Oh, the Places You’ll Go….

I just have to start out by saying how nice it is to fish ALL weekend, and have pretty much all the water to just yourself. Thank you deer hunting! I hit all kinds of water this weekend, big and little, deep and shallow. Saturday was an Aitkin/Mille Lacs excursion with friend and business partner Luke, and his gal Heather. And Sunday I found myself in fine company, Riverpro’n up and down the Mississippi north of Monticello with none other than Alvinmack (a.k.a. Giant Slayer), and Sliderfishn the Plastics Shaman. Both days were filled with fun, frivolity, and most of all FISH!!!!!

On the honey hole in Aitkin fishing was a little slow. With turnover complete and gin clear water to contend with, the fish were just mildly cooperative. We spent the daylight hours watching bobbers sink, on the deep weed edges. Finding big minnows on the way up was challenging, with 4 dozen 3″-4″ suckers ending up filling the bait box. Under normal circumstances I would use nothing but 6″ or larger, but alas there were none to be had. Certainly not ideal when the lake you intend to target is teeming with small forage. We caught about 20 bass and a couple of pike in about 4 hours with the biggest crossing the tape a tad over 18”. For this particular lake, nothing to write home about.

After dark it was on to Mille Lacs. We put in at Terry’s Boat Harbor on the northwest side and worked North up around the point just south of the Garrison public. We rigged our three lines with #14 and #12 Husky Jerks in Firetiger, and for a wild card a Suspending Rogue in a couple of colors. The first fish came not 5 minutes away from Terry’s on the #14 HJ the 26” pictured above. Thankfully, although completely new to night trolling on big water, my two fishing partners adapted well to complete darkness and 3’ waves. With all the weeds pretty much dead and laying flat on the bottom in St. Albans, it wasn’t until we got around Pike’s that we started catching fish again. The magic depth for the evening was 8’, with a total of 5 plump piggies (26”, 24”, 24”,23”,21 7/8”)coming boat side over 3 ½ hours. The wind really picked up around 9:30 and sea sickness set in on one of the fairer faced scallywags on our vessel. So the call was made to pick up and head in, plenty more for next time I guess.

Sunday was a complete change in venue, opting for moving water and finned friends of the bronze variety. I had never fished the Miss. north of Monticello, so needless to say I was excited to see what this famed fishery had in store. Alvinmack and Sliderfishn definitely have this body of water dialed in. We fished primarily plastics, Senkos and Lake Fork Fry coming from my bag-o-tricks, fished split shot style along current breaks and around rock humps in the channel. For sheer numbers I don’t think this fishery can be beat. We stopped counting within the first hour, and if one were to guess I would say we boated over 100 Smallmouth in 5 hours. The largest was this beauty, a powerful specimen and certainly a force to be reckoned with on light tackle. There is a lifetime of learning to be done on this stretch, and after five hours I don’t think I put a nick in the surface. Thanks goes out Mike and Ron for a great day, and Riverpro boats for an amazing rig, just can’t say enough about what that boat can do.

As usual, see you on the water.