The walleye bite on Mille lacs continues to be excellent. Water temps have risen 4 degrees in the last three days with the heat wave. The bugs have ceased for now and the daytime deepwater bite is in full swing.
The first picture in my report in a nice 27 inch fish that fell victim to a Salmo Minnow trolled in a three-way rig at high noon. We started out each morning using long snells and leeches on the tops of deep gravel bars. Using my color Vexilar Edge 3 and Lowrance GlobalMap 4900M, I was dropping icons every time we caught fish or got bit on leeches. It didn’t take long to see the fish were using the transition from hard rock/gravel to sand in 26-27 feet. It was then just a matter of working these areas until about 11am when the fish seem to scatter. Then we switched over to pulling cranks. Using leadcore and three-ways, Salmo Hornets in chrome/pink and Salmo Minnows in Dace were taking fish like a magnet. Covering lots of water and trolling at 1.5 mph we continued to catch fish into the afternoon. The second picture is my gal with a nice 25 inc her caught on a three-way. She wanted to keep using three-ways the rest of the weekend and we pretty much did yesterday after we almost ran out of leeches. With the high skies, we kept pulling cranks until about 8pm in 22-26 feet of water. Then we slip bobber fished the rocks for another great bite.
We slip bobbered with leeches in 15 feet of water on the rocks and also caught some nice perch. We witness a near collision on Lakeside Reef last night. People need to give themselves more time when getting off the lake. Another reason to get rid of the night ban.
My dad wasn’t feeling so good this weekend so he only got out one time in the boat. I would like to mention the great food at Hunters. The inferno wings are awesome. I had them twice over the weekend. The last picture in my report was from yesterday morning. A nice batch of 14- just under 20 inch fish. We worked over a small gravel hump about a 1.5 miles out from Hunters. We had this little hump to ourselves. Get away from the crowds if you can. Its still early and there are plenty of areas that have not seen a hook yet this year. Good luck and see you on the water. Next weekend I will be heading to Kabetogama for a week.
Mille lacs Sunset
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A double on leeches and snells.
Derek, great post and pictures as well, but one thing, in your last picture how many 7inch or larger graphs do you need back there? It looks like three great systems, I know you mentioned two of them, but what is the other one you have also?
Thanks for the report Derek!
Life is Good
dave
HI Derek – Nice report. It was good seeing you on the pond Saturday. We had fantastic results fishing the transition (23 to 28 fow) north of you too on Sunday! (Agate Bay Transition)
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When you were trolling your Hornets, how did you determine what length leader and dropper to use? Also, what size weight for your dropper? I know I’ve had great results when trolling smaller baits in deeper depths while using lead core
Great report Derek..!!
How are you liking the new boat?
Mike, I run two sonars and a GPS.
500, I run my Hornets on leadcore (123 feet of 18# leadcore will get a #5 Hornet down 27 feet) and stickbaits on three-ways. Usually a 18 inch dropper with 2 oz bell sinkers trolling into the wind.
Luke, I really like the new rig. The 2X hull really pounded the waves well and I kept pretty dry except for the crosswinds.
Derek,
I saw you at Hunter’s on Saturday and Sunday night. Hard to mistake all the stickers. After we loaded the boat I went back to the water to introduce myself, but you already slid away. I noticed you anchored up on Lakeside Reef Sunday night. We were in the Cresliner to the Southwest of you. I saw a camera flash from your boat, so that must be one of the sunset shots. We caught atleast 50 walleyes between the two nights just corking on the Reef. This weekend was a blast.
Great report and pics
.I can’t wait to get back up there.
Big.. Yep that was me.. Three guys decided to park it where we had done really well on Fri and Sat on Hunters Point. They got there two hours early..
We didnt do very well on that Lakeside spot but when we left we didnt have any leeches on our hooks. The smaller fish must have picked them off in the waves..
Tony.. Numb hands two weeks ago, today sweating to death.. Thats MN for ya..
Nice report D!
Glad to see you out on the Pond and bringing the girl out this weekend seems to be the theme here (Koonce, Bobber, You and Myself included)
I’ll be up there Thursday-Saturday fishing the pond. Hope to see a few guys around.
Nice report Derek!