Mud 7-18

Went out Sunday eve with the GF drug balls and pulled core for a couple hours till dark.

Set out from Hunters Pt about 530pm with intentions of heading to a specific flat that would take me right over a few others on the way. It’s hard for me to fly over a flat along the way, I have to check it out. It would turn out that I would never reach my destination as I marked fish on the second flat along my path. These fish were relating to the edges and hatches present.

Call me crazy, but I am going to be experimenting with down riggers this year. I got pretty efficient with them on Superior last year and many run them on LOW. I pulled 5 and 7 raps 30′ behind my 6# balls for about an hour with out a release. There were fish in the area and not being ready to write off the flat yet I decided to switch to the tried and proven Leadcore to see if it was the rigger ball that was spooking fish.

To make a long story short, Im still going to be trying riggers as my core did not produce either for the on this flat.

Not to be a total fool, I packed up shop and scoped a few other flats in the area and was pretty stisfied with my findings on one so I deployed the old core again by 8pm sending 5 F tigre and 7 P. dessent down to the bottom.

Over the next hour Tanya and I would Boat 7 Fish 13,18,21,22,23,24,26 till the sun dipped below the horizion and I suspect the fish moved up on the flat. Yup, they were holding on the bottom edge of the flat and there were very few hatches here. I suspect the fish slid up top for the evening but I had to get going so I will never know.

Last week on IDO was a great learning opertunity (article) posted by Brad on trolling the basin, something on which I have not yet done but plan to eventually. Yes its true, cranking is working now but it is not the only way you are going to put fish in the net. What ever method you feel most confident in is a great place to start. I have friends still rigging, corking and pulling spinners to put fish in the boat.

But do make it a point to add new tricks to the bag.

Mille Lacs is still putting out plenty of fish! Granted, they are not coming to the net as easily as earlier in the season but there is plenty of good fishing out there.

Good luck–Mark

Riggers DO work on the pond…

Good report Mark and congrats to you and Tanya on your successful night of trolling leadcore! Anytime you pull 7 fish within an hour, you have them dialed in!

I’ve also experimented with riggers on Mille Lacs and had success but I wouldn’t say it was more or less than using other methods such as leadcore. I recently investigated riggers some more because I was thinking of buying an underwater trolling camera that would hook onto the rigger. Would love to see some videos of walleyes enahaling the crankbait below but it’s not as easy as it sounds. That’s another big discussion.

Congrats again and thanks for sharing your Sun evening with us!

Has anyone ever tried running spoons behind downriggers on Mille Lacs? I know during the summer on Lake Erie it can be the ticket. And since the walleyes are feeding on tulibee and other minnow forage, a spoons seems like it should work.

I’ve not tried spoons on riggers but I have tried them on leadcore and didn’t have much success. Granted, I didn’t have any type of flasher in front of the spoon either since I was using my walleye trolling gear.

I’ve also experiemented with other type of flasher attractants such as cow bells while using crankbaits, but again, you need a salmon type of rod since the resistence is pretty strong.

One of the problems anglers get when using down riggers for walleyes is being able to trigger the release since sometimes walleyes are finicky biters. Some anglers use a thin rubber band which seems to help.

If you were going to experiment with spoons, you may want consider using jet divers, dipsy divers, snap weights instead of riggers. This may help you from spooking fish.

A little off the subject and sorry for hijacking this thread a bit… has anyone successfully used flashers/crankbait combinations?

Regardless, it’s hard to experiment out there when you only can use one line! I know… that’s a whole other topic!

Crossin’ eyes, you are in my head i swear…

I was thinking about spoons earlier this season for the same reasons, G.Bay and Mich. Brad is also touching on why I ( and i assume many others) have not tried all that much experimental work on ML, The 1 rod rule. If you are marking fish then throw what you know is going to work. Its a tough decision!

My thoughts on riggers/spoons is

1. to run the spoon far (50′-100′) behind the ball being that there is no dive below the ball you might need the stealth of a long line

2. Maybe the old SWR- 1-2 colors of core behind the ball to drop the spoon below the ball

3. Maybe just leadcore and spoons?

One thing is for sure though, after joining Great Lakes Angler and fishing Sup and Mich you will begin to think about running different setups back home. Sometimes the more you know CAN be a bad thing I guess. That is if you think fishing while trying to get to sleep.

Brad, the rigger cam would be awsome. I have seen some good footage on youtube for lakers and salmon. Finding the lake that is clear enough to offer visability very far behind the ball or hooking the lure close enough to the ball and hoping the fish come close enough???

And running flashers or dodgers Thanks for making it difficult for me to fall asleep later –Mark