Mille Lacs Report – Night ‘Eyes and Smallies!

Here’s a link to my latest report:

http://www.in-depthangling.com/forums/river/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=reports&Number=60713&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=7&fpart=&vc=

I’ll be on Mille Lacs tomorrow night. It looks like I’ll being trolling slooooowwwwly. James – your reports are always informative and fun to read. I love this time of year.

thanks schnauzer! I’ll be looking for your report when you get back… ‘cuz I like fishing reports too!

James-

you make it out last night at all?

oops… just reads the report. how shallow were you running inside the weedline?

Was out fishing last night from about 9:30 till 11:30. The rain pushed us off earllier than we would like but it is always enjoyable getting out there. Go figure too when the fishing starts to pick up we need to get off.
We started trolling a rocky reef in about 8-10 feet of water without much success. Alternating between firetiger, clown, craw, and red. We then started moving shallower, 4-6 feet, and alternating again with the baits, that was the depth that we found the fish. We caught fish basically instantly on black/orange husky jerk. The fish that we caught were either relating to the beginning of the reef, where the wind blew driectly on the reef, or the back side of the reef, where the wind could push everything to the end of the reef. The fish smoked the baits really hard shaking the holders. we had about 90-120 feet of line out and our baits where thumping the rocks.
Then I had one big hit, I set the hook and a couple seconds later my line snaps. Checking my line I didn’t see any frays but I assume that it was torned up from the rocks, I retie and then continue fishing. About 5 minutes later I hear a splash by the front of the boat and I see a 40+ in muskie tall-dancing on the top of the water like a Tarpon. Go figure.

Speed for us was 1-1.8 mph, water temps dropped fro 67.4 -65 when we were out there. The fish that we caught were smaller than usual, from 16 1/4 to 20 inches. Is this normal to get them smaller in the begining of the year as oppose to later fall?
It was good to get out there for the first time. Hope to be back there tonight and forsure Sunday.

Good luck.