Mille Lacs Lake Wave Wacker Week Re-Cap

Well I’m back, but way behind at work after getting done with my 8 day POND-A-THON. It was a great week to be out fishing Mille Lacs, as I can’t tell you how many Walleyes were caught during the week of fishing and pre-fishing for the Wacker Tournament last Thursday and Friday. I learned a ton about the lake and tournament fishing, especially the Wacker. After a dismal MTT showing on Saturday June 3rd, I knew I had my work cut out for me if I wanted any shot at placing in the money at the Wacker. Saturday, Calvin (Ranger 29) and I fished the MTT and boated some awesome fish but no fish that could be weighed in at the tournmanet. We had 3 fish that went from 20 to 20.25” that were just a tad to long to bring to the scales. We found some beauty 24-27” fish that Calvin had the knack of bringing to the boat, but come day’s end we ended up with zero fish in the box. The school of 18-19” fish I was on Monday was gone and nowhere to be found. .

During my pre-fishing Sunday-Wednesday I experienced many Sunny but windy days. I also enjoyed days ending from this sunset in the second picture, to being chased off the lake by fronts and storms like the one pictured here in the 3rd picture. My bite had a similar range as I found some real nice big fish 24-27 ¾ “and finally connected with some smaller schools of 16-20” fish. Monday, my little brother joined me for a day that was cut a little short due to the storm that chased us off the lake as we worked a bobber and rigging spots I had located Sunday. Tuesday, I fished alone as my other brother backed out last minute, so I went pulling spinners and crawlers on the south end deep gravel trying to locate some good slot fish. All I could find in my spots was 14-15” fish and 21-24” fish. These were not quite the fish I was looking for. On Wednesday, I pre-fished with my Wave Wacker partner Clayton as we tried to put a game plan together for the tournament. We found some real good pods of fish on the North End. Our game plan was to fish the North end schools of fish and try to stay off any flat that had a crowd as we figured these fish have been pummeled all week form all the tournaments.

Thursday came real quick and I was raring to go in my first real big tournament. Man, I remember at take off you could cut the intensity of all the boats with a knife, as everyone was in anticipation of the next two days of fishing. Just hoping their well laid out plans worked and things fell into place as the dreamed about all week and would have a chance @ the $75,000.00 first place prize. We made it to the North End with a NE wind that caused for some big rollers out of the gate. We rigged and pulled spinners most of the day on Rock / Gravel transitions and Mud Flats. We had a real tough time getting our bigger slot fish to go. We only weighed one 19” and 1 18” fish the first day with the rest of them being 16-17” fish. We had to sort through a gazillion 15-16” fish to get our keeper slots and did not put the 7th and final fish into the box until a half hour before we had to be back. We ended up 61st after the 1st day with 11.13 pounds. We felt we had a good day and made the right decisions and left us in a spot where we were still in the hunt for some good money. The second day was one that would test the most die hard fisherman as a cold front had moved in and we were worried about getting enough bites. Along with the cold front came a very stiff North East to East wind, that made some pretty decent rollers out there especially out in the middle of the lake. The front brought rain and colder weather. Our plan was not to keep anything under 17” that day and to hammer the North mud with spinners. It was soon apparent that the Cold front had no effect on the fish as they were hammering our spinners. Come days end we threw back some 16 ¾” -17” fish we wish we would have kept, but still that would not have put us in the money. We boated in the neighborhood of 70-80 fish and at 3 pm we had five 17-17.5” fish in the box and had to scrounge the last hour or so to put two 16”ers in the box to fill our 7 fish. We had a rough boat ride come the end of the day to get back from the NW corner to the Warf in those waves. This second day we threw back a gazillion 16-17” fish. As a whole we were on better fish than the day before, but no kicker fish to jump our weight. Again we boated some awful close 20” fish that had to be measured, re-measured and measured again before throwing them back We ended up weighing around 10.66 pounds the second day that dropped us to around 72nd I believe.

Well, in the end, we did not quite reach my goal to be in the top 50, but we were less than 2 lbs out of the money. There are a TON of good sticks in this tournament, it is a true test of your knowledge of this lake and a little luck could help you out. We just never got that big fish or had it figured out well enough to boat the bigger 18-19” fish consistently. I learned a lot from some great fisherman and looking forward to hopefully fishing this again in the future. If you want to compete in this tournament you need to put in a good # of hours pre-fishing and find some good bites. Congrats to the money finishers and it looks like I have some more work to do before next year. I would like to thank my partner Clayton for inviting me to join him this year for this event. I had a great time. Also thanks go out to Allegis Corporation, Game Hide Outdoor Clothing, and Stone Construction, Inc..

The bite on the lake is exceptional. Rigging or pulling spinners on the gravel or mud is taking fish and a lot of fish right now. Speeds were 1.1-1.5 mph for pulling spinners. Rigging or spinners it don’t matter these fish are ing anything they see for the most part. There are times I’m just dropping the rod tip back while rigging and setting the hook. There is no giving line. The corking bite early and late in the day is producing both on the mud and shallow rocks. The shallow rocks in 6-14 FOW have been giving up corking fish with a glow jig and leech. Up next for me is the open water trolling bite, as I will be hitting her hard and heavy come this Saturday as well as pre-fishing for another tourney come the following Saturday. Until then, have a great and safe time on the water.

*CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE*