Troll perch-colored cranks now for Millie ‘eyes

No doubt about it, the Mille Lacs walleye bite has certainly slowed down. But there are some things you can do right now to put some walleyes in your boat.

I’ve been on the water four times in the last couple of weeks trolling the open basin of Mille Lacs with crankbaits and conducting some open-water trolling clinics. Trolling around the mud flats in the center of the lake has been very slow.

Having spent considerable time scouting, I’ve been catching fish in the open basin in the gravel and sand areas. This is typical for the month of August. I think it has to do with water temps, bug hatches and the perch hatch.

There’s an annual perch hatch on Mille Lacs and by the time August rolls around, the fry are large enough to become a part of open-basin walleyes’ diet. Over the last couple of weeks, little perch have shown up on my sonar in large numbers and several have ended up in the bottom of my boat as walleyes spit them out. So in August, I begin to troll more perch-colored crankbaits, including Rapala Deep Tail Dancers in colors such as Flash Perch and Yellow Flash Perch. I also like Storm Deep Thundersticks in the Madflash and Chrome Yellow Perch patterns. Since most perch are located near the bottom, I like to troll perch-colored crankbaits down deep, about four feet from the bottom.

Another key to our success has been speed. We’ve pulling our perch-colored crankbaits a lot faster than usual – up to 2.3 mph. Because of this, we also adjust our depth curves on our leadcore. I’d estimate that our leadcore line was dropping about four feet per color when trolling at these higher speeds. 100 feet of 18-pound Sufix Leadcore with a 50-foot, 10-pound mono leader worked the best for us when trolling Deep Thundersticks. Also effective were deep Tail Dancers pulled behind planer boards 150 feet back on braid.

The last little trick that worked for us was tipping our crankbaits with 6-inch Berkely Gulp Alive crawlers. I will cut off an inch of the head end of the crawler and hook it on the front treble hook. Make sure you hook it on the back hook (the hook that’s furthest back) of the front treble. This will help keep your crankbait in balance so it swims properly.

The reason I cut off about an inch is because I don’t want it getting too far away from the rear treble hook. If you don’t cut it, the walleyes will sometimes nip at that crawler and steal it without getting hooked. Tipping a Gulp crawler on our crankbaits certainly helped with hook-up percentage and overall catch.

Running your crankbaits at the desired depth is the most important factor out there. It doesn’t matter what crankbait you have on or what color, if it’s not at the right depth, you will not get bit. Being able to place your crankbait two feet above the arcs on your sonar is the key.

The "Precision Trolling" book is a great tool to help you understand the depth curves of your crankbaits. Unfortunately, the book is no longer in print, but rumors say you will soon be able to purchase this data via an iphone and droid application.

I would like to thank the following people for attending my open-water trolling clinic: Steve Wellcome, Ryan Wellcome, Todd Olafson, Jerry Mertz, Tony Brand, Kevin Hjelmgren, Rocky DeYoung, Al Case, Larry Dahler, Steve Sigstad, Teresa Armenta and Gary Haider.

Each memorable day was filled with many laughs. That’s what I love about doing these clinics – I get to meet so many great people.

There’s still some time to get out there and troll for some walleyes in the open basin. Historically, you can catch fish out in the open basin through September, as long as water temps stay around the 60-degree mark. Once the temps dip into the 50’s, tullibees will begin to move into the shallows and get ready to spawn. Walleyes will follow.

If you’re interested in attending one of my open-water trolling clinics, email me at [email protected]. I will be happy to send you some information. The focus on these clinics is to learn the open-water trolling system so you can go back in your boat and be successful.

Until next time, keep trollin’