Mille Lacs Open Water Trolling Report – 7.29.12

There’s no such thing as the dog days of summer when it comes to open water trolling for walleyes. If you do your homework and put your time in, you can find some open water walleyes that are willing to strike your deep diving crankbaits.

On Saturday I had the pleasure of sharing my boat with Shawn McGuire, Troy Rahn and Jim Deplanty. We hit the water at 9:00am and on the way out Shawn mentioned to me that he’s caught many big walleyes throughout the years but all have fallen short of the magic 28 inch mark. Jim lives in IL and is an avid bass angler but this would be his first time walleye fishing. Troy fishes Lake Mille Lacs a lot and wanted to learn more about open water trolling. These guys were ready to have a good time with high anticipations of catching some open water Mille Lacs walleyes!

We motored out to where I was having some success the weekend before and it didn’t take us too long before Jim was reeling in his very first walleye. As soon as that fish was in the net the starboard planer board started thrashing away from the boat and we had hooked another suspended walleye which fell for a Rapala Deep Tail Dancer #11 – clown flash. After a good fight, that walleye also landed in the net and just like that – Shawn had finally caught a personal best 28 ¼ inch walleye! Congratulations Shawn! Sorry it took me over a half hour to get your personal best.

It was truly an enjoyable day on the water catching a few more walleyes here and there with a lot of laughter in between the troll runs. Shawn and Jim are both in the firearm sales industry so these guys are also avid deer hunters. It was great talking about some of the bucks that all of us had encountered over the years and the few we had on the wall. We ended the day at 6pm with smiles on all of our faces.

On Sunday I conducted another open water trolling clinic and joining me for the day was Brad Bergstrom (Bronco83), Dave Nevison (Dave_N) and Jack Naylor (IDO Field Staff). All of these guys are hardcore anglers but new to open water trolling and they wanted to add another walleye catching technique to their repertoire.

We motored out to where I had left off the day before and our first troll run produced nothing. I moved over another half mile, made another parallel troll run and we encountered a couple of hits but no fish landed in the net. I decided to stop fighting the waves to stay on my previous day’s troll run and we finally picked up a walleye but could not get anything going. Before we knew it, it was almost 2pm and we had only one fish to show for it.

I decided that we were going to go back to where we had started earlier in the morning, put on the same crankbaits/colors and pretend that we had just got on the water. It didn’t take too long – we finally picked up another walleye and our spirits were lifted. We trolled a little further and landed another one. At that time we got aggressive and decided to match those two rods with the same crankbaits and colors.

We were trolling Deep Tail Dancers TDD#11 – Blue Flash on our planer board rods with braided line and Storm Deep Thundersticks – Blue Chrome Orange on our leadcore lines. Duplicating these two rods really paid off and we started to get them dialed in. Fish after fish landed in the net and we encountered 3 doubles. At the end of the day, it was a well-oiled machine. Everyone knew exactly what to do and we worked together as a team. Fish after fish landed in the net and lines were immediately put back in the water with precision and speed. It was easy to see, that these guys had put everything into good use of what they had learned throughout the day. We ended up catching 24 walleyes by 7pm and 10 of those were between 25-28 inches. Brad also caught another over fish – a nice 28 inch fish. That’s the 19th Mille Lacs over fish for my boat this year that hit the 28+ inch mark. All of those fish were released.

Keys to our success:

Depth Control:

Understanding the depth curve of your crankbaits is critical. Keep in mind that Storm Deep Thundersticks troll about 4 feet higher than TDD#11’s when trolled back at 140 feet on braid. These open water walleyes are little deeper right now due to the warm water temps that are hitting in the high 70’s. The reason they’re also down deeper than normal is because that’s where the majority of the tullibees are gathering seeking cooler water temps especially during the mid afternoon hours.

Speed :

Paying attention to our speed also played into having more success out there. Our second fish hit right after I hit the max throttle button on my troll master pro and it triggered a reactionary strike. Sometimes these walleyes will follow your baits but won’t commit until that crankbait makes an erratic move. Don’t hesitate to pump those trolling rods – on certain days it can trigger a hit. Another walleye hit the outside planer board when I was performing an “S turn”. This board was moving a lot faster than my other lines which told me that this particular walleye hit our crankbait at a higher speed. I decided to bump up all are rods to 2.3 mph and it paid off. The rest of the day, I was running at that higher than normal trolling speed (versus 1.9 mph) and it added to our success.

Confidence:

Another reason for our success was due to our persistency and perseverance. On Sunday, we only had one fish after 5 hours of trolling. I kept on telling the guys that we would get into them if we were patient and continue to tweak our presentation. It takes time to figure out the puzzle and every day is a little bit different – sometimes even hour to hour. What worked yesterday may not work for you today. The four keys to unlock the puzzle are depth, style of crankbait, color and speed. When you finally figure it out, it’s almost magical when it all comes together especially when all 4 rods are firing and catching fish. That’s what I love about open water trolling! It can change for the better in a minute and when it does, all of the hard work and effort that you put into it – will be worth it!

Open water trolling will continue to produce during the month of August. Make some plans and get out there! If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to me. If you’re interested in attending one of my On The Water/Open Water Trolling Clinics, send me an email at [email protected] and I will send you some information.

Until next time – keep trollin’!