For even the most fair weather fishermen right now is the perfect time to grab a few friends (The more lines the better) and head to Mille Lacs… Put simply there is no better time to catch walleyes on crankbaits than right now!
Fish are cold blooded and the warmer the water the more they’ll need to eat, so with water temps now in the mid 70’s they’ve got the feed bags on. Not only are they looking for a meal, but the bigger the meal the better which is when larger crankbaits such as Rapala’s TD-11 Taildancer really start to shine.
Joined by my good friends Garret Piecek and Jon Jordan we took advantage of a long weekend and hit the water last Friday afternoon for some open water trolling. Greeted by 3′ waves and windy conditions I completely expected that leadcore would be the best approach however after more than 20 minutes of trolling a great area and no fish to show for it our board looked to be running a bit heavy so we decided to give it a check and wouldn’t you know it we were dragging the "little" guy that Jon’s holding… First time it’s happened in a long time and I can’t believe he didn’t set off the clicker, but I sure am glad because it was the first hint that wind or not don’t forget about the boards!
Suprisingly even with the big waves boards turned out to be our best producer for the day, but what was not suprising at all was that our 1st fish (and many more) fell victim to my #1 favorite big walleye bait on the planet – TD-11 Purple Clown Flash Rapala Taildancer. Given the choice to pick one lure this would be it, but for anyone who may be just starting and looking for a few suggestions my other favorites would be a Chrome/Blue Storm Deep Thunderstick with the red bill, Clown TD-11 Taildancer, and recently added to my top lure list is a Gold Alburns Scatter Minnow.
Good friends, big eyes, and blue summer skies… I can’t think of a much more perfect way to spend a weekend in August!
See you on the water.
Saturday morning with only a few hours to fish we focused our attention to near shore reefs casting crankbaits for smallmouth. It took a few minutes and several lure changes to figure out but in short order we figured out that slow rolling original rapalas and one of the new scatter cranks in crawfish colors over rock to weed transitions would lead to vicious stikes and it was game on!
A few other nature photos from up at Mille Lacs
– Mille Lacs Sunset
– Tiger lilies growing near my deer stand
– A young eagle just learning to leave the nest along our pasture
– Rasberry bushes starting to ripen
Awesome Stuff Will, Ill be sending you some picks to the Malmo BBG this weekend. We got the dog day eyes dialed in out west. Keep at em Bud. -QB
Nice fish, Will!
Will !!!
You Live in paradise !!!
Great job on those fish buddy !!!
I will miss you this weekend… maybe we can hook up later in the fall !!!
Great report Wil. Dont forget its prime blue berry picking time up there to. Picked a cup full in about 5 minutes this afternoon at my folks. Would of liked to had made it over to the pig roast but we ended up staying up on the river to last on Saturday.
I’ve got a few blueberry patches over by our cabin that I’ll have to check out. It’s been a great year for berries up there… Dad and I each picked almost a full gallon bucket of rasberries yesterday for me to bring home to Kellie.
Will,
Nice going with the big Walleyes.
Am glad I didn’t see a pic of Jon holding up a Smallie, but
KNOW
he has caught LOTS of them,
Congrats,
Jack