This past weekend on Mille Lacs was a crazy one as I was joined by my good friend Chris Graber to fish the Full Throttle Walleye tournament out of Mac’s Twin Bay.
With limited time on the water over the past couple weeks we decided that our best approach was to each grab a few friends and do our pre-fishing separately to cover more water. Looking at reports and talking with a few friends it was apparent that the spinner bite on the mud was hot but that finding box fish was becoming extremely difficult. Knowing that we decided to focus on shallower water and try to find a pattern that would allow us to stay away from the crowds. Chris would focus the SE corner of the lake and I would spend my time in the North. Joined by my friends Garret and Matt I hit the water at 7:00 sharp on Friday and within 5 minutes of dropping a line had our first "keeper" fish to the boat. Over the next several hours we continued this pattern while covering several different spots. After catching 15 fish with 12 under 20" and 8 that were box fish (all released) before 11 AM I was confident that we had a great pattern working and we headed to the basin to try and looking for over fish.
Once in the basin we were quickly able to break the 28" barrier, but not quite in the way we were expecting. After sorting through a few mid 20’s ‘Eyes while reeling in to check one of of our board lines Matt yells out "Fish on" as line started peeling of the reel like we’d just hooked a king salmon. Instantly we thought Muskie and quickly pulled the other lines and put the boat in reverse to help make up some of the 200+ feet of line that were now out. After 10 minutes of slowly making up ground we had our first glance of the behemoth. When we finally managed to get it to the boat we were lucky that I had picked up an extra deep Frabill net a couple years back specifically for open basin trolling as it handled a 46" muskie with suprising ease.
Matt was all smiles after catching his PB muskie and I couldn’t have been happier with the results of my pre-fishing. We made one more quick pass through a nearby open basin location and even picked up another 16.5" walleye. What a great day on the water!
Saturday morning as we waited in line for take off of the Full Throttle with overcast skies and a South wind blowing into my North shore spots Chris and I were extremely optimistic. Understanding how difficult it was to find box fish on the flats and knowing that these conditions should only make my shallow water fishing locations better right? Wrong! Each of the multiple spots that were stacked with perfect tourney fish the day before were now empty. For some unknown reason (bug hatch, cloudier weather, pressure change???) my fish were gone.
After 1 hour each location and only having a single 15" fish to show for it we were stuck with a difficult choice. Keep doing what we were doing and hope something changes… Join the crowds on the mud… Or go for broke and start fishing for an over fish in the basin. It was a quick decision as we decided to opt for the hail-mary and hit the basin. Based on what we had learned the day before and armed with a few tips from a couple good friends we were quickly on fish. Halfway through our 1st pass we boxed a THICK 26" ‘Eye that had both of us a little excited as it approached the boat. Soon thereafter we had a 27"… Getting closer! The 3rd bite we had was on leadcore and wouldn’t come off the bottom. Coming into the net we were both very hopeful that this was the one as it was obivously bigger than the first two, but unfortunatly while it had a huge body it was short on length as it topped out right at 27 1/4".
Unfortunatly at this point we were out of time and ended up with only 1 weighable fish but we weren’t alone as pretty much half the field was in the same boat. While it was more than a little disappointing knowing that we had a pattern figured out on Friday that easily would have put us in the money, it was still an awesome tournament. Also, we had the pleasure of meeting fellow IDO member Shawn Fleming from Jolly Roger Tackle. Thanks to Tournament organizer Mark Shutz, Kevin McQuoid for hosting, featured speaker Ron Linder, and Shawn for visiting during dinner, in spite of our missed opportunity to execute our plan to take advantage of the unusual conditions, we still had a blast!
I’m not sure what a normal person would typically do after a tough day of tournament fishing, but for Chris and I it was an easy decision as again we quickly decided to head out open basin trolling 
A few calls later and even a stop in at Fisher’s Resort to offer any of their campers a free guided trip and we were hitting the water with fellow IDO member Washburn and his buddy Mike.
The weather was perfect and on the water we met up with Brad Juaire and Dan Pheifer (Big Fife) who were also out in the basin. It was an absolute blast blast as we made a couple parallel runs watching each other’s nets come out! In just 3 more hours of open basin trolling we had boated another 17 ‘eyes and were finally able to get over that 28" mark… With another muskie! Having never having caught a ‘Skie open basin trolling doing so on back-to-back days was a little bizare. Purple Rapala TD-11’s run higher in the water column (115-130′ back on boards) and a chrome/blue Storm Deep Thunderstick using 3 colors of leadcore with a 30’ flouro leader where our most productive set-ups.
Crazy good bite, crazy ratio of big fish, Muskies on walleye tackle, changing fish patterns, and meeting fellow IDO members. Just another crazy weekend on the pond!
Looking forward to seeing more of you up there soon!!
Nice fish
Nice report Will and it was great seeing you guys on the water!
I agree with you, it’s a crazy year on Mille Lacs with the number of fish being caught and mixed in with some bonus fish.
OK – who’s up for some open water trolling for musky and pike? Last two times out my boat has landed 3 pike out there between 32-35 inches. We also had another one break us off.
I always say I’m going to do it, but it’s so hard to leave the walleye gear at home.
Nice Ski
Here are a few more photos from the weekend.
Another unusual thing that we’ve been seeing in the basin were a lot of fish with battle damage. This is actually the “good” side of our 40″ muskie from day #2 as it had a huge open wound on the other side similar to the walleye in this photo. We’ve had many other walleyes with 1-2″ inch diameter wounds as well. I assume that the Walleyes may be injured from muskie attacks as Chris had one of those on Friday as well; however, I’m not sure what bullied this muskie so bad… Even bigger muskie??
The other thing that was crazy up there over the weekend were the results of storms over the past week. I think the lake has risen probably a foot over just the past few weeks and I’ve never seen the creeks this full even in Spring. I didn’t even get to fish on Sunda as my whole day was spent cutting up fallen trees at my dad’s farm.
Great meeting you and Chris too Will. Great report as well, and nice work on the Musky!!! I agree, it was a fun tournamnet and weekend on the water. Although not finding the “right” fish can be a little disappointing at times, but I never get tired of catching all those great fish the lake has to offer.
Good Luck the rest of the year and we’ll see you on the water!
Nice report, sounds like you guys had some fun and found some big ones!
When you refer to open basin trolling, are you trolling in the basins between the flats, or in the large basin east of the whole flats area?
Heading up to Fisher’s again this weekend and will hopefully get the deck finished on our trailer able be able to hit the water for a few hours. Stop by for a cold one if your in the area….I am in the very back row (new area) in a big Terry trailer.
Nice write up buddy! We’ll get them next time. Everyone should remind themselves to learn something new every time out on the water. New water, new technique a tweak to an old tenchique, just keep learning!