2012 Opening Weekend on Mille Lacs

Spending opening weekend on Mille Lacs to my friends and I has been an annual tradition since we were kids. Just like the postal service come rain, snow, or shine we’re going to be there!

As luck would have it not only did mother nature give us the nicest weather I’ve ever experienced for an opening weekend, but the fishing on Mille Lacs was even hotter! We hit the water Saturday morning at 12:01 and by the time the sun was rising we had boated over 40 walleyes with a box full of 16-17″ ‘eyes ready to hit the oil.

After an awesome breakfast at the Waypoint Cafe and a quick nap we relaxed for a few hours and hit the water again on Saturday evening. While the calm conditions made it a perfect night to try out the new Terrova for some “stealth mode” trolling it also kept the fish out of the shallows we were targeting until just before dark, but when they showed up it was game on. From 9:30 until 10:30 we boated over a dozen hungry walleyes and several nice smallies and then as soon as they started they were gone. Not ready to call it a night yet we decided to give them a quick break and made another trip to the Waypoint (Thanks Red Door for keeping it open 24 hours) for some coffee and a midnight snack.

When we returned to the water just after 1 AM the wind had picked up and the boat traffic had died down both of which were fine with us. The change in wind coupled with the moon rising at 2:00 got the fish going again and this time with a little more size. We called it a night around 3:00 with another 27 eyes finding their way to the net.

Sunday we fired up the fryer and had our first of many weekend fish fries at my good friend Garret’s house. After two days of fishing hard nothing tastes better than the reward of a meal of fresh walleye enjoyed with a few cold beers and some great friends!

After saying a few goodbyes and a little relaxing the few of us diehards who were still standing after a couple long nights decided it was time to take advantage of the awesome weather and hit the water while the sun was still overhead. By this time the water temps were in the low 60’s and as many others had already figured out the fish are quickly transitioning to their summer haunts so we decided to try rigging some deeper sand to mud tranisitions that usually produce well in June. We started our drift in 30 FOW and quickly learned that that not only were the fish holding deeper than would be typical for mid-May, but they wanted crawlers. It didn’t take us long to zero in on a few schools of fish that were on the chew and start sorting through to find some box fish. We continued this pattern right up until dark following the schools from 28 FOW right up into the shallows as they moved in for an evening feast on perch and shiners. Once the fish had moved into single digit depths we grabbed the trolling rods and fired up the kicker. This time with a little wind blowing into the rocks we started boxing fish immediately and after a few lure changes to zero in on size/color we got dialed in quickly. With the water into the low 60’s bigger baits with tight wobble were key and as my friend Doug found out a FireTiger Rapala HJ12 was the hot lure as he boxed our 2 biggest fish for the weekend back-to-back only minutes apart.

As much fun as I was having and with even nicer weather on Monday I just couldn’t go home… After closing up the cabin I made a quick call to John Jordan and we hit the water just after 5:00. With the bright sun and zero wind the fish I had targeted the day before were nowhere to be found so we headed to the sand for some rigging. Since we only had a couple hours to fish we wanted to cover water and were moving a little faster than I usually would without blades but found out quickly that the fish were more than willing to grab a crawler trolled at speeds up to 1 mph so for anyone heading up this week the spinner bite should be a great option. At 8:00 we picked up my dad and decided to give the shallow trolling run one more try, but with surface temps now hitting 66 degrees and no wind we found mostly rock bass and pike.

All said and done opening weekend 2012 was a smashing success! Not only was the fishing awesome, but I also had the pleasure of meeting many fellow IDO member this weekend. Thanks to everyone who spent time with me in the boat and of course to Barnavelds, Red Door, and Fishers as well for their hospitality that helped make it such a memorable weekend!

I’m already excited for fishing opener 2013!