Mille Lacs Fishing Report from June 25&26th

Saturday was a beautiful day to be on the "BIG POND" It was Sunny and warm but not to warm. It was breezy but not to breezy yet put a good chop on the lake. Sunday was a different story. It was overcast and high winds, put a really good chop on the lake. I had less than 2 hours to fish Sunday, but the rough boat ride out to the flats paid dividends. As my girlfriend Stacie did it again and boated her biggest Walleye to date shown here. Read more inside to see how this Piggie came into the boat.

We got a late jump on the trolling bite on Saturday and did not get going until about 2:00 or so and then had to run in and pick up our third stick (if you can call him that). So when it was all said and done 3:30 or so came when we were full tilt on the board bite. We worked an East to West trolling pattern just to the South of 2 Flats. Our trolling speed varied from 1.8 to 2.2 mph. We were pulling Deep Diving Reef runners. We were graphing fish @ 30′ and 20′ in 33-35 feet of water. Making S turns randomly along the way. We were trying to target 2 lures in the 28-30 foot range and one up high in the 18-20 foot range. The first bite came off one of the deep lures and came off before the board got to the boat. The second bite also came off the deep lure just as were were stopping to move to the slip bobber spot for the evening. This fish came in @ 19.75" and was hooked in the eye as you can tell from the pic. with my buddy Chris. I would also like to say Hi to Ted Merdan from the site, who I met out on the water this day! Nice seeing another man crazed about fishing and Labs!

We set up on the West side of Boot Flat for the evening slip bobber frenzy along side another boat of friends(Jimmy and Torre). The action was kind of light with a few here a few there, until 9:15 hit then the action was fast and furious. We were anchored right on the West edge of the flat in 25 fow. We were using 1/8 oz. glow jigs with leeches. It seemed that out of our 2 boats, someone always had a bite going. Three "over" fish were caught during this 1.5 hour feeding frenzy between us. A 26.5", 24" and a 22". With again a ton of 12-14" fish slamming our offerings, with a few bigger slots mixed not the bag. See the third picture of Chris holding a nice 24"er. This has got to be the hottest easiest bite going. Mud Flats bobber fishing at dusk. As the sun was sgoing down the waves started going up. By the time we got off the lake, there were some decent wave action heading in.

Sunday offered me little time to hit the lake and only about 2 hours to fish. Looking at the wind and the waves from shore. I had my doubts if I wanted to go and I knew that Stacie would rather of gone home, but I was determined to catch a pigggie So we unloaded and the game plan with the wind out of the south was to try a South to North trolling pattern to see what kind of action the boards would give. We tried this for about 45 minutes with no luck so then I decided to switch and run an East to West trolling pattern. This gave the boards a more true and natural presentation in my opinion. It would not surge or jump the boards nearly as bad riding between the crests and troughs. I ran two DD Reef Runners targeting the same fish as yesterday that were sitting 30-32′ down. Thinking my bait was running @ 28-30′ down. About 20 minutes into it just South of a Flat a board gets hit. I was getting excited when Stacie said her reel was @ 25′. Sure enough I caught a glimpse of the fish between a huge roller and it was a nice eye. After netting her biggest fish for the 2nd weekend in a row, I was pumped. The 27.25" eye was fat and appeared to be feeding on bugs. With only a little time left we turned around and hit that same little school again and then decided we better head for home. So far, all the fish and bites that have happened this year in my boat have been from the "Cheap Sunglasses" Deep Diving Reef Runner. I like this lure for the fact of it’s depth that it achieves without snap weights or lead core. Once this lure is tuned, it runs great at high speeds. The fish last weekend seemed that they had started schooling up, but I did not find any huge concentrations of fish yet. I’m hoping that will change this weekend. I would like to thank Steve Dezurik for teaching me some of the fine tuning of this precision trollling fishing last Summer. I look forward to fishing again with you Steve, next weekend. If any of you would like to jump start your knowledge and shorten your learning curve of how to fish this presentation, I highly reccomend Steve who is a IDA Pro Staff member and guide. I hope everyone has a fun and safe 4th of July weekend. Until next week!

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