Well, I finally made it out to the Big Pond on Sunday. After I did my best vulture impersonation, of circling the lake and trying to find a spot to launch the boat closest to the spots I wanted to fish (NW sand). I finally saw the best (most out of the wind) spot was up by Wealthwood. I was on the lake about 7:30. My two fishing partners had backed out on me @ 4:00 in the morning, so I was solo. So no pics, today! After lunching the boat in 2-3 footers I headed out of the very shallow launch area. I was greeted to an angry sea and some howling winds. I knew I was headed for a long, tough day on the water at least for the conditions. I was hoping the bite might be a little beter.
The first spot that I decided to hit was a a pretty definite Sand break on the NW corner. This Sand break went from 9 feet to 18 feet in a hurry. I found fish sitting near or at the bottom of this break. I decided to put my new kicker to the first real big test on Mille Lacs. As Hooks stated in his report earlier "boat control was very tough" up on the North end on Sunday. Although boat control was tough, I would be rewarded with 10 eyes 8:00 to Noon. The biggest taped out at 26.75" and the smallest was 13.5". The key for me was staying right at the bottom of the break. I was able to stay at the bottom of the break with the help of my kicker. Not only location 16-18′, I found out that speed was crucial to get the bigger fish to commit. When I could maintain a .4 to.5 GPS speed or slower, I boated fish. Sounds easy right, believe me tough to do on the pond Sunday on the North end.
After High Noon, my bite went sour and only boated 1 more fish after that. Another key is when I graphed a couple of fish on top of each other, I slowed down even more and actually stopped if I could. Now this meant having the waves crash over the back of the boat at times, but it seemed to leave it in front of their mouths a little longer to coax them into biting. Another thing is do not be afraid to back troll against the grain. After going over a nice school of fish with the wind, I backtrolled against the wind over the same school and got a nice 25.5" to commit to my leech, which also found my landing net.
Good Luck fishing this weekend on the pond, I will be out of State celebrating Memorial Day in South Dakota. I saw a few "tournament looking boats" out, perhaps prefishing for next weekends tournaments.
When we drove by wealthwood there was nobody there, and having accessed there in a similar wind we kept going.
On the way back it looked better but still was a hard working day on the water!
We’ll be back thursday night doing it all over again!