Trolling Crankbaits on Mille Lacs in Cold Water

This weekend I proved to myself that it’s never too early to troll deep diving crankbaits on Mille Lacs Lake – even when the water temperature is in the mid 40’s. Joining for a fun fishing trip were my friends, Joe Cavanaugh, Troy Rahn and Ryan Wellcome. I’ve known Joe since high school and Troy and Ryan attended my Open Water/On The Water Trolling Clinic last year.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m an open water trolling fanatic and I love trolling deep diving crankbaits via planer boards, line counter reels, lead core line and long trolling rods. In fact, it’s all I do. This style of fishing targets walleyes that are suspended in the water column feeding on tullibees.

There are many reasons why I love this presentation:

1. it allows you cover a lot of water seeking out active feeding fish

2. you never have to fish near anyone else

3. it targets non-pressured fish

4. it’s a big fish presentation!

I recently answered a good question in regard to what water temperature triggers the open water basin bite? Over the years, my data showed that I was able to catch fish out in the open basin with water temperatures in the mid 50’s. However, I must admit that I’ve never tried open water trolling in lower temperatures. Due to the late ice out this year, I was about to find out if walleyes could be caught out in the open basin.

Scouting is the key to success when you are targeting suspended fish. We started out Saturday doing just that. I went to one of my usual early season trolling runs and right away marked a lot of tullibees. However, the bigger arcs were few and far between. We decided to fish it anyways and about a half hour into our first troll run, we were awarded with a nice double. Was it going to be this easy? We made another run and came up empty so we decided to put on some miles.

We made our way out to the mud flat areas and checked out several open water areas between and around 7, 8 and 9 mile and we didn’t mark anything. It was easy to see that the suspended walleyes were not out there yet and we would have to modify our approach.

We decided to check out some staging areas. My thinking was that the walleyes were still relating to structure and just waiting to move out to the open basin. We wanted to target water in the 20-25 feet range using the same crankbaits we use in the open basin – #11 Deep Tail Dancers and Storm Deep Thundersticks. We soon marked some decent sign and decided to make another troll line.

As soon as we put out our 4th line, the starboard planer board started thrashing and we had a fish on. Shortly after, the port planer board took off as well and we were awarded with another double. We worked this small 1/2 mile area over the next few hours and we ended up catching 24 for the day. The majority were between 22-26 inches and we kept one just under the 20 inch mark.

The keys to our success was understanding what makes up a good staging area. I look for classic structure (humps) with deep water close by in the 20-25 foot range. You have to have a big enough area to make that troll run and a consistent depth so your crankbaits will be in the strike zone and not bottom out. Another key was understanding what colors to use. For the majority of the day, it was cloudy. In this situation I have the best luck using bright colors. The new #11 Deep Tail Dancer in Orange UV was by far the best color. Clown Flash was next best. Understanding these depth curves is crucial for success. We caught all of these walleyes on boards except for one, and most were trolled 60-70 feet back on our planer boards (using braided line).

Hopefully these warmer temps will accelerate the water temps. As soon as the temps hit in the mid 50’s, the walleyes will move out to their summer locations. For those of you looking to perfect open water trolling, I’m now scheduling Open Water/On The Water Trolling Clinics. Check out my website at www.openwatertrolling.com and send me a PM or email.

Until next time, keep on trollin!