Last Saturday after what always seemed like the longest week of the year the MN fishing opener finally arrived. And just as we’ve been doing every Spring for the past 20 years my HS friends and I headed up to Mille Lacs.
One of the fun things about opener is the challenge of starting with a clean slate and figuring out what patterns will catch fish. Even being armed with years of experience it always seems like there are a few new wrinkles that Mother Nature throws in that force us to adjust on the fly. This year the challenge was dealing with much colder than normal water with ice having been off many Norther MN lakes for only a matter of days.
As my grandpa always used to say back on the farm “There’s more than one way to skin a cat” and the same is so true for opening weekend. I talked to many folks at Mille Lacs and heard multiple success stories using a variety of different techniques… My personal choice was to feed my addiction to trolling crankbaits by long-lining Rapala Husky Jerks and bent-lip shallow Shad Raps.
On top of the success stories however, I probably heard more reports that fishing was “pretty slow” so let me try explain what it was that changed our opener from a chilly boat ride to adding a little fresh fish slime to the livewell. The biggest key was to slow way down and then slow down some more. I started by running my kicker motor on idle which got my speed down to 1.2-1.3 mph which is typically perfect for opening weekend, but after a slow start when our first fish came on the inside rod using S turns to vary our lure speeds I realized they wanted it even slower so changed to the Terrova. Switching to the electric allowed me to get down below 1 mph and within a matter of minutes we were rewarded with another quick hook-up. Then just a few minutes later we had a double and I knew that we had cracked the code. The key turned out to be going 0.8 mph into the wind but after a little fine tuning I actually realized that when running with the wind we weren’t getting bit so I bumped up to about 1.0-1.1 mph in order to feel the right action of the lures due to the small amount of wind created current and sure enough that turned out to be the ticket as we were now catching fish in both directions.
A second factor that turned out to be very key to getting bit was to get the lures as far away from the boat as possible. We caught very few fish running anything closer to the boat than 100′ back. This is perfect for #7 SSR which we were able to run out 130-150′ and for our stickbaits we downsized to the smaller #10 Husky Jerks which allowed us to get them back 100-110′ and they started producing as well.
For those of you who don’t have quite the same crankbait addiction you can still take these two keys to my success and adapt them to your own style. For instance when rigging I would start with small weights and long leaders to get your bait as far back as possible or when pitching or dragging jigs make sure to start with a lighter offering which will force you to slow way down to keep it in the zone. While I did hear of a few success stories from people snap jigging the most consistent non-crankbait bite came from folks rigging shiners at 0.3-0.4 mph with 6′ or longer leaders which jives exactly with what I had seen fishing crankbaits.
One other observation that I need to point out is the lack of boat traffic. I was shocked at how easy it was to get onto prime spots without fighting other boats and finding a parking spot at local resorts and accesses was a breeze. I’m not positive whether it was because of the recent negative publicity or the extremely late ice out but if this year turns out anything like last year (And I expect it will) give the water 1-2 weeks to warm up and the fish that are resting now will put the feed bags on and go on a tear. It sounds crazy to say this but if you’re looking for great place to get away from the crowds it sure looks like Mille Lacs could be an underutilized lake this Spring. I know I can’t wait to get back…
Feel free to PM me if you’ve got any questions. Tight lines and good luck everyone!
Nice job Will on figuring out the opening weekend puzzle.
I agree – early in the season when water temps are cold, speed plays such an important role 
Great report, glad you had some luck. I love trolling from cranks to bait rigs, this makes me very excited to get up to the big pond with the 9′ rods.
Great job on the pond buddy !! It was real good to see you on opener weekend.. Your boat did a good job on a few slots as well !!!
What depths were you long lining those cranks, what times of day?
I was focusing on areas that were 6-8′ but that would come up as shallow as 3-4′ as I went over small rock piles or even large boulders. The time of day depends a lot on weather conditions. Typically I will pitch jigs or Rippin’ Raps during mid day and head in to start trollng around 6:30-7:00, but if it is an overcast day it can start even earlier and if there is a good breeze blowing in the shallow trolling bite can last all day. During mid-day however even with overcast or windy conditions I’ve found that running planer boards to get lures out from the boat makes a big difference in shallow.
Great early season Report Will,
Thanks,
Jack