As much as I enjoy and embrace the unique outdoor opportunities that come with each season, no other time of year can generate quite the same excitment that I feel as crisp mornings and leaves bursting into fiery color signal the arrival of Fall! While there are many ways to spend a Fall day, chasing birds with man’s best friend, climbing trees to outsmart a crafty whitetail, or even just enjoying a walk in the woods, in my book there is only one way to properly enjoy a full moon night in Fall – Taking advantage of of some hungry walleyes looking to fatten up before winter!!!
Joined by my good friends Brad and Rick we finally hit the water at around 9 PM on Friday evening and even with perfect weather conditions we were a bit surprised by the number of red and green boat lights that greeted us, almost like a mini-opener. Our gameplan was to start by trolling fast action baits such as Rapala HJ10-HJ12 Huskey Jerks and SSR7 Shallow Shad Raps in 4 to 12 FOW looking to cover water and put together a pattern for what depth/bottom type would be holding fish. After hitting close to a dozen spots with even more lure changes we had gathered enough info to settle on SSR7’s in hot perch and blue/silver colors. We ended the night fishing a non-descript sand point where we could pick up one or two fish each pass with 20 walleyes and another dozen rock/smallmouth visiting the boat.
Saturday our plan was to start the same way that we ended on Friday with the only change being that Rick was replaced by my dad; however, once we got to the spot we realized the water temps had also changed, rising from 59 to 61 degrees. While it might not seem like much of a difference in the big scheme of things, a two degree change can really affect shallow fish and changed our pattern as all we found on this evening were mostly red eyed roughies with a few small walleyes mixed in.
After dropping my dad off at the dock and a few quick calls to friends on the water, Brad and I switched back into search mode. Based on the warmer water temps and what we had heard from others on the water we were pretty sure the fish had moved deeper. We switched out the SSR shad raps in favor of #7 rattling ones and with a cloudless sky started out with the brightest colors we could find. A few rock piles and a weed edge later hitting depths ranging from 12-16′ we had gotten a few fish but had yet to find a pattern. And then we finally got our break when I extended one of our trolling runs just a few hundred yards off the edge of a rock pile and instantly hooked up with nice slot walleye. Another pass yielded the same result and after that it was game on as we realized the fish were stacked up on the sand 100-200 yds off of the rock piles waiting to come in and feed. Then as the moon continued to rise overhead we followed them in, and at around 1 AM with the moon high above they moved up onto the rocks and our bite really took off. We ended with only about 5 more ‘Eyes hitting the net than on Friday, but this time they were much better fish.
On Sunday I was joined by my favorite fishing partner Kellie who had never experienced Fall trolling so I was extremely excited to get her out when the conditions were so good. Pulling into the resort we found only 2 other trailers and surprisingly we had the lake almost all to ourselves. Based on what we had learned the previous two nights this time we came out of the gate strong. Our program was long lining Blue/Chrome and Hot Perch #7 shad raps 133-151′ behind the boat and fish were crushing them. By midnight we had 17 walleyes with a couple doubles and were just one fish short of a limit of perfect box fish which is when it happened, I jinxed us into a crazy run of big fish by uttering the following words "Just one more for the box and we can go home Kel." We never did catch that last keeper but between 12-2:30 we boated another 18 wallyes with another 5 doubles. Man what an awesome night of trolling!
Good luck everyone and as always please be extra careful out there as the water temps continue to drop, especially fishing at night.
A few more pictures from an awesome weekend up at Mille Lacs!
TONS of great info here. I think alot of folks just buy some stickbaits and pull around, when it’s obvious that different conditions and points of the fall call for different baits/tactics. Thanks for shedding some light, and thanks for sharing!
Joel
awesome, had to do a double take on the pic’s of the lane, looks exactly like the ones e-mailed to me looking down our lane. Great colors! Nice looking fish.
I tried several shout outs on the radio, I didn’t hear any on the water response or reports.
Awesome job Will. I’ll be back on the water the 13th. Can’t wait!
You are right – BUY FAR THE BEST TIME OF YEAR!
Great report!!
Awesome Pics
Great report with lots of great info!
Great report!
I’m curious about what changes when there’s not a full moon (or even a new moon). Any general tendencies or tips you’d be able to share?
The general rule of thumb is that flashy/bright colors tend to work best under a bright moon, while dark colors do best with no moon or heavy cloud cover. Honestly though I’m never afraid to try something that goes against convention if I’m not catching fish as it is not uncommon to have a completely different bait/color be the hot lure on back to back nights or even from hour to hour on the same night under what seem to be virtually identical conditions
We went out of Terry’s on Sunday too. Girlfriend’s son Collin has been pulling straight A’s so I told him he could play a little hooky on Monday. We hit the water at 7:30, fished until 1:00. Despite assurances that he would have no problem staying up until 4:00 in morning, and two Diet Mountain Dews, my fishing partner was sleeping just before midnight still holding on tight to his rod. We caught 18 total, missed a few more. Closest we came to box fish was 20.5″, everything else was between 24″-27.75″. Pulled nothing but Firetiger #12 HJs, 5-7 feet of water. Weeeds were really thick the out in front of Twin Pines, stayed south of Gregory’s most of the night. Be up again next Wednesday thru Sunday given em’ hell on the NW side.
We had similar results Thursday last week just north of where you were trolling with biggest being three 27″ fish and nothing under 22″. Oct full moon should be prime!
Way to go Dan! Nice work putting a youngster on some awesmoe fish… Great incentive for him to keep up the great work in the classroom
Will,
Great Report, KEEP them coming.
Jack
Will, you running a trolling motor when your in the shallower 4-7′ depths?
Heading up this weekend to close up the trailer….hoping to get out in the even over the next few nights.
Almost 100% of my shallow trolling has been using a very quiet 4-stroke honda kicker with a trollmaster for precision speed control. I have done extremely well pulling raps within 30′ of the boat in even as shallow as 3-4 FOW using the kicker
This summer however I upgraded to a Terrova which with the gps features will give me the precison speed control that I crave for shallow trolling so I’m very excited to get back up over the next few weeks to do some experimenting
That’s good stuff. I’ve only done the Mille Lacs night trolling thing once, but it’ll be something I won’t forget. I sure hope to make it up there again sometime soon to experience it again!