Trolling for the Big Girls on the Pond

Well… we found some BIG GIRLS that wanted to play Friday night. I also finally got the Mille Lacs PIGGY off my back and FINALLY boated a walleye larger than 28”( 28.25”). Friday night I shared the boat with my cousin Scott Bjork and Mike W. here from the site. We had a great night shootin’ the crap and catching fish. It was a great night to be out on the NW corner of the lake. It was just breezy enough to give the water a nice ripple with a beautiful clear night and very bright moon. The lake gave up this beauty here to my cousin Scott. This is his first trip up to the pond in open water and his biggest walleye to date. Congrats Scott. The picture here does not do this fish justice as to the belly she had on her. Man she was huge, I wish I would have gotten a girth measurement

We boated are first fish not even 5 minutes into the night and barely out of the harbor. The fish came on a fire tiger stick bait I had out @ 110 feet back, in about 7 foot of water. The color preference from there on out, went to the darker more natural colors. They really out performed the brighter ones even with the clear and bright skies of the October full moon. Around 10 pm, Mike said he had one and we all watched as it peeled about 40 feet of line off. After a great battle, Mike boated our first real nice fish on his secret lure on a inside weed line in about 7 feet of water. Can’t give you the lure but it was a dark (red and black) color. Here in the second picture is Mike with his biggest of the night . The joke of the night after every fish was, “Good thing we caught that fish cause the bite is pretty much over with”.

Around 11 pm we had the action die down a little and a lot of boats were running the same path as us, so I decided to go in a little a get off the “beaten path”. I ran up a lot closer to shore and was running about 5 feet of water and just came off a hump of 3 feet when Scott says he has one on. With out much of a fight the fish comes pretty easily to the boat. Not knowing the size of this fish until his lure gets close and the line is still straight down, then I knew it was going to be a nice one. When this fish came into view off the back of the boat, I was totally pumped, because I could see the massive girth across its back. After a few “insert your own words here” by me, I had this fish in the net and knew Scott was going to like it. As I brought the big girl in to the boat to the Hoot and Holler of our crew. Mike scored our next nice fish around midnight and the High Fives went around the boat again.

Being about 1:30 am and having told my crew that as long as one of them drove home I would fish until I had to leave to go Rooster hunting, someone mentioned that we would make one last pass. Halfway through the pass I had a fish absolutely hammer my bait and take about 15 feet of line. During the battle it made a few decent runs and after Mike netted my fish, I was hoping it would crack the 28” barrier and finally get that dam monkey off my back. It taped out @ 28.25” and the monkey was gone. The funny thing is, I trolled a copy of Mikes secret bait around with no luck and just on that last pass I switched to a Glass Perch HJ 12 and BAM, the rest is history

We did decent on numbers and had enough slot fish for us to take home for some good eats. We pulled 2 of our big fish on inside weed edges in 6-7 feet of water and the other 2 on the rocks in 7-8 feet of water on top of the break. Speeds seemed to be best around 1.7 mph in our boat and we did try others slower and faster. Stick baits (Rogues and Husky Jerks) were the baits of choice and the darker colors seem to be what the bigger fish preferred. Little does Mike know , I made replica of his bait in the HJ fashion with some markers that boated the biggest fish of the night on Saturday also. Most of the 23-27” fish that are coming to my boat are absolute fatties right now and look very healthy.

The last picture here is a thing I have not seen yet in Mille Lacs. Not sure what causes this, but any input from you guys would be appreciated. What is this is and causes it? I’ll be out only a few more times on the open water this week and then it is full force pre rut chasing Monster Whitetails . Depending on how deer hunting goes, perhaps one last time come the November full moon! Until then, get out and catch some of these beauty fish.

*CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE*