Mille Lacs Open Water Trolling, June 16-17, 2012

Father’s Day Weekend 2012 will be forever etched in my memory. Sunday would represent the first time that three generations of the Juaire family would be together fishing on Mille Lacs, my father – Roger Juaire, my son – Ian Juaire (age 12) and me. It was truly a special Father’s Day present – more on that later.

Plans were made to have two boats fishing side by side catching suspended walleyes out in the open basin of Mille Lacs via deep diving crankbaits, planer boards, long trolling rods and line counter reels spooled with braided and leadcore line.

The lineup card on Saturday consisted of Craig Daugherty, Joe Cavanaugh, Bob Rahn and Mike Anderson. They fished out of Kevin Hines’ 621 Ranger. Big recognition goes out to Kevin for letting the guys use his boat on Sat. – that speaks for itself. Not many people would let someone just take their boat like that and especially when Kevin has had it less than a couple of months! Thank you Kevin for your generosity and kudos to everyone else for being extra careful with it!

Our neighbors – Grant Case and his son Levi (age 8) joined Tina and I on Sat. for the am shift and then Francis Kerkov (fishanytime) and his son Tyler (age 12) finished the rest of the day out of our Skeeter WX2100.

On Sunday – Kevin was back in his boat along with Craig, Joe and Bob. My dad – Roger, my son – Ian, my nephew – Brent Smisek joined Tina and I as we celebrated Father’s Day together.

The wacky weather we endured this weekend consisted of flat, calm conditions in the mornings and then changed to some nasty thunderstorms, rain and wind in the evenings. We battled the elements, stuck with our game plan and we were rewarded. Over the course of 2 days, 14 anglers fished out of two boats and ended up boating close to 150 walleyes including many big fish between 26-28.5 inches. 5 of those were over the 28 inch mark and 6 anglers caught their PB walleye. Congrats to Grant, Levi, Francis, Tyler and my dad – Roger. Tina was the big pike girl and landed two in the low 30’s.

Color didn’t seem to matter much this past weekend as I experimented with a variety of silvers, blues, purples and chartreuse colors. Rapala Deep Tail Dancers DDT11 and Storm Deep Thundersticks caught the majority of our fish. Thanks to Tyler’s recommendation – clown flash was the big fish color winner this weekend.

Keys to our success:

Speed Control – Having a bigger glass boat certainly gave us an advantage when the winds picked up and the big rollers started to develop. It’s imperative to keep your boat trolling with the waves so your boat and planer boards are not thrashing around back and forth, tugging on your rods thus affecting your swimming crankbaits below. Having a Trollmaster Pro can help you fine tune that kicker motor so you can maintain the desired speeds (1.8 to 2.2 mph). Other tricks that I’ve used to slow down my speed on my kicker motor in fast conditions is to put the big motor in gear. This will prevent your prop from spinning and it will slow you down a little bit. You can also slow down by turning on your trolling motor and putting it in reverse. Or you can put out a drift sock. When trolling, speed is the only thing that you can change at any given time so keep your eyes glued to your electronics and make those minor adjustments.

Depth Control – Understanding the depth curves of your crankbaits and where to place them based on the time of day is also very important. Keep in mind that tullibees feed primarily on small crustaceans, zooplankton (daphnia and copepods) and on insect larvae. They are cold water fish seeking oxygen riched water and will typically feed at night up higher in the water column as the air and water temps cool down. As the tullibees rise up to feed, the walleyes will follow them. Adjust your crankbaits accordingly and place them higher in the water column a couple hours after sunrise and two hours before sunset. Most anglers fish too deep during these low light time periods and it’s not uncommon to catch those suspended walleyes in the top half of the water column.

The two days were filled with a lot of laughter and smiles. We would hoot and holler back and forth between the two boats as fish after fish landed in the net. It was also a special day for me personally as I was able to share this past Father’s Day fishing with my dad, my son, my wife and my nephew Brent Smisek. My dad is as passionate today about fishing as he was when I was a little boy. He’s caught a lot of walleyes over the years. I remember and still cherish when we used to fish every MN walleye opener together. We would get our chest waders on and start fishing at midnight below the Blanchard Dam on the Mississippi. The walleyes were never huge but they were just as fun. It was a very simple and effective presentation – casting small jigs tipped with twister tails or minnows. On Sunday, my dad was asking a lot of questions about the gear we were using and all of the electronics in the boat. It seemed a little too complicated for him and a little bit out of his realm. However, after we made our first couple of troll runs, he said that was the best walleye fishing he’s ever had and he’s never seen so many big walleyes caught in a row! Even though technology has evolved over the years, the joy of catching a walleye remains the same!

I was also very proud to have my son Ian in the boat. He’s been so busy with baseball this summer that it was his first time out. Every time when a walleye would hit a crankbait and the drag would start squealing from a reel spooled with leadcore, he would yell at the top of his lungs "LEADCOOOOOORRRRRREE!!!!" He truly makes everything so much fun!

Now’s the time to get out there and experience the thrill of catching suspended open water walleyes on Mille Lacs. As always, feel free to email or PM me with any questions. I also have a few spots open if you’re interested in fishing with me and attending one of my open water trolling clinics. Just let me know!

Until next time – keep trollin’!