28 Oct 2006
For this day, we went into the water at about 1530 hrs.
First fish at 1910 hrs on a #12 Husky Jerk Firetiger. It was a 24 incher which had to be returned to the water. We caught another one that was 20 inches.
After a quick dinner, we were back in the water at about 2130 hrs. Things did not really pick up for us until after midnight when we started catching fish non-stop.
All in all, we probably caught a total of 20+ fishes. Lost count after a while. We were getting fish every 10-15 minutes or so. We had quite a number of 22 to 28 inches. We had about 7 eyes below 22 inch. My personal best ever was a 27.5 incher which weighed 6 lb 9 ounces. My wife got her personal best at 26 inches. See pic above.
Thanks for the report 
, wish I had the time to make it up there. How fast were you trolling?
Pic of the 27.5 incher. We did not get any above 28 inch, but we had a lot of fun. We eventually stopped at 0230 hrs, but the fish were still biting. We later found out that we had been fishing for more than 12 hours that day.
Here are the details of what we were doing to catch the fish :
Environment : Wind was W/NW at about 0-5 mph intermittent. Air temperature when we left the water was 27 deg F. Water temperature was 40.2 deg F. Calm.
It was a cold night, but with a mild wind, it was tolerable. Thanks to IDAers input, we had a portable heater on board which also helped a lot. The conditions were also really ideal for boat control. I just set the autopilot trolling motor to 1.1 mph (setting of 3 or 4 on #80, depending on whether we were going against or with the wind) and just hugged the shore keeping to the magical depth of 4.5 FOW.
There was no moon at all. It had apparently set at about 2300 hrs. I am not sure the total absence of moonlight contributed any to our ability to catch fish.
We used HJ #12 Firetiger, Glass perch, Clown. All were working well. I have often wondered at what depth the crankbait should run while trolling. Well, for that night, running it within 1 foot from the bottom was the ticket. I would let out line until I feel the crankbait catching the bottom, and then I would reel up a couple of cranks (credit to Chappy who taught me that on ringworms in Spring this year). The other thing we noticed was simply to hold the rod – no twitching or jerking was necessary. It was an observation my wife made and which I remembered from a post that another IDA had mentioned about leaving the rods in the holders. We did not use the holders, but we just held on to them to feel the bites.
By and large, the bites were subtle. After a while we got the hang of it and once we set the crankbaits at the right depth, any “weed snag” was a fish unless proven otherwise. So I would set the hook. We lost 2 fish overall that night.
Most fish were caught on straight trolling passes. I was too lazy to do any S. Just used the autopilot. It was not uncommon to catch 2 fish on every pass. It was like fish every 10-15 minutes. Amazing. There did not seem to be a particular spot, but it appeared that the fish were all gathered at a particular depth from shore.
The important points are :
1. Fish shallow! 4.5 FOW
2. Fish slow! 1.1 mph – Use your trolling motor if you can
3. Keep the crankbait still and within 1 feet from the bottom
4. Strike if you feel anything
5. Precise crankbait depth control can be achieved with raising and lower the rod tip – Sorry. May be obvious to the pros, but I just learnt that this weekend.
6. Lastly and most important, FISH from 12 MN onwards!!! I think this is the key!!
Of course, we also got that bonus pike. Taken on a HJ #12 clown that had been cast out and was reeling in to set the depth. It was 36 inches and weighed 11 lb +. This was one costly pike, I lost my USD150 baitcaster and reel set while trying to net the pike for my wife. She was the one that caught and brought it in. If anyone finds/snags a Pfleuger baitcaster and Guideseries rod in Mille Lacs on the NW side, please let me know. It may be mine. 
We CPRed all fish and kept only one for the dinner table.
Thanks to all who provided info and advice which contributed to this memorable trip from their reports and replies – they include but are not limited to Calvin, James Holst, etc. 
Also thanks to the unknown stranger who told me that best time to fish was 0200 in the morning and you would literally catch fish all night!!!
And for the day, we caught perch too. JUMBO perch!!
In retrospect, not sure why we did better on the second night. Could be the water temp. It was 1 deg colder the second night. Could also be the time. We fished after 12 MN on the second night. We also fished shallower the second night. Also, we stopped twitching the rods when holding it. Location was also slightly different, but I was not sure if that really mattered. Lastly, I was using the kicker to troll before dinner. You can see that in the first pic. Not sure if the sound of the motor mattered, albeit being a T8.
FAN-TAS-TIC report! The fun you had sure comes through in your words and all the detail you provided is sure to help out anyone interested in hitting mille lacs before freeze-up. Thanks for sharing with all of us.
Great report! Looks like you had a blast.
Sounds like a fun trip. We found about the same on friday night. Run shallow and slow put about 15 eyes in the boat for us. A trick we used for steering with the trolling motor that night was to just set your speed on it, point it straight forward and steer with the main motor. This worked alot better than trying to see what direction the trolling motor was faceing in the dark. I have a feeling on a calm night in those shallow waters these fish are a little spooky.
Thanks for the outstanding report! I think you single-handedly motivated about half of the people here on IDA to get their butts up there and give it a try. Not one detail left to chance and lots of good supporting photos of some HUGE walleyes….great job! 
Thanks again, looks like you made some memories to last a lifetime! 
Great report.
Very good picks and nice smiles. 
Wow what a great weekend you had!!! 
Great detailed report!!!! Its also great to see your wife getting out to enjoy fishing with you!!!! I like her expression in that pike picture!!!! Priceless!!!
Keep it up!!!!
Thanks all. Could not have done that without all the help and info I received on the IDA forums. It was indeed a memorable trip, especially since this was the first time I had such success with fishing walleye.
MikeW, what time were you fishing on the night of the 28th? Did you find that time of the night was a significant factor in addition to going slow and shallow? I had thought that at the speed of 1.1 mph, it was so akin to dragging and I initially wondered if the crankbait would work at that speed. Well…it sure worked and I found out that even at 1.1 mph, I could feel a very slow wobble.
Im sure timne of night had something to do with it. We caught alot of fish between 10 and 1 am. Would of most likely caught alot more with out equipment problems. We where able to only make one pass with the trolling motor and had a good number of fish get hooked up. After that running on the main motor it was just hit and miss. Now maybe they just came in to feed when we where running the trolling motor. My gut tells me it was just a mater of not spooking as many in stealth mode.
Hope to get to play around with this a little more tonight.
Very Nice report, good detail, and great pics.
Way to GO..
Jack..
Hi everyone! Its been 8 long years and so nice to read my post from so far back. Really sentimental. Thanks to google managed to find it again. Thanks to forum for not deleting it. Really had my best fishing years and perhaps even best life years in Minnesota those 3 years. I hope everyone’s doing good and I really miss my time on this forum, my boat and all the fishing I did. It’s also amazing to read the details in the post as I had forgotten nearly everything except that it was a great night. Cheers and thanks all for the friendship and advice that all of you had generously given to me which I will never be able to pay back.
Welcome back! Are you back in the States now?
I don’t think I’ll ever forget your wife shooting that .50 cal at Bills! LOL!
Unfortunately not. Hope to come back to Minnesota one day. Loved everything about it, having a boat, going fishing and ice fishing! And thanks again for arranging for us to shoot that .50 sniper rifle. That was really an experience!
I took a launch out of Garrison in 2009. The boat must have had 20 people on it. We didn’t have high expectations for catching anything but a group of us put $5 each in a pot for the biggest fish. My group of friends got skunked but my neighbor snagged a rod! It was a bait caster but I doubt it was yours we were fishing out a few miles in much deeper water. We all agreed that he took the pot.
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