Mille Lacs 10/13/2007

Made my first trip to the pond on Saturday. Went out of the Red Door Resort. Starting fishing around 4:30 PM. Our group had 2 boats with 3 per boat. We trolled Reef Runners in the deep water until dark. Not one hit.
Just a little before dark we switch tackle and head for the shallows. My neibhor puts on a Red Craw rattling Rouge. Not long after we started out trolling run, he say’s fish on. We get the other lines in and he say’s I don’t think this is a Walleye. After about 5 minutes, my partner gets a glimps and says it’s a huge Northern. After another 4 runs he finally gets it to where i get a look. I said “Oh my God, It’s a huge Musky” After another 3 or 4 runs i get the fish in the net and in the boat. I have never seen such a huge fish. With no tape measure or scale big enough, we use my fish ruler. Our best guess, it’s around 46″ long, has a 10 to 12″ side depth, and is around 7 or 8 inches wide. Man what a fish. I only have a 15 pound scale so theres no way to know how much that fish weighs. I can only guess around 30 pounds. Not sure if there is a chart to calculate the weight of Muskys.
The neat thing in all this is one of the guy’s with us has the whole thing on his new video camers. I have no idea how to post it so you guys could see this fish. After about 10 minutes of working the fish in the water, she finally swims off waiting to be caught another day.
Well back to Walleye fishing. We trolled until around 11:30. Caught 2 around 19 inches, lost a couple of others, and had 3 or 4 other hits with no connections.
Water temp was 55.3 on the north end.
We thought about fishing St. Albens bay. Did anyone fish there on Saturday and did you catch any?
Even though we only caught 3 fish, that Musky was a fish of a lifetime for my boat, as it is the first Musky ever caught in my boat.

We fished out of the redoor from 7:30 to 11:30. we were trolling #10 and #12 huskys in 6 to 10 feet of water. 1 18 inch walleye no other hits at all horribly slow. I talked to a guy in onamia and he said they were trollong and didn’t get to many so they just drifted and jigged in the same area and had great luck

I worked the big point area hard Sat. night and didnt get a thing, I ran HJs and SSR and SR with nothing to show for it. Water temp was 54.3 give or take and didnt mark much. Fished 5-10 ft range. The water temp needs to get down in order to push the young of the year perch up in shallow. I didnt see any forage on the graph?? It was still great to be on the water.

That sounds like a great fish. Im not sure of how to post it but Im sure some one with the know how will chime in to help you out. We all love seeing big fish.

For you guys that may of had a slow weekend dont give up on the lake yet. I would think with dropping water temps and a new moon cycle to start showing very soon the bite should start to turn around. I sure hope so. I have 2 weeks coming up that will see most of my time chasing big fish on Mille lacs at night.

Sounds like a great fish… Try uploading it to http://www.Youtube.com

What speeds and color baits were you guys running that had minimal luck????

Hey Jorgy, I think I am the guy you talked to in Onamia. I figured I would run into you guys again somehow or another. We fished Friday night from about 9-2:00 in the St. Alban’s area and North and got zerod running huskies in 6-8 and 8-10 foot depths and over weeds at about 1.3-1.7. We ran clown, and a couple golds. Saturday morning from 7-12 we got zerod around Andersons and Spirit and on a couple stretches on the south side running #8s and minnowraps at 1.4-1.8 in various depths and through suspended fish. Saturday afternoon at 4:15 we picked up our first fish-26inches of the weekend on clown huskie jerk on the south end kept making passes hoping for a pattern with the wind starting to blow in but failed. Picked up and headed out to a flat that has some scattered weed offshore and started graphing fish immediately-and the right kind of marks… started running cranks through, over and above them, and couldn’t even get a look, completely dialed in on them with counters and everything Busted out the jig rods, 1/4 ounce pink and white and put a jig and minnow right in their faces slowly hovering on them and got three to go within 40 minutes all fish ranging from 25-lil over 26. Wind came up and we were not able to accurately hit the fish in the face with a jig anymore so we had a pretty nice stretch dialed in to pull cranks through. Decided to downsize on one of our rods with a #5 jointed SSR perch, and we hit one a little over 27. We lost one more fish that night on the same lure and nothing came on sticks. The next morning we went back to the same area and all we could catch were northerns but lost a giant that was certainly acting very much not like a muskie or northern. Who knows, an incredibly slow weekend for this time of year. We got lucky, the most anyone caught that we talked to was 2 fish in a full day. I absoluelty couldn’t believe how many muskie guys were out there this weekend. There was 30-40 times as many muskie hunters as there were walleye hunters. Did see pictures and hear of quite a few caught and just about all of them at least saw a fish. I would love to get back there in November, hopefully things take off for someone. I did a lot better 2 weeks ago, and last year trumped anything this year. Tight lines, good luck!

Lip Ripper – We used EVERY color of the Smithwick Rouges and tried 4 or 5 colors of #12 husky jerks. The 2 Walleyes we caught were on the Black and Gold. The Musky was on the Red Craw. Trolled from 1.3 to 1.8 MPH. Generally stayed around 1.5 most of the time. We trolled from a qtr. mile east of the Red Door to a mile to the west of the Red Door. Fished from 5 to 11 feet and everything in between. It was just slow or my Econary was off that night.

Where did you fish to get the ones you posted?

P4,

We trolled St Albans the same night you did with Gold HJ 12’s and Lazer Craw Super Rogues and picked up 24 eyes with the biggest at 27″. Sure was nice not fighting the wind. We were using the same speed and depths as you. We could only run 60-65 feet back to avoid the weeds but it looked like other boats too were getting some fish in the area. Keep plugging away its starting to pickup. I used some successful past trolling runs and they seemed to be in the same concentrated areas. We still could use some weeds to die off and cooler water temps to really get the bite going. We too tried the north end but only pulled one little eye and two smallies so we went south to Albans. Were you one of the boats working the point on the north side of Albans? There were a few boats really working this area for awhile.

We worked the north end of the point for a while late in the night/early in the morning hours. Marked a ton of fish but could not get them to go. We caught the majority of our fish on the north end, where we spent most of our night. Cannot wait until Thursday! Enjoy the next month and good luck everybody!

T Ellis- glad to hear you got into them, that is what is sweet about walleye fishing. The smallest details can mean the biggest dividends. It’s nice to be on your end of it though!!! We worked pikes straight out around and down and marked a ton of fish but I was having to bootleg the speed and I think that is what killed me this weekend. The verado kicks down digital rpm very nice, but it was flat calm and ended up having to in and out of gear it because I forgot to tell our storage people to plug in the electric the night before we took the boat. Big mistake. Oh well, it is still an amazing fishery, and loaded with fish, and I am having a blast trying to learn it. It is a sweet change up from pool4, and kind of reminds me of the missouri but with much larger fish on average. Looking at other posts, I think things could have been much different if I could have kept a steady slower speed, and spent more time in the skinnier of water. I think speed was the deal judging on how I ended up catching the fish that I caught. Good info on this thread, and tucks thread. Thanks gentlemen.

I just was dumbfounded on how similar we were fishing and the difference but thats why its fishing. Yes for the fall trolling its tough to beat a T8 with a digital trollmaster to dial the speed right in. However I’ve used an electric to really get “stealth” once the water really cools and the pressure gets them a little spookier but i run the kicker the most. Bummer you didn’t have the electrive because its a good spot to get some nice eyes and pike. Hopefully we’ll see you on the water sometime there’s alot of trolling before the ice.

we were using black and silver, firetiger orange and black husky jerks and crayfish shad rap. I have a question for all you guys, when we were trolling we would get in a huge snag in 10 to 12 feet of water, you could barely move it at first we thought we had hooked a big muskie in the back and he didn’t know he was hooked. But once you got close enough it would pull out without a weed on it. It happened 3 times any thoughts?

Do you use a tech braid like fireline, Stealth? Could it be walleyes your getting hooked up in the weeds and you might have to loosen the drag if its too tight to allow for some give so the hook doesn’t rip out of its mouth before getting to the net? Otherwise could it be you were snagged and ripped free from a clump of weeds before seeing it. I use 20# Stealth and if a eye dives into the weed cover alot of times you have to horse them over and through the weeds it get them in the boat. One thing i think you an eliminate is snagging an old muskie in the back and he doesn’t know it.

Could be hooking rocks???