Mille Lacs Open Water Trolling in mid June

I finally got to spend a couple of days this week to fish my favorite body of water – Mille Lacs! It’s been a very trying year due to our son – Nick having surgery on both of his legs. He’s a special needs child (cerebral palsy and autism) and bone fusions along with a metal plate were inserted into his legs to help him walk. Needless to say, it’s been very hard on him as he lies in his bed watching the other kids play outside.

My first day on the water, I took my son Ian, his friend “Chappy” and my lifelong friend Joe. The plan was to eliminate some water and search for suspended walleyes out feeding on tullibees. Over the years, certain troll runs have produced for me time and time again during specific periods of the summer. Most likely it has to do with water temps that affect seasonal bug hatches that helps congregate bait fish (primarily tullibees and perch) which in turn, brings in the walleyes. This year the big pond is about 2 weeks behind due to the late ice and cooler weather.

After eliminating a couple of areas, I pulled into one of my favorite early June spots and graphed some baitfish mixed in with some arcs. It didn’t take long and finally we started pulling in some good fish. In fact our second walleye was over the protected slot – a 28 incher which was Chappy’s personal best! Way to go Chappy!!! After a couple of pics, we let the fish swim away.

We worked this area pretty good catching a few walleyes but then they wind changed directions, the baitfish started to disappear on the graph and things slowed down. Shortly after it started to rain and even though the boys had rain gear, they were soaking wet. It was time to call it quits even though it was only 5pm. I was proud of the boys because we were one of the last boats on the water and when fishing with kids, I always let them call the shots of when it’s time to go in.

Thursday I headed back up again with a co-worker of mine (Tom) and two of his buddies (Eddie and Mark). We hit the water around 2pm and I went back to the same area where Chappy had caught is big fish. Conditions were not ideal with a cold front moving in – temp in the mid 50’s and wind out of the NE at 15 mph.

When I arrived at the spot, I was amazed because it was loaded with tons and tons of baitfish mixed in with balls and balls of bugs. There was definitely a bug hatch going on out by the mud flats and experience tells me if you find the baitfish, walleyes will be close by. However, it was almost too much sign and I was worried that my crankbaits below would have too much competition. I decided to give it a try anyways and we were immediately rewarded with a couple of walleyes in the low 20’s. Both of these fish were caught on Rapala Deep Tail Dancers #11.

After about an hour, we pulled up our lines, motored back through the waves, repeated the troll run and with each run we would catch 2-3 more walleyes. Soon it was 7pm and we had to make a decision. Should we continue to work this area or try another spot? Even though we were catching fish, the big girls were still eluding us and all of our fish were 25 inches and below. I talked the guys into staying out a little later and we moved to another spot a couple of miles away. When we arrived, there were no balls of bugs in this area and 1/10th the amount of baitfish. At first I wasn’t marking any walleyes but that eventually changed. We put out our lines and soon after the leadcore rod took off and we had our first 27 inch fish of the day. As we were releasing that fish, the other leadcore rod went screaming and another 25 inch fish came to the boat. Both of these rods had TDD #11 crankbaits on them in purple clown flash. Soon after all 4 rods had the same crankbait on and I moved my two planer/braid rods down to target 28-30 feet down.

Long story short – we really got them dialed in and we ended up catching close to 30 walleyes in about 7 hours of fishing with six hitting the tape at 27 inches and numerous more in the 24-26 inch range. We caught the majority of those fish within the last two hours and it was pretty much non-stop action – we also had 2 doubles and kept 3 for the frying pan! We turned a good day of fishing into a great day of fishing by simply making some minor adjustments (depth and color of crankbait). It was also great to fish with some guys who were already experienced walleye anglers and could quickly catch on to the open water trolling system. By the end of the night, everyone was working together as a team and it certainly paid off in a big way!

One thing I always do at the beginning of the year is to make sure my line counter reels are reading accurately. It’s important to understand that your line counter reel does not read feet but instead reads the number of revolutions of your spool. This can make a dramatic difference depending on how much line is on your spool. For example, if your spool is half full – it may be reading 13-14 inches per revolution versus 12 inches. That’s a 10-20% difference!

In order to make sure they are accurate, I simply measure out 150 feet with a tape measure in my yard and then run all my lines down to that spot and look at the number shown on my line counter reel to make sure it is accurate. Typically, a full spool will be more accurate than a half a spool but this varies with different brands and the size of the line counter reel.

The open water trolling bite should only get better as water temps continue to increase. Now’s the time to make plans! If you have any questions, feel free to send me a PM or email me at

[email protected]

Good luck and I hope to see you on the water!