Mille Lacs crankbait report

For the first time of the year I got the chance to get up to pond and do some trolling last weekend. We got out sat at about 10am and started looking for fish. I cruised out to an area that usually holds fish this time of year and didn’t even fish it becouse the graph was blank. After looking around for about an hour we never found anything that caught our attention in the open water. We decided to set up on a big flat and troll the edge. I placed one board on top of the flat and it wasn’t ten minutes, the board burried back like it was snaged, my buddy grabs the rod and said its a fish. We get the board off and it gets close the boat. It ended up being big muskie 40″ +. The fish rolled over and came off. He was like oh man that would of been my first muskie.

Sunday we decide to do the same thing. We set up on the deep edge of a popular flat and start trolling. Right at the end of the flat, our leadcore buckles over and starts peeling drag. My buddy grabs the rod. I told him if this is a walleye its big. It ended up being a 35″ muskie. After losing the one on sat he finally got a muskie. I saw that there was a trolling report with a 38″ musky so I thought that I would share this everyone. Overall besides the muskies the walleye trolling bite was really slow.

I have trolling up there for about 7 years and never caught a musky trolling for walleyes.

stasney first of all welcome to In-Depth Outdoors

Secondly, thanks for the report and information. Congrats to your buddy on his first Muskie. I have been trolling up there about as long as you and my boat has never seen a Muskie either. I have caught plenty of decent pike but no Muskie yet.

My dad caught a pig of a muskie last fall when we were trolling for eyes in the shallows last fall. I fish eyes only but what a neat bonus fish.
Funny thing the timing of this post as well. I store my boat up at Mille Lacs so I rarely have it home. I pulled it home this week so I could put a new sonar on. After getting it mounted I dumped the boat in eagle lake in maple grove with a buddy and few beers. I threw out a reef runner and thunderstick and tossed out the boards. We were in about 20 to 24 feet running our craks at about 15 to 17 feet. I was not paying any attention because I was just trying to learn and having fun with my new toy.
Next thing I know the left board is taking line to beat the band. After about 10 minutes my buddy pulls up about a 40 inch muskie up to the side of the boat. Of course no muskie net so we never did get the monster in the boat but it was very entertaining.