With my Mille Lacs fall night guiding trips in the immediate future, I needed to get out and get familiar with the current bite situation. I have taken a couple trips up to the pond in the last couple days looking for the best bite possible! From what I have seen so far, the bite is not gang busters by any means but definitely fish to be caught. From the help of James and Dustin’s report from their last visit to the lake helped me define my game plan a little easier…Thanks guys!
****This report will be a little short for now as I will be heading to the lake tomorrow evening for a 7 day guide stretch and hope to have a more detailed report up every couple days!****
The gravel to weed transition areas are proving to be the most productive for my boat the last couple trips so far. Best depths appear to be the 8-9-1/2 feet areas adjacent to a steep breakline to concentrate more fish right now. The first picture is of Shawn Johnson holding a double we tangled with on our first evening of searching! The best bite periods of the night right now still remains to be right at sundown to about 9:30pm or so and then a long lull and again picking up later in the evening. My prediction with the cold weather forecasted ahead will provide a more consistent bite throughout the night in the shallows with more and more fish migrating in to feed. If a guy is in the right spot at the right time right now produces about a ½ dozen fish that actually make it to the boat and several light biters thrown in to the mix during this time. 21”-26” fish have been the size that I have been seeing and if the weight and health of these fish are any indication of what we can expect for the coming weeks, I cannot wait to see those 28’+ fish! I think this will improve as the waters begin to cool down more and more. Ideally I would love to see the water temps in the mid 40’s right now….and it looks like we might not have to wait that long.
The water temperature has been hovering at or around 56 degrees for the last week or so. Forecast for the Mille Lacs area for the next couple of days is highs of mid to upper 40’s and lows in the mid to upper 20’s. I feel this will impact the bite and bring more and more walleyes into the shallows to let mother nature take her role in letting walleye fall migration instincts take over. The more fish we have shallow, the better our odds become in coaxing well fed walleyes into feeding on our trolled crankbaits. Trolling stickbaits such as Rogues and HJ’s around 1.5-1.8mph are taking the bulk of my fish as of right now.
Look for a couple reports throughout the weekend as I can hopefully give you more detail than I have given in this report. For now, this should give you a good idea on where and when to attack your favorite haunts for this time of year.
I look forward to seeing a bunch of familiar faces up there the rest of the month, so if you see me, by all means please stop and say hi!
Steve,
Sounds like you had a good night. Does that make for a long day when you’re out fishing all night and then have to get up and go to work the following morning? Yer a tough cookie, not sure I could stay awake to get anything done at work. Then again, I’m posting here on company time
-Mike
Yeah, you can sure get run down doing this, but this year I have been fortunate to schedule all the trips in consecutive order and take the appropriate time off work to do so.
A good friend of mine offered up his place near the lake for me to crash each night while I am up there. Thank you buddy!
When I start wearing my hockey helmet at the computer to protect my noggin from the head bobs…..I best get to bed!
Nice report Steve! Makes me anxious to get back up there
.
Have you seen a dominant color pattern on your cranks?
Firetiger has been the most consistant overall. Last night I had a short 1-1/2 hours of passing cloud cover and the fish took off good without a particular preference on color at all. After the clouds passed, the only color I got bit on was blue back/orange bellied rogue.
I think I am excited to see the cooler weather coming but…..ask me about 3:30am!
25 degrees out and blowing wind?
great report steve i sure wish i had the time to get up there with you, maybe i better plan my vac. time better next year. or maybe on pool 2 in november.
Steve, I’ve never been much of a night fisherman but after reading some of the reports in the last week or two it sounds pretty exciting. Just wondering about your technique, do you long line the plugs straight behind the boat or do you have more success in the shallow water with boards? Also wanted to say that I look forward to reading you posts each time I see a new one. They are always very informative, have great pictures and always full of exciting stories about time spent in Gods great outdoors! Keep up the great work. Thanks!
Please excuse my jumping in here on questions posed to Steve…
Here’s a post in the MN >> Mille Lacs Lake forum that addresses this exact question – Night Trolling w/Boards
Just a heads up – don’t forget to check out the Mille Lacs Lake forum for the day to day discussions about the happenings on the big lake. Scroll down and click on the state of MN. Find the Mille Lacs Lake forum in the list and read away! My guess is some that visit here read the fishing reports and then overlook all the extra info available in the individual forums.
Thanks to both Steve and James. Loads of info there to absorb! The pheasants in SD will be seeing me for the next 9 days but after that I think the ‘eyes better be scared cause I’ll be after ’em! Thanks again!