops up there are still waiting for the bite to happen. Well folks, it’s happening! Dustin and I caught some very nice fish last week. Color and presentation means more right now than ever. This year’s bite is nothing like last year, when you could drag a piece of show leather and catch big fish. Now, electronics are very important. You need to see bait fish, or no walleye! It is that easy! Lure presentation, such as the working of the rod James talks about is critical. There are soooo many baitfish there right now, that the stop in movement, or irradic movement, allows these fish to key on the bait and attack. It is looking and acting different from the millions of small perch around it. Honestly, these fish need weight watchers right now! They are unbelievably rotund!
Tuck

Tuck, I was with James on Thursday night when you and Dustin were there. What happened to you guys after the bulb episode? We just figured the barley pops were calling way too loud for you guys to resist. LOL!!!! We stayed until 3 and called it quits.

Mark

Tuck is right! The bite on Mille Lacs is happening as we speak. This year is was a totally different environment compared to last years bite. The key for me this year was to approach each night with a different attitude. The presentation was basically the same night to night(trolling cranks) but a lot of little factors played in to the game. One night they wanted a certain color and a certain action, the next night if I did the same thing I would not even come close to getting the same results. Each night the fish would either want a different speed, a different depth, or a different color. Once the depth was found, fine tuning your offering and choice of color was the key to putting more eyes in the boat. I had one night that I spent alone and had over 30 fish come to the boat with several over the 25″ mark on up to 29″. The walleye are their and will bite, there is no magic spot. The spots we have been targeting have had several, even dozens of other boats on them at the same time. Even with all the other boats in the area I heard the same story from everyone at the landing coming off the lake at nights end, or just prior to launching about nights before, “the bite is slow”!

The moral of the story? James is absolutely right when he says pay attention to details. This little tip will increase your catch rates dramatically in a tough bite as James has showed in his reports.

As far as marking fish on the electronics? When running at trolling speeds around the 2mph mark you will only occasionally mark a fish in 8″ of water or less. The bait fish? That’s a whole different story in its own. A little trick I learned was to watch my graph as the boat sat motionless in the water for a period of time. I would reel in a fish and before I would throw the motor in gear and take off the graph would be full of fish. I used this approach to my advantage by checking other depths with the boat just sitting motionless for a period of time, if I marked fish I would spend more time at that depth and see if I could get something put together to get um to go.

Mark, the night Tuck and I fished beside you guys we ended up getting really thirsty and had to head in at midnight. We already had 26 fish with some real good ones in the mix and just wanted to go in and take it easy for a night. It was a long week and we needed some time to relax as well. Even though Tuck fell asleep in the recliner before the party even began ! His arms must have been tired and it wasn’t from doing those 12oz curls!

Whitetips

Are the details such as action imparted to your plug, color, speed, etc., necessary? Only if you want to consistently catch fish I guess. Every night on the water is different… and the success that I’ve been enjoying along with a couple of my guiding partners isn’t a matter of “finding them” but getting them to bite. The fish are stupid-thick in the shallows. Case in point… last night was too windy to fish the area I had been working so we stuck to the north end and ran out of Garrison… working an area I had fished little this fall. We literally caught fish everywhere we went. Could it just have been an “on” night? Maybe. But I think it has more to do with really giving the fish what they want and that is a large, easy to catch meal that will require a minimal expenditure of energy. They have so many choices with all the food present. Would you run down a plug going 2+ mph when getting your next meal is as easy as sucking in one of thousands of 3″ perch from the cloud of perch present around your head? Last night our most productive trolling speed was right around 1 mph. Honestly now, how often do fisherman troll plugs that slow? It’s painstakingly, rediculously slow. But that’s what the fish required. Anything approaching 1.5 mph was way too fast. We were basically “drifting” with the wind on our downstreams runs. And our hot color? Firetiger. Can’t catch beans on craw now. Rogues that were incredibly hot earlier in the week are as dead as could be. NADA. Dustin Stewart summed up this year’s bite on Mille Lacs best, just before he left the cabin to come home. He said to me, “it was a great bite and was fun because it was challenging because EVERY night was a whole different program.”

This is the year to learn the skills that will make you a better troller. Anyone can do it during years like last fall when a hot dog on a hook would catch big fish. And the fish are bting good this year. They are ALWAYS biting somewhere, for someone. Just look to tournament results to reinforce this point. 200 boats filled with top-notch anglers go out. When the bite’s tough 99.9% struggle to catch any fish… while one, or maybe a couple boats, absolutely hammer the fish.

They’re always biting hand over fist somewhere for someone. Guaranteed. I can’t catch them all the time. No one can. But accepting the fact that they are always on the feed to some degree and that they can be caught if I can figure out the details needed to put together a productive pattern drives me to keep looking, fiddling, changing, searching….

Now can I graph fish in shallow water? Oh yeah! Just as Uffdapete that posted above. I had a classic situation where I had him lean over my shoulder to view a big ball of bait next to a HUGE partial arch in shallow water. About 10 seconds after he leaned over my shoulder… BAMO!~ 27″ walleye. I repeat that “mark ’em, catch ’em” routine almost every night.

For what it’s worth… Most nights we fish until 2:30 – 3 AM. Adjust your math accordingly.

Any other questions, just holler. We had another GREAT night last night so the fish just keep on biting. I’ll be putting up a report w/pics right after I wrap this post up.

Thanks James and all for the tips. We went out last night and caught some dandy fish. We trolled #13 black/silver raps in 7 feet next to doe island. Speed didnt seem to matter for some reason. But twitching the bait to make it more real did seem to help. We tried to fish with the #12 huskys but with 125 feet of line out on a line counter reel and 8# fireline, the bait was bangin bottom to much. We tried that in 9 feet. Cant wait to go again

Thanks James, I did not get your post in time to try it yet, but I will be up again soon! I will have to get the Craw pattern in husky jerk. I have been on the lake 4 nights in the last week, and finally fishing got awsome. No nights quite like yours but averaged 13-16 fish, the strange part was they were mostly big fish. 1 30, 2 29s and 12 28s, we stopped counting and taking pictures of the 27’s they were too common but I bet we got 20 of them. We didn’t change our presentation much just fished shallower, 4-5 feet. Fishing was slower in the 7-8 foot depths but we did get some fish. Noticed a strange phenamonon, every fish before 8:30 was huge(over 27 inches) after 8:30 the smaller fish(15-24) were much more common with an occasional 27 inch but nothing over 27.5? Have you noticed anything simmiler to this. Also, I believe your reports, but don’t understand how you can see fish in 7 feet? An average fish would be too large to even fit in the cone? Wouldn’t the cone be about 15 inches in diameter, and under the outboard in 7 feet, wouldn’t the fish move out. Am I mistaken?

We catch alot of fish right behind the boat at this time of the year, we call it fishing the prop wash. I’ve caucht fish 20 ft. behind the boat and you will graph fish when driving over them at night in the shallows.

The fish don’t seem to be nearly as wary of the boat as one might be lead to believe but then we rarely or only occassionally get the complete classic arch that you might be looking for. Sometimes half an arch… sometimes more… but easily discernible for what it is. And we graph TONS of them. No problem.

Glad ot hear the fishing picked up for you. Should be good from here on out until it gets just toooo darn cold to go out anymore. I’m on the Mighty Miss for the rest of the season so you’ll need to keep ME informed of the going’s on up there. I’ll be looking forward to some more exciting reports from the big lake!!

How long do these Walleyes stay in the shallows like this feeding? Is there a point when the temp get too cold and they move out or is it when the water starts to freeze?
Thanks for the all the help, I’ve been catching fish with the tips.

These fish will stay shallow through ice up and will offer some spectacular hardwater action for the first couple weeks… and then begin to drop out to deeper water.

Agree. The fish will stay shallow.

One thing that will drive the Walleye off spots “that were hot last week” are the Whitefish/Tulibee. I have found that when the water temp get under 40, as it is now, they can get thick on shallow rocks. They will feel like short hits…tick..tick… Then boom you snag one! If that happens on your spot, better start looking for a new area!

J.

Another thing with this time of year is as Jon J. has stated the whitefish come into the shallows. Normally whitefish netting opens around the 1st of Novenber. Prior to this time the walleyes leave, as the whitefish leave the water in such a state the walleye won’t hang around. Some say they leave a slim that the walleye dislike? If you have ever handled a whitefish you know what I’m talking about. I don’t think I would swim in the same waters……..

I almost feel violated as I have not even seen one night on the pond this fall.Maybe the Nov. moon is a reality for me but then again pool 4 is heatin` up
Keep the stories comin Brett