Here is a little pre-opener Mille Lacs report that I posted for my friends over at Target Walleye detailing how I plan to target walleyes up on Mille Lacs this weekend.
> My favorite lake is Mille Lacs and my favorite way to catch walleyes is trolling and casting crankbaits in shallow water – so that’s exactly what I’ll be doing for opener this weekend. The fishing was excellent this past winter on Mille Lacs and I’m very optimistic that the early spring will lead to a hot bite for opener as the water will be a little warmer than normal and the fish should have had ample time to recover from the spawn.
> My secret weapon for targeting shallow spring walleyes, especially in warmer water temps, is to troll Rapala SSR bent-lip shad raps in blue/silver or natural perch colors. I love using shad-profile baits! The SSRs allow me to troll them back from 100-130′ behind the boat — this is key as it allows us to keep it far enough behind the boat to avoid spooking fish while fishing in water as shallow as 3-5′. We will also be running more traditional shallow water trolling baits such as #10 and #12 Husky Jerks but I have a hunch that with warmer water temps the shad style baits are going to win out this year.
> A couple key tricks that I’m hoping will help make our game-plan successful will be trolling in stealth mode using our Minn Kota Terrova. Trolling with the Terrova also allows me to have very precise speed control because sometimes even changing speeds up or down by 0.1 or 0.2 mph can make all the difference in the world. Then once we find an active school we can also use Spot-Lock to quickly anchor. Oh, and you’re required to have a good-luck fishing-opener mustache in my boat — no curl, just old school bad cop look.
> As much as I’d love to have my honey holes all to myself this weekend I sure do hope that the C&R only doesn’t keep people from joining me on Mille Lacs this weekend. I’d love to see the lake packed as our friends up there need our support — so please if you do come up buy bait local and stop for some food and coffee at the local shops. And if you decide, like me, that Rapalas are on the menu this opener, just make sure to have a tight grip on your rod because the strikes can be absolutely vicious!
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