Family vacation On Mille Lacs 7/21 – 7/28

I owe a lot of my fishing success to the members and staff here on IDO… I am a river man that spent a lot of hours in the past on the river. But when it comes to lake fishing, I turned to the reports here and it didn’t take long to dial in a program that put some very respectable eyes in the boat.
With some small tweaks to the details you can make a 10 fish day into a 20 fish day. Multiple fish days are what everyone wants to have… but sometimes just a day on the water will do… NOT FOR US!!!

Lead core put most all the fish in the boat for us…900 Rip Sticks in Root Beer Prism and Purple Barely Naked were ON FIRE!!! Pulling these baits directly behind the boat was key in the bigger wave days too… A close second was the #9 Shad Rap in Black and Gold or Purpledescent… These worked best when the wave action was minimal and on boards behind 3 colors of lead (segmented). We did also catch some fish on Deep Tail Dancers on braid from 120-140 back…

Some of the days on our vacation were spent around the house we rented… Some fantastic action with a crawler and a bobber off our dock made this lil girl very happy!!! We caught LM Bass, gills, small pike and even a walleye off the dock… The back yard was very large and flat… The grass was so nice you could walk bare foot and it felt like carpet. This made for some fantastic games of croquet. The fire pit and an ample supply of fire wood made for great story time and some fantastic s’mores!!!

Back to some more fishing info…
First off… My youngest daughter Malz had her 24th B-day on the 24th… Golden Birthday. Right!!! Well her first fish on the day of her birthday was a real nice 24” walleye caught on the bait of her choice… Rip Stick Purple Barely Naked!!!

Speed meant a lot… It could make a huge difference from morning time, noon time and evening… Tips like make some drastic S turns and see which side of the boat gets hit… this should tell you if you need speed up or slow down… A trolling guide… Priceless!!! And if you think you have 30’ of fluorocarbon out… measure it… I actually had 45 feet on mine…. Do not measure it with the line counter, because if you have a fuller spool or a spool that isn’t as full… you’re going to be off in your measurement… That is the only thing I could come up with for my length being off. Another thing… I felt that my floro went deeper than what the bible says… because I was using the mono info… So paying attention to the details can really increase your catch…

A little on the place we stayed at… It is located on the east side (Picard Point) it was a fantastic place to stay… All the amenities… 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms… private dock with quick access to the lake… I am not in any way connected with this unit… but I think it is too good not to share… http://www.vrbo.com/280909
Lastly I want to give a BIG SHOUT OUT to the members and staff of this website… If it wasn’t for you guys reporting on your techniques and your ability to share information and your passion to conservation keeping our fishing alive for years to come… You know who you are!!!!!

This trip/family vacation was what all of us needed as a family. I have a great bunch of friends and a fantastic family… Love you guys!!!